What I’ve learned about Google AdWords

My first attempt at creating a Google AdWords campaign failed miserably.  I thought my research was sound and the findings conclusive.  The WEB site to be advertised is not a store front with shopping cart; but a internet business card for a Pet Boarding Kennel, owned and operated by a well know dog trainer.  This Kennel was looking to use the internet to generate sales by attracting vacationers visiting the Southern New Jersey Beaches and Atlantic city Hotel Casinos.  Obviously, the only WEB browsers I want clicking on my ad are potential tourist traveling to Southern New Jersey. 

My first job was to create a list of key words for the Google AdWords manager to use in directing my Ad onto Google Search Results Pages.  My research indicated that anyone simply typing “Dog Kennel” into a search page was just to broad of a search term, since I only want to lure surfers who intend traveling to my kennels geographic area; so “dog kennel”, “dog kennels”, “pet kennel”, are out and “dog kennel NJ”, “pet kennel NJ”, “dog boarding NJ”, “new jersey dog kennels”, are in.

I created the ad campaign and set my Cost Per Click (CPC) at the minimum 0.05 cents per click with a $1.00 per day maximum.  I’m just testing the waters here and don’t want to risk my clients money without testing the Adwords system first.

I launch my campaign and almost instantly, My Google Adword Ad is displayed on every key word phrase I purchased.  Life is good.  My list of key word phrases grew to 32, and every one was a winner, getting top billing.  As I monitored my ad campaign, I noticed very few surfers are clicking on my Ad, but this is Winter and not a busy season for tourism in South Jersey.

Then came the Dawn.  Email from Google saying my Ad Campaign was not performing to their satisfaction and my ad was SLOWED, meaning it was not being shown much.  Furthermore, unless I modified my keyword list to eliminate the key word phrases that were not making them money, my ad campaign would be terminated.  Gasp!

Upon examination of my ad campaign, I find that out of the 32 keyword phrases I created, only 6 were considered by Google to be acceptable.  Well I fired off a few grumbling emails to Google and spent most of the day very upset about the whole mess.  After removing the, so called, "low performance" keyword phrases, my Google Ad was exiled to obscurity, never to be seen again.

Off to do more research, I stumble upon a wonderful web site, http://selfpromotion.com, and find some helpful tutoring on keyword selection, and helpful tools for selecting just the right key words to produce the results I want.  The problem is, all the research just told me what I already knew, that being, I don’t want a guy in Alaska visiting my web site in New Jersey unless he is coming to Jersey for vacation, bringing his dog along, and in need of a boarding dog kennel.  All the keyword phrases suggested by the Overture Search Engine keyword suggestion tool are the very ones Google won’t let me use.  Even more ridicules is that fact that over half the keyword phrases Google don’t want me to use were suggested by Google’s own keyword suggestion too.

A solution that satisfies all.  I have come to realize that Google don’t care if I make a single penny in this ad campaign.  Their only goal is to make money from me.  So how do I only use key words that Google is happy with, without getting unwanted clicks?  The answer is in my Ad’s content.  By crafting the name of the web site to JerseyShoreKennel.com, and adding the Ad headliner to read New Jersey Dog Kennel, I hope surfers will see the obvious and only click on my ad if they are going to vacation at the Jersey Shore and bringing their pet with them.  The only problem with being lumped in with all the other WEB site advertisers that uses the broad keywords of “dog kennel”, and “dog boarding”, is the Cost Per Click (CPC) has to be much higher than .05 cents to get my ad shown on the first results page.  The broadest keywords required a CPC of .30 cents, while my more specific keyword phrase of “new jersey dog kennel” got top billing for a CPC of .05 cents.  Of course, Google will force me to remove the more specific keyword phrases from the campaign, leaving only the broad keyword phrases.

Ž   Google to the Rescue:  I received a very nice and polite letter from the Google AdWords support team.  They have been working on a program (beta) called Regional Targeted campaigns.  Here you create a campaign tailored for a specific region of the country and only persons in the targeted region of the country will see the ad.  Next, I included my geographic location in the ad itself and removed state or regional identifiers from my key words list.   For example:
  This ad clearly shows we are in Southern New Jersey, so someone in Texas has no reason to click on the ad unless they are traveling to New Jersey.  Finally, I setup my CPC (Cost per Click) on the national ad to .30 cents and lowered my CPC on regional ads to .10 cents.  The higher CPC is needed on the national campaign because the key word phrase of "dog kennel" is so general and broad that my ad will never get on page one if the key word bid is any lower.  So far, all of this appears to have effectively reduced cost, improved ad visibility, and hopefully prevent Google from slowing my ad campaigns.

My Google Ad