Google AdWords: 5 Secrets for a Successful Campaign

The success of a Google AdWords project can be significantly enhanced if you follow 5 simple steps.

Step 1 - Define your marketing objectives

What are your marketing objectives?

Many users of Google AdWords become shortsighted and use the system to drive traffic to their site for instant sales. This leaves those companies who sell through other outlets, such as retail, confused as to where their opportunities lie with Google AdWords.

Google AdWords can help with 3 possible marketing objectives:

1. Direct Sales

If you simply wish to sell a product "off-the-shelf" then Google AdWords is perfect for you.

Drive traffic instantly to your web page and hey presto! Well, that's the theory.

2. Brand Awareness

Even if you're unlikely to achieve a sale on the internet, Google AdWords offers a unique and cost-effective opportunity for raising awareness of new products.

Take my example:

I was delivering some marketing training recently to a multinational dairy produce company and they happened to mention a new cheese product.

We discussed using Google AdWords and at first they couldn't see the opportunity. That was until we calculated how many searches are conducted each month for cheese. Some 20,000 if I recall correctly!

Do you know how much these companies spend on advertsising to raise awareness? Hundreds of thousands of pounds, dollars or whatever currency.

Yet here are 20,000 interested buyers searching for "cheese" where a minimum bid would succeed in getting the company infront of almost 1/4 million potential buyers each year! How great would that be.

Then by having these potential buyers sign up to some form of opt-in a long-term relationship can begin to develop.

3. Educational

Our local and central governments spend fortunes on raising awareness of social issues in an attempt to change behaviours.

Yet a search for "stop smoking", for example, provides us with a collection of private companies only. That's an opportunity wasted.

Step 2 - Analysis

Many new users to Google AdWords hit what is now known as the 'learning curve'.

Enthusiastically, marketers jump in to this new arena full of hope and excitement only to be disappointed. Campaigns cost too much and deliver too little.

The desired level of return can be achieved through effective analysis and planning.

For instance, you should use a service such as goodkeywords.com to understand EXACTLY how many searches are conducted for your keywords.

Also, wise marketers assess the level of competition for their main keywords to understand where they are likely to be effective and where they are not.

Step 3 - Create

When you know your strategy, A Google AdWords campaign can be created simply but effectively using your chosen keywords.

AdGroups should be grouped in a way which allows for ease of management.

Keywords ahould be selected in a way which provides for the most optimal return on investment.

Step 4 - Communicate

The most value you will gain from a customer is in the future not in the now.

Successful companies understand the rewards that can be gained by developing and nurturing a successful long-term relationship with a customer.

This can be done by online methods of e-mail newsletters or blog feeds plus traditional offline methods such as direct mail.

Step 5 - Monitor and Modify

All campaigns can be improved. Try split-testing with different headlines and ad text. A continuous improvement approach will lead to consistently higher click through rates and lower costs.

So there you have it - 5 Secrets of a Successful Google AdWords Campaign.

By: Carl Duncker