AdWords Done Right – How to Get 100% CTR’s in your Ad Groups
Mar 11th, 2009 | By David Rothwell | Category: ARTICLES
2,647 Ad Groups, 5,296 ads, 63,530 Keywords in a single AdWords Campaign
Yet some Ad Groups still get *perfect* CTR of 100% (and hundreds of others get 20% – 66.7%)
(Screen shots will be available if enough of you show interest).
And the seasoned AdWords practitioners among you realise that means not just Ad Groups, but Keywords and Text Ads within the Ad Groups too…
How is this possible?
Actually – it’s easy.
All you need is a spreadsheet and the Free AdWords Editor.
And a special Excel template I made.
Like to know more?
"That Would be Telling"!
PS. This applies to creating new Campaigns, or rebuilding existing ones ("You Know it Makes Sense")
PPS. You could call it "Peel and Stick on Steroids" – hat tip to Perry and Bryan, with deepest respect always.
If you are interested in the method, please make sure to leave a comment below and I will publish more details.
IMPORTANT: August 2009 Update – I am now only supplying the functionality of the spreadsheet as part of my Monthly Managed Service. More updates as they become available.
The technique in brief:
1. Use a single keyword per ad group
2. Use phrase and/or exact match only (no broad, too dangerous due to “expansion”)
3. Make sure you’ve got a good negative keyword list
4. Ensure your keyword is in the headline of the ad or a description line if it’s longer than 25 characters (max 35)
Even though there are over 60,000 keywords in the campaign above, it’s easy to use a spreadsheet to generate the keyword list and copy/paste into the AdWords Editor (free download from Google) for uploading.
I created an Excel file which formats the keywords into the campaign, and calculates where to place the keywords in the ads depending on their length.
This works for both new campaigns, and rebuilding existing ones.
If you’d like to buy the spreadsheet with full instructions, let me know.
I find this strategy interesting because I’ve already realized that in order to get the best bid prices, and the best ctrs, and the most accurate data on each keyword, you HAVE to restrict each adgroup to one keyword – at least until you get data on it and are able to group them wisely. Plus, it is a way of attacking the long tail aggressively which will give you monthly savings thereafter – these days who can afford to be sloppy in their adwords strategy?
Oh and I’m interested in buying your spreadsheet – please let me know your pricing.
One more thing, I really like this idea because Excel is one of my favorite programs and I’ve used it to automate a lot of repetitive tasks with data.
Hi David,
I just stumbled your site while searching for adwords vouchers. Wow, I must say I’m completely floored reading the headline of this post – 100% CTR! That’s impossible!
Thanks for the great instructions, it concurs with what’s taught in Amit’s PPC Classroom 2.0. Even 20% CTR is awesome.
Any specific recommendations on Line 2 and 3? Surely they will affect CTR. Some inputs I’ve come across is benefits and a call to action.
I’m not sure if your spreadsheet is similar to MS digDB? Again, I’ve a macro excel from Amit’s class on that.
Regards,
Andy
Thanks everyone for these great comments.
Sorry for the delay in responding, my spam catcher grabbed them.
I’m off to the System Seminar in Chicago on Thursday so the next few days is hectic – I’ll respond properly next week on my return.
This sounds interesting…I have noticed it is harder and harder to get affordable clicks since big corps have gotton into adwords (i.e the type or corp whose strategy is achieving overall market monopoly rather than driving actual on site sales and thus dont need to keep ccp in line with website product retail prices)…
Anything that can help tip the balance back in favour of the lowly plebs sounds good to me.
Im interested in the excel pricing.
Hi Amy,
will get back to you on my return from System Seminar Chicago next week…
Hi David
100% CTR… i would love to see that!
What is the cost of the spreadsheet?
Hi Michael,
it can be done!
I will make the spreadsheet available when I get back from Chicago next week.
Cheers!
I look forward to seeing it. Have fun in chicago!
I’d like to know more about the excel spreadsheet and how this works…
I agree with the method of one keyword in one adgroup etc. but dont you think its a nightmare to manage once you launch your campaigns. i find broad match drives better volume on certain keywords, however broad match brings a lower return howevert it is feasible.
Hi Sundeep,
not necessarily, it depends on traffic volumes and ad clicks.
Most of your keywords won’t result in desirable actions, so you have to be concentrating on those few that do. (You’re tracking conversions – right?)
Also your ads will take time to accrue enough clicks to become statistically significant for their keywords. Google themselves only make a decision after 100 clicks have occurred (who am I to argue). (Source: Trevor Claiborne, Google, presenter at System Seminar April 2009 Chicago).
Broad match gets most volume as you say, but is the riskiest (due to expansion) unless you have a huge negative keyword list (which you should have). If adopting this approach make sure you’re checking Search Query Reports regularly.
david i very much agree with your method. i use similar methods when managing campaigns with high cost per click i.e. financial verticals
I am very interested as well, please PM me. Does one require targeted landing pages as well?
Hi Brett, targeted landing pages will help conversions when visitors arrive, but the ad, keyword and ad group CTR does not need them.
Sold.
Please email me pricing and instructions. Need this ASAP
Thanks
Any details on this spreadsheet concept? Cost? Download URL?
Hi, I’ve updated the page above.
This functionality is now only available as part of my monthly managed service.
More details soon, or comment/contact me.
Thanks David. So, you technique was the direction I was contemplating going on my own and you validated that it could possibly work better than normal strategies. So, I’ve taken the time to build out a spreadsheet that has the columns that the AdWords tool uses. The spreadsheet has tabs for each format, one for the Ad Groups, one for the Ads and one for the keywords. I’ve put several calculations in to try to maximize bids based on gross profit (selling products, not services) and loaded it all up. I only have about 300 keywords I’m testing this on, but even that took quite a bit of time to upload. How long does a campaign with tens of thousands of ad groups/keywords take to upload?
So, my results are as follows… lower cost, high click through rates on some of the campaigns, but a low click volume, and (one day in) no sales so far.
How can I tweak this now to maximize the strategy? Should I be bidding higher than normal and bank on the fact that my high CTR will control the cost and not take me to the cleaners?
Hi Brad,
Thanks for the continuing feedback.
You actually only need 2 tabs, one for keywords (inc campaign name, ad group name, match, status) and one for ads (inc camp name, ad group, headline, text etc).
Campaign and ad group name are common to both tabs so once included in both, there are your ad group names.
I make the ad group name and keyword identical. Then I use the ad group name as the headline in the ad unless it’s >25 char.
Bidding is different and again I use a spreadsheet to manage all bids on all keywords. I review ad positions every week and move bids up/down according to keyword position.
So, above you say:
1. Use a single keyword per ad group
2. Use phrase and/or exact match only (no broad, too dangerous due to “expansion”)
I took that to mean you would have one campaign, with hundreds of ad groups, where each ad group contained one ad and one keyword. Is that not the case?
SO, what I’ve done is built some sheets that have columns I can copy out for the ad groups, the ads and the keywords for those ads.
I’m seeing good CTR, but not in the double digit % on ads that have a good number of clicks. Sure, I see 100% on 1 impression 1 click keywords, but I know that’s not what the claim was.
Any pointers now?
My conversions aren’t where I would expect either.
Thanks,
Brad
Hi Brad,
yes, hundreds, even thousands of ad groups are needed if you have that many keywords.
One keyword per ad group, but *always* at least two ads to split test.
You can use phrase and exact match per ad group and see what happens, maybe separate them out later if performance warrants it.
Make sure the keyword is in the headline of the ad, or if too long (>25 char) a variation of it, or include it in the ad text. My spreadsheet does this automatically.
Yes, over time CTR will reduce from 100%, but should still stay very high.
Are you using the AdWords Editor?
Conversions are a whole ‘nuther topic – you must be willing to try different versions of your landing page, as well as different ad texts.