Pay per click advertising, PPC search engine articles

Google AdWords provides advertisers with four distinct types of keyword matching options to help you deliver your ads to searchers: broad, phrase, exact and negative. There are plenty of resources around that describe what each of these options are under the hood, and I imagine that many AdWords advertisers refer to Google's Learning Center page on the topic: Keyword Matching Options.

Now, some of you might have heard that Google now has the most powerful brand on the planet. Branding is rooted in eliciting trust, and so this news tells us that the majority of Internet users out there trust Google. When it comes to keyword matching options though, I advise you to be just a little suspicious of Google. Here's why…

The default keyword matching option in your AdWords account is broad match. Broad matching will definitely help you get the most impressions for your ads, but unless all you are after is clicks and traffic, broad matching is going to empty your pockets and leave you as one unhappy marketer. Broad matching is just too general to be of use on it's own. Negative keywords certainly help you more finely tune your broad matches, but in my experience it's simply not enough to filter out the large number of clicks from irrelevant searches. I've tested a handful of broad match terms accompanied by hundreds of negatives and still had this combination perform quite poorly when compared alongside exact matching. Google doesn't give you any warnings about the potential pitfalls of using broad matching though, and why should they? Google banks more cash when marketers use broad matching. Why would they share that helpful tidbit with us when it could potentially reduce their earnings?

My advice to new PPC advertisers is to only use exact matching–at first. I have generated excellent results using exact matching alone, with both CTR and conversions. When you're ready to open the gates a little more, do a test with one of your ad groups, adding one or two phrase matched keywords along with a very long list of negative keywords to filter out the undesirables. Using this cautious method, you'll quickly find out which keyword matching options will work best for your campaign. I recommend that broad matching be used only with very careful and regular testing.

Do read the materials in Google's Learning Center–it's an excellent and free resource–but also be aware that some of the content might be self-serving. Balance that out by regularly checking in with PPC blogs and forums, where you'll find that AdWords users are generally more than willing to share their tips and secrets for improving AdWords performance.

I'll admit that Google tends to do pretty well with usability, but I've got two beefs with the AdWords My Client Center interface:

1. The lack of a Campaign drop down menu
2. Inconsistent button labeling

The MCC has a drop down menu that lets me jump between client accounts. Why don't they have another drop down menu that allows me to jump between campaigns? If I'm looking at one campaign and then want to switch to view another, I have to go back to the Campaign Summary page and select again. Sure, you might say that a Campaign drop down menu would only save one click, but it sure would be more user-friendly (and every click I save has the potential to add up to a significant efficiency boost.)

Why is re-activating an Ad Group labeled "Resume", but re-activating an Ad Variation labeled "Unpause"? I'm pretty sure "unpause" is not a word–why doesn't Google just stick with one label and call the re-activating button "Resume" throughout the interface?

These two simple fixes would provide the MCC interface with a better score on usability.

UPDATE: Everything's better in three's, so here's another gripe about the AdWords MCC interface: When you generate a list of potential keywords with the keyword tool, there is a link that allows you to "add all" keywords to your list. I would like to see a link like this for the negative keywords as well. As it is, I have to click each individual negative keyword to add it to my list. What a waste of time! Come on Google, help us be more efficient and happier marketers!

As a search marketer, I manage a large number of Google AdWords Ad Groups for my clients. Crunching the numbers to split test each and every one of those Ad Groups was once a laborious manual process, but no more!

I recently discovered the ClickMuse AdWords Optimizer does the heavy lifting for me, and it does it all automatically and for free. This extremely useful tool studies your clickthrough rates based on AdWords Reports and makes recommendations about which ad variations are performing better than others, giving you a clear and concise path to better CTR performance.

The AdWords Optimizer is a snap to setup and its recommendations are easy to understand, even for the new AdWords advertiser. Simply create a free account, then follow the step-by-step instructions to generate automatic reports within your AdWords account to be sent to your AdWords Optimizer account. Then, sit back and wait for the AdWords Optimizer to send you automatic optimization email alerts!

Its important to note that the AdWords Optimizer only analyzes your CTR–it does not take into account your conversion rate. As such, you shouldn't accept its recommendations blindly since a low CTR ad can generate high conversions. That being said, the AdWords Optimizer can still provide extremely useful insight into your campaigns.

When I think about how much time I've wasted manually drilling down through my AdWords stats to arrive at the same conclusions recommended by this free tool… well, needless to say the AdWords Optimizer has been an absolutely huge time-saver for me! If you only use one third-party AdWords tool for your next campaign, make it the ClickMuse AdWords Opitimizer!