AdWords Remarketing Set-Up Best Practices

Remarketing  can be a great way to reconnect with your customers as they navigate away from your site and continue to browse the display network. However, it can also be bit intimidating to set-up. In my previous post, I discussed the value and the basics of remarketing. Here, I will outline how to get started and create a remarketing campaign in your AdWords account.

Create A New Remarketing Campaign

First, create a new campaign in AdWords. This campaign should be opted out of search and into the display network only, targeting the broad reach option, as shown in the screenshot below.

Select Audiences

Then, go to Shared Library in your AdWords account and click on Audiences, which is where you will be able to create an audience and generate code to be placed on the appropriate pages. I discussed defining your audiences in my last post, please refer to it for more information on how to segment your visitors.

Select New Audience -> Remarketing List and choose a name and a cookie duration for your list. I recommend you start with a default 30 day cookie. When you save your audience, you will need to place the code on the corresponding pages of your website.

AdWords used to require 500 users in your audience list for your AdWords ads to start running. Now, your audience count needs to only reach 100 users for ads to be eligible to run. This is good news for smaller businesses and sites that do not get a ton of clicks as well as for more specific audiences.

Create Custom Combinations

You may want to create several audiences and then use custom combinations to reach the proper user base. For example, to reach only the non converters, you will want to have two audiences for all visitors and those that converted. Then, you will want to create a custom combination to target all visitors minus those that reached your conversion page.

Add Audience To Remarketing Campaign

Once you have created your audience, you will have to target it via your remarketing campaign. In your remarketing campaign, create an ad group, set your bid, and click on the Audiences tab. There, click on Add Audiences, choose the Remarketing Lists column and add in the audience you defined in the previous step.

Bidding

You can use CPC (Cost-Per-Click) or CPM (Cost Per 1000 Impressions)  bidding, but I recommend going with CPC bids if you are direct response focused. You will want to start with a higher bid for more exposure, I recommend beginning with a $2 Max CPC and adjusting, as you monitor impressions, clicks and conversions.

Last Thoughts

Like with any campaign, you will want to monitor closely and adjust, based on performance. There are many more ways you can further sub-segment your audience, such as by cookie duration or display topics. Continue to experiment to custom targeting and messaging that resonates best with your customers.

Boost Conversions and Increase Brand Awareness With AdWords Remarketing

If you are like me and have been doing a lot of online shopping this holiday season, you have probably been remarketed to. Have you noticed ads on random sites that seem to 'know' what you recently searched for or want to buy? Yep, that's likely remarketing.

With remarketing, you can serve your ads to users who previously visited your website as they go on to browse the display network. Remarketing can be an extremely powerful method of reminding your potential customers of your brand or reconnecting with them as they click on your ads but navigate away from your website.

If you are advertising with Google, you can set up remarketing through your Google AdWords campaigns. To get started, you'd need to first define your audiences or who you'd like to target, create a separate campaign for remarketing, and you would need to place some code on your website. Below, I am outlining some basics about remarketing and things to keep in mind as you set it up.

Remarketing Costs

The costs are the same as for other AdWords campaigns. You only pay when someone clicks on your remarketing ads or sees them (depending on if you're using CPC or CPM bidding methods) and you set your own bids and budgets. If you are direct response focused, I recommend going with CPC bidding.

Defining Audiences

Your remarketing ads should be different for the various segments and audiences you are looking to capture. So, the first step of setting up a remarketing campaign will be to define your audiences or who your ads should reach. Here are some recommended audiences:

• All Visitors: Anyone who came to your site. This is the most basic way to set-up remarketing but also the least targeted.


• Non Converters: All visitors minus those that purchased a product or became a lead. Targeting such audiences can remind your non converting visitors of your brand and entice them to come back to your site and convert. You could get really specific here and target visitors who saw a particular brand or product and then show them the most relevant ads highlighting that particular brand.


• By Products or Services: You could target users who visited specific pages on your site with custom ads and messages.


• Topic Layering: You could further subdivide any of your chosen audiences by adding in topics in AdWords. This would segment a given audience by type of site they are browsing on the display network. For example, you could chose to show your remarketing ads to all non converters who browse finance related sites.


• Converters: You could target those who already purchased a product or became a lead and continue to nurture your relationship with these visitors. Most direct response focused marketers do not see this audience as a priority, as it is more of a branding strategy.

Customizing Ads

I recommend doing a combination of text and image ads for greatest reach. Your message should be customized to the audience you are trying to reach. For example, if you are targeting visitors who did not convert, your ads should remind them why they should go with your brand or you can offer customers special discounts for coming back.

After you set-up remarketing, continue to test and experiment with audiences and settings until you find a method best suited for your goals. It is a robust tool for both branding and lead or sales generation. As you tailor it to your many unique audience segments, you can make a powerful connection with your customers.

 

adCenter Launches Advanced Negative Match & Negative Keyword Conflicts

Microsoft adCenter just lauched advanced negative match, a feature AdWords has had for a long time now, to help advertisers better prequalify traffic.  Now you can set Phrase and Exact Match negative keywords in your adCenter campaigns for even greater precision in filtering unwanted search traffic. Previously, adCenter only allowed Negative Broad. For more information about negative keywords as well as how to use them, please see this post on negative keyword best practices.

Another new feature you may want to check out is their insights into keyword conflicts. Use the new Negative Keyword Conflicts report to learn if you have set any negative keywords that are same as your actual keywords. The report can help resolve any conflicts and help improve performance. It can also helo explain why some of your perfectly relevant keywords have not been getting any impressions.

Click-To-Call in AdWords Can Make Your Phones Ring

If you are a business that values calls more than website visits, you should be taking advantage of click-to-call mobile features in AdWords. With click-to-call, when people are searching on their mobile devices, they have the option to call you instead of clicking through to your website, thus saving customers an extra step and helping you get more engaged prospects.

To get started, I recommend creating a separate campaign that's opted into mobile devices only. Next, you will want to go to the 'Ad Extensions' tab in your campaign management section, and select with 'Location Extensions' or 'Call Extensions.' The screenshot below shows an example of 'Call Extensions'

You do have the option to enable the 'Call-Only' format so that only the phone number is clickable when your ad is shown on mobile devices capable of making phone calls. Please note that call-only phone extensions don't work in conjunction with enhanced CPC or CPA bidding, so you should use Maximum CPC bidding if you'd like to take advantage of  this feature. There  are also  issues with call-only creatives showing on BlackBerry devices, so you might want to target iPhone and Android specifically if you go with the call-only feature.

The calls cost the same as a click, but make sure you increase your bids so that your ads are showing in the top positions for maximum visibility on mobile devices. I also suggest you consider enabling ad scheduling so your mobile campaigns only run when you have someone available to take calls.

Google Integrating Google Offers Into AdWords Ads

Google seems to be integrating Google Offers into AdWords ads. In my search for sleeping bags for an upcoming camping trip, the top sponsored link on Google from North face highlighted a special deal below the ad with a  link to view the offer. Clicking on 'View offer' takes you to the Google Offers page with a deal from North Face.

 

Save Time By Taking Advantage Of Automated Rules in AdWords

Do you keep checking on your keywords and adjusting bids to make sure they're showing in top position? Do you run time sensitive seasonal promotions that your ads need to reflect? Do you keep checking conversions and ROI and lowering budget on campaigns that are under-performing? Then you'll love 'Automated Rules' in AdWords. With automated rules you can make changes to campaigns, ad groups, bids, statuses, ads, and keywords based on your custom requirements. You'll save yourself time and optimize your account based on your unique goals.

Setting up automated rules is easy. In your AdWords campaign management tab, click to 'Automate' as shown in the screenshot below and select what aspects of your campaigns you would like to create a rule for.

Next, you'll want to specify your criteria, such as what the rule will apply to, action, requirements for the rule to take effect, and frequency or when the rule should start running. In the example below, I chose to lower budget by 40% on all campaigns where cost/conversion went above $32. You can select how often you want this rule to run and receive an email with details. Happy automating!

Let AdWords Optimize Your Bids for Conversions with Conversion Optimizer

Are you looking to increase AdWords conversions and lower your cost per conversion? You should be using CPA bidding. According to AdWords, advertisers who use Conversion Optimizer ssee a 21% increase in number of conversions while decreasing costs by 14%. Instead if painstakingly managing ad groups and keywords bids, or purchasing costly software that does that, AdWords will do the work for you. You'll still pay per click, not per conversion. But the system will optimize your bids for you to help you reach your set goals.

The tool is free of charge and in order to use it, you'll have to be tracking conversions, of course. Additionally, your campaign will have to have accumulated at least 15 conversions over the past 30 days.To see if you are elgible and start using it, go to your campaign settings and under Bidding and budget click on Edit your current Bidding option. You will see a Focus on conversions (Conversion Optimizer) option.

If you are eligible and would like to use it, you will want to decide if you want to do Max CPA or Target CPA bidding. If you're new to the tool, I recommend choosing the system recommended bid in order to keep your traffic stable. If you go much below the system recommended bid, you might get less traffic and fewer conversions. Plus, you can always adjust the CPA bids, as you see how your campaign performs.

Conversion optimizer users your campaign's historical conversion data and also takes into browser information, geographic location, and other information to help you achieve your conversion goals. CPA Bidding is one of the most robust tools AdWords provides to help advertisers optimize and manage ROI. If you aren't eligible for CPA bidding and are tracking conversions, you might want to consider another conversion focused tool AdWords offers called Enhanced CPC I previously blogged about here.

New Advanced Location Options in AdWords

Have you noticed the new advanced location options under your AdWords campaign settings? Previously, your ads were targeted by either a physical location you selected or by a user query. For example, if you chose to to target the the city of Springfield, Illinois, someone would see your ads if they were located in Springfield, or if they were outside of Springfield but typed in a location specific query, such as 'Springfield it help.'

Now, you have the option to further refine location targeting. Advertisers can now target by either physical location and search intent, or both. This is especially useful for types of businesses who find that they get lower value clicks from outside their target physical location, or for city names that exist in multiple different states. Springfield, for example, is a city in several different states in the US.

To enable this feature, go to your AdWords campaign settings and under 'Location Targeting' click on 'Advanced location options.'

March Search Engine Rankings

comScore just released their March search engine rankings, and Google remains strong on top with 65.7%  market share.  Make sure to budget your ad spend accordingly.

AdWords Display URLs Now All Lower Case

Have you noticed that AdWords changed they way they show ad display URLs? They are now all lowercase, regardless of how you set-it up in your account.  Before the change, you were able to inter-capitalize an ad's display URL ExampleURL.com. After the change, it will show as exampleurl.com in your ad. Apparently, the AdWords team did internal testing and found that lowercase Display URLs help increase CTR.  The data was conclusive enough to overturn the previous best practice of inter-capitalization.

Optimize Your AdWords Ads Automatically For Conversions

AdWords finally released a feature I've been waiting for for years, a setting which optimizes your ads for conversions. You can find it by clicking on your campaign's settings, under the ad delivery section.

Previously the options were to have the system optimize ads for CTR or to rotate them evenly. Because ads with the highest CTR do not necessarily convert best, I used to recommend most advertisers to set their ads to rotate, then manually pause those ads that are generating a lot of clicks but aren't converting. That process was  manual and time-consuming and AdWords has come up with a smarter way to optimize your ads based on what's truly working for you.

To take advantage of this setting, you'll need to have conversion tracking enabled in your account and you will want to create multiple ads per ad group so the system can run them against one another. The ad that is more likely to convert will start to be preferred by the system and will show more often. Have fun experimenting!