Last week, we covered the basics of account setup for a solid PPC campaign.  I said that perhaps the biggest mistake most people make when setting up their PPC campaigns is a poor campaign structure.  If that’s the case, the 2nd biggest mistake people make is poor choice in keywords for their Ad Groups.

The key to choosing the best keywords for your Adwords Ad Groups is to focus on the Long Tail.

The Long Tail

The basic idea behind the Long Tail theory is that every industry contains a handful of super popular widgets (whether it be songs, movies, books, MP3 players or keywords).  These super popular widgets (we’ll call them the ‘hits’) saturate the market, and are consistently selling in high quantities. These hits comprise the head of the long tail graph shown above.  For iTunes, they are the top 100 songs that are purchased millions of ties in a given year. For Netflix, they are the movies that get rented over and over and over.  And in PPC, they are the super-broad keywords that everyone wants to show up for on the SERP’s.

The head of the tail is great… but in PPC, when you get thousands of people bidding on the same keyword, it can get very pricey. Trust me you don’t want to be paying $5+ per click… especially when there is an alternative.

Ironically, companies like Netflix and iTunes, (where the hits are easily measured and understood) more money is made by the accumulation of long tail products than those at the head.  It’s true!  Sure iTunes sells a bajillion copies of Brittany Spears latest single, but the number of bands down that long tail is so long (down to the bands that only sell 1 song) that they blow the hits out of the water.  Pretty cool, eh?

In Pay Per Click advertising, the same idea holds true.  Sure, specific ‘long tail’ keywords have a much smaller search volume than those at the head, but when someone searches for “Blue Schwinn 10-speed bicycle” and they find an ad for “Blue Schwinn 10-speed bicycles” you have suddenly put yourself in a very good position. Obviously this person knows exactly what they want, obviously you are giving it to them.  Your keyword might get clicked on two times a month, but you know what? Each time it’s by somebody who is interested in exactly what you are providing, and it’s costing you pennies instead of dollars!

Put enough long tail keywords in your campaigns, and you are going to find your conversions and your click through rates go through the roof. Your cost per acquisition along with your cost per click should plummet, and you, my friends, will be sitting pretty.

If you’re looking for some help chosing the right keywords for your campaign, here is a great step-by-step article loaded with tips and tools to help you out.

Save Money on Your PPC

I’ve been in the internet marketing industry for a few years now. I’ve worked with hundreds of clients in every facet of the industry, and I have noticed a pattern, especially in clients who want help with Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising.  They have tried for several months, or even years to make PPC a successful form of advertising with a positive ROI for their business… but it was to no avail.  They are frustrated, and often times infuriated because it just isn’t working for them.

Over the next few weeks, I plan on posting about some of the most common and easily avoided mistakes when attempting to manage the PPC campaigns for your company… especially if you’re working on a small budget. (PPC campaigns with small budgets are my specialty.)

The first and most common mistake in a campaign that is not performing well can be attributed (almost 100% of the time) to campaign structure.

The most efficient PPC campaigns with high CTRs, a low CPC and high conversion rate almost always follow the same pattern.

1. Campaigns and Ad Groups must be clearly and specifically labeled. Currently, if you log into your Adwords account and find between 1 and 3 ad groups, and they are named “Ad Group 1,” “Ad Group 2,” and “Ad Group 3,” and they are all part of “Campaign 1,” you can be absolutely sure that you are not using PPC in a way that maximizes your results.
2. Each Ad Group should contain a small handful of highly specific and relevant keywords. If you are selling red bicycles and blue bicycles, don’t put them in an Ad Group labeled ‘Bicycles’ and move on. Break it down! Make an Ad Group for blue bicycles, and one for red bicycles.  If you have different brands of red bicycles, then break down your red bicycle into multiple, smaller Ad Groups.
3. Each Ad Group needs to contain 2-3 slightly distinct ads that are relevant to (and hopefully including) the keywords in the Ad Group they pertain to.  Make sure each ad contains a call to action! The reason for multiple ads is to perform A/B testing or multivariate testing.  Almost always, one ad results in a much higher conversion rate than the other.  Knowing which ads work best for your campaign will help you to maximize your ROI.
4. Each ad and keyword needs to be sending whoever clicks on your ad to a highly relevant landing page. This is probably the most consistently made mistake in the PPC industry.  You trigger your highly specific ad about blue K2 mountain bikes with very specific keywords only to drop your potential client on your homepage, implying, “Good luck! Hope you have a good time finding the product you thought we were going to send you to!” If you’re advertising a blue K2 mountain bike, send them to the blue K2 mountain bike page on your site, for heavens sake!

I know it doesn’t sound like much, but campaign structure is the foundation to a successful and lasting PPC campaign that can generate significant revenue for your business. The Adwords Editor is a great PPC tool that can help you fix a messy campaign, or quickly and efficiently create a new one.  If you’re just starting PPC, save yourself the trouble, and just set things up right the first time.