Revive Your Numbers with SEM- Part 2

(Written by guest contributor Andrew Albritton)

Last week we talked about getting your Google AdWords account set up and the overall importance of SEM. This week we’ll focus on optimization.

Set up a Google Analytics account if you don’t already have one at www.google.com/analytics/. Google Analytics can be synched with your AdWords account and will give more insight into site traffic, SEM effectiveness, and can help strengthen your campaign. Place their code on every page within your site. Make sure you set up, test, and track conversions. Also, create funnels to track multiple potential sales paths. This will allow you to see specific points at which users abandon the sales cycle and the checkout process. You can also use Google Analytics to identify terms that generate longer average time spent on your site to strengthen your keyword list.

Landing Pages

Landing pages play a critical part in the success of your SEM campaigns. You spend money getting people to your landing page. Unless they convert, you’re not going to realize the return on your investment. Find out which landing page converts best by developing two different landing pages. Then use an A/B split test to determine which page converts best. Once you have a winner, the next step is to multivariate test. This is done by rotating different elements on the page in and out to determine which combination contributes to the best success of the page. A/B split tests can be done within AdWords, but Google’s Website Optimizer (www.google.com/websiteoptimizer) is required for multivariate testing.

CPA Optimization

Once you start generating clicks, you can also begin to optimize your keywords, ads, and cost-per-action (CPA). Run the search query report to add any negatives from unrelated searches as negatives, and any queries that result in conversions as new keywords. Regularly monitor the performance of your ad copy. If you start with two or three versions of an ad, you can pull the worst-performing ad and subsequently generate new copy with elements from the best two performing ads.

Monitor your CPA; increase bids on keywords that are below your target CPA and reduce bids for ones that are above it. An example would be “keyword 1.” Say it has an average position of 4; your target CPA is $50, but its CPA is $20. Increase the bid until the return diminishes. Say you go up to position 1, but your CPA increases to $60. It probably needs backing off. Finding that sweet spot can be challenging, but rewarding. Conversely, say that at position 1 you get 100 sales a month at a $60 CPA. However, you find that you get the lowest CPA at position 4 at a $20 CPA, but can only generate 25 sales a month since you get fewer clicks there. You will have to weigh which is more important, the margins or volume.

SEM can be a highly rewarding and effective online advertising channel, but it is also very complex. Through our high-level overview we’ve had the opportunity to scratch the surface of this multifaceted topic. By taking the time to effectively create and implement all of the elements within your SEM campaign, testing, and regularly optimizing your landing pages, keywords, ads, and CPA, you can begin to harness the power of SEM and effectively promote traffic to your website and ultimately drive sales.

SEM Checklist – Campaign Creation and Maintenance 101

– Create and activate your account. (www.adwords.google.com)

– Set campaign parameters: audience, location, network, daily budget, maximum CPC.

– Create compelling ads: headline, two descriptive lines, display URL, destination URL.

– Create a high-converting keyword list.

– Run test orders.

– Monitor your campaign’s effectiveness. (www.google.com/analytics)

– Optimize landing pages. (www.google.com/websiteoptimizer)

– Optimize keywords, ads, and CPA.