Some interesting info

[Derek Embry]

Hey guys!

I'm sorry for not being on the most recent calls. I know I've missed some really important things and I'm going to try my best to get on the next one. I just got home last week and I'm on my third day of work at Smarterer.com as an intern so I'm just about done settling in.

Anyways, I want to share with you all some cool things that I learned yesterday from a free class that I took that was hosted in the office that I work in. The class was hosted by the startup Intelligent.ly, launched only a few months ago. The class was about using Google AdWords for advertising a business and it was taught by a former Google marketing guy, Patrick Campbell, who now works for the incredibly successful startup Gemvara.

I certainly learned a lot from this class and I think it's very relevant to entrepreneurship, but I apologize if I'm telling you things you already know! I've tried to keep it concise, but it's still kind of a lot and I really apologize. I hope it helps, even if only a little bit.

Notes:

Google AdWords: Laying the foundation to grow through Google SEO

3 Axioms to AdWords:

1) One must fish, not beg

2) One must know thyself and know thy customer

3) One must channel Google's chi

Fishing: Using resources, experimentation, and time

- Do NOT memorize everything about AdWords! Google often changes details in their platform, so only know the fundamentals really well

1) Available Resources:

- The Google Forum

- The "Qualified Individual" certification program

- The 866 - number => Call Google, there are real representatives available to help with everything!

2) Time: Dedicate an hour per day at least to AdWords

- Research complements to your campaign, new keywords, new channels

- Look at the account details and results of implementation, decide whether to change or stay

3) Experimentation: Use 2-3 week tests for every campaign

- You must be PATIENT  with the results!

- 2-3 week tests tend to give a good prediction with how well the campaign will do in the future

Know Thyself and Customer: The internet is a vast expanse of advertising, you MUST know the following:

1) Where is your customer?

2) How will they find you through search? (which keywords?)

3) What am I selling? (specifically)

4) What is my existing brand?

5) What do customers respond to? (Ad text)

6) How much can I spend per day?

Thinking about key words:

- Focus on what the actual product is: think of synonyms and extensive details, be VERY specific

1) The Head = obvious words that refer to your product

2) The Long Tail = all the more focused and specific words, includes synonyms and complements

Budgeting: Keep in mind the cost of AdWords in relation to the scale of the target

- Smaller target = smaller budget

Google's Chi: Google wants to make money too!

- Google is there to HELP you HELP yourself with advertising

- When your advertisements are successful, Google is successful too! The incentive is there

How AdWords work: Not all about high bidding

- The "Quality Score" is most important, not necessarily that you are willing to pay the most for the ad space

- The higher the quality score of your ad, the higher you will be ranked among other advertisements

- Spending more money DOES NOT lead to a higher Quality Score!

---To get a high Quality Score:

1) Have a well thought out advertisement (well chosen ad text and keywords for targeting)

2) Have a well designed landing page for the ad

-- Both of these lead to a higher click-through rate, one of the most important factors in computing Quality Score which can be seen on the account

-- There are around 100 factors that go into computing the score, but you can control these 2 things most easily

*Ranks 1-3 are at the top and the top right of Google, 4-8 are the lower right*

Landing Page: Can hurt you, but can't necessarily help you that much

- Reminds me of Special Teams in football: Everyone notices a bad job, nobody really notices a good job

- Google gives analytics for landing page statistics

- What you are advertising MUST be on the landing page! Means that it may not be your home page for your site

- Google has actual people that spend time looking at landing pages to determine the quality -> prevents spammers and other crap

AdWord Structure:

1) The Account: contains

- A unique email address

- A password

- Billing information => Either pre-pay for a certain amount and then the ad will stop, or post-pay when the ad has reached a certain amount of traffic

2) Campaigns: within the Account

- Each campaign should be for a different specific product, even if it is the same company

- Differentiating by geography in campaigns is also effective

- Each campaign has a daily budget, location, language, distribution preferences, and the end dates

3) Ad Group: within Campaigns

- Each group should be specific and should only have 2-7 keywords per group (consider plurals vs singulars, misspellings, even competitor's names, etc.)

Determining Ad Text:

- Keep it simple and enticing

- Always include prices and promotions in the ad

- Include a strong call to action ("Sign up today!" kind of stuff)

- Including the keywords in the actual ad is also a good strategy -> Keywords are bolded by Google in a search

*For really good examples, search for FLOWERS or COOKIES*

- Google offers suggestions for keyword selection in the Campaigns depending on the product and company

- Don't be afraid to play with Accounts and Campaigns to learn the features, nothing is charged until the credit card information is put in!

- Ad Extensions (like phone numbers, affiliate sites, etc.) can HELP YOU and will not hurt: Even if nobody clicks on them, they add physical SPACE to your advertisement on Google

-- Also look into Google AdSense and the Google Display Network -> These ads have recently become more successful. 

--Consider that by statistical estimates, there will be more people on the mobile search by 2013 than on desktop searches: make separate campaigns for mobile searches to get better data analysis with the ads!

Again, I hope this helps and I'm sorry that it's a lot of text for an email. I hope all is well with you all and I look forward to Sunday.

Cheers,

Derek

[Austin Yoder]

Awesome - thanks for sharing, Derek! Very cool and good luck as you get started up at Smarterer

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Austin Yoder
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