ROI Conversion Tracking & Optimizing Ad Performance

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Overall Thoughts

For this week’s post, there was a lot of information. And it may be a little lengthy, so hang in there! But, what I did learn this week is that there is so much thought, time, and effort that goes into tracking ads and their success. So let’s jump in!

ROI & Conversion Tracking

Your first question is probably what is ROI and conversion tracking? Well, ROI means Return On Investment. And conversion tracking is basically keeping track of all the actions that you want your customers to take when they click on your ad and go to your website. This will help you see how much of a profit your making from your ads compared to how much your spending on those ads.

ROI is one of the most important things for advertisers because its showing you the real effect that your ads have on your business. Knowing your ROI helps you to evaluate and decide whether the money your spending on your ads is leading to healthy profits for your business.

How ROI Works & Why it Matters

ROI is basically a ratio of your business’s net profit to costs. To calculate ROI you take the revenue result from your ads, subtract your overall costs, and then divide by overall costs. Or you can look at it like this: ROI = (revenue-cost of goods sold) / cost of goods sold.

Like I said earlier, this is one of the most important things to advertisers, it shows the true success of your business! By calculating this, you’re seeing how much money your actually making for how much your spending. ROI can also help you to see better ways to spend your budget and improve the success of your ad campaigns.

Conversion Tracking – Use it!

Conversion tracking is very, very helpful when looking in terms of ROI. Conversions are customer actions that are considered to be valuable in terms of ads and clicks on your website. This type of tracking is used mainly to show you what is happening after a customer interacts with an ad for your business.

Using conversion tracking helps you to really fine-tune your ads. It can help you see which keywords, ads, ad groups, and campaigns are doing best (and which aren’t doing so good) to help you understand where your spending needs to be targeted. To set up conversion tracking, you simply need a website and the ability to edit the site so you can add a conversion tag (HTML coding that enables you to track the conversions).

Looking at Ad Performance

Now that you’ve got ROI and conversion tracking going, you need to get your ads to perform well to boost those ratings and bring you a better profit. The best way to optimize ad performance is to focus on negative keywords. We’ve talked about this in past posts, but we’re going to go into more detail here.

Understanding Negative Keywords

Negative keywords allow you to exclude certain search terms from your campaigns in order to help you focus on the keywords that matter most to your customers and business. In order for these negative keywords to work, you need to pick search terms that are similar to the keywords you’ve already chosen, but that could potentially steer customers to search for a different product. Basically, you’re finding search terms that are related to your product, but are not exactly your product.

Types of Negative Keywords

There are three types: broad, exact, or phrase match. Each type is different in the way that negative keywords work best when you add synonyms, singular or plural versions, misspellings, and other close variations. Keep in mind: If you use exact keywords or phrases or words that are strongly related to the content ads won’t show. Let’s talk about each type.

Broad match negative keywords are the default of negative keywords. But you still have to be cautious, if you choose words where when a search is done and it contains all of your negative keywords (even if the words are in a different order), the ad won’t make an appearance in the search. So don’t be too broad, be reasonable.

Exact match negative keywords will cause your ad to be a no-show in a search if the search has the exact keywords in the same order. So again, be reasonable. Don’t be so specific that your ad can never be found.

Phrase match negative keywords will cause your ad not to show up if the search has the exact keywords in the same order. But, the search can include additional words. Most of the time though, the ad still won’t show up as long as all the keywords are included in the search.

Be cautious: too many negative keywords may make your ads reach fewer people.

Don’t Be Afraid to Use All Types

You can also use all three types to make more efficient ads. For example, you could use broad match to target your ad towards a bigger audience, but then also use exact match to target specific groups of customers. The best way to know what works for you is to experiment.

Expanding Keywords

The last topic we’re covering today is expanding keywords. You want to expand the reach of your keywords to improve your ad rank. The rank of your ads makes them more competitive and therefore more popular- leading you to have more success with the popularity of your ad. To boost this there are three ways to start: increase your bids, increase your ad quality, and enable/ improve ad extensions.

Of the three ways to boost ad performance, I strongly suggest looking into improve ad quality. Best performing ads are the ones found most relevant. Think about how you search for things on the internet and apply that to your ads. This way, if you know what you’re customers are looking for, you can target them and focus on making your ads, campaigns, and keywords relevant to them.

Concluding Thoughts

When looking at the success of your ads, be patient and don’t give up. Take the time to experiment and research what your customers want to see and what they think is relevant. Also regularly review your ROI, conversions, and ad optimizations! This way you can keep up with your customers and keep your business afloat. Good luck with your ads!

June 28, 2019 0

Relevance & Quality Score: What Is It And Why Do I Need It?

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Overall Thoughts

When I first came into this week’s topic, I had absolutely no idea what relevance and quality score were. But, surprisingly, it’s very interesting! I didn’t realize one thing could be so helpful in weighing the success of an online business.

Disclaimer** The business statistics program that I researched and looked into for this was Google Ads Quality Score. Here’s what I learned:

What is Relevance & Quality Score?

Relevance and quality score is a diagnostic tool that proves very helpful to tracking the statistics and success of an online business. Keep in mind, a quality score is not a performance indicator. Get that out of your head right now. The Google Ads system is set up in a way that works to identify and reward good quality ads. When you have high-quality ads, you can gain a higher rank, which leads to many benefits such as lower costs per click, better ad positions, and even eligibility for ad extensions. The quality of an ad is calculated for each auction they enter.

Quality Scores Are Not an Exact Representation

When looking at quality scores and relevance remember: the quality score that you’re seeing is not an exact representation of real-time ad quality calculations. What you’re going to see is a general metric that shows your overall performance. When ads are considered to have quality determined, there are lots of factors (like user’s exact query and the context of the query for example), and the resulting quality is based on an average value of those factors.

Quality Score is A Summary of Recent Performance

Your quality score will based on recent performance with the addition of three components:

Expected click-through-rate – the likelihood that the ad will be clicked.
Ad relevance – how closely your ad matches the user’s search intentions.
Landing Page Experience – how well your landing page shows relevance, transparency, and easy-to-navigate systems when it comes to your users.

When quality score is considered your keyword quality will also be diagnosed. You should focus more of your efforts on areas that are high-value and if changed can be effective. You shouldn’t put your main focus on your quality score, you should be focusing on how it aligns with your performance. Don’t try to force your score up.

Focus On Making Long-Term Performance Goals

If you really want your score to go up, you need to focus on looking for ways to reach those good scores by improving things first, and then checking your quality score. Make goals – and set out to reach them. You need to put your focus on finding every possible way you could improve your statistics, and focus on the positive experiences that come from those improvements.

In putting your focus on improvements, you also need to be paying attention to all of the other metrics that are being shown for your account. Examples of these are clickthrough rate, conversion rate, and site engagement (but there are more). These metrics are more connected with your performance directly, and should help determine areas that are in need of improvement.

Scores Will Tell You Where To Focus Your Efforts

Your scores will help you to know to look at a variety of things. Some include:

High-value keywords – quality scores will help identify the keywords that are lagging and need improvement
Low quality scores – these help you to find components that are doing much worse than others. You can also set priorities when it comes to improvement.
Scores help you to see there is always room for improvement.

Make sure you pay attention to the three components we talked about earlier, because they are a good indicator of your accounts health. If your account is healthy, you’re meeting your performance goals and focusing your efforts in the right places!

Other Factors

There are some other factors that contribute to an ad’s quality, but aren’t directly reflected in your quality score. Some of these are geographic signals, differing qualities of multiple ads in an ad group, and non-exact query matches.

There is also something called clickthrough rate definition. This is the visibility of your ads. It’s determined by your keyword status (statuses are above average, average, or below average) that measures how likely it is that your ads will show up and get clicked by users when your ad shows up as a result of their search.

Concluding Thoughts

Quality score can help immensely when it comes to knowing how to improve your ads. Remember, quality score can’t be forced, only improved. Be patient. Look for what you need to improve. And most importantly, set goals that motivate you to improve your ads.

I understand that quality scores can be somewhat confusing, so don’t be afraid to ask questions and research!

June 21, 2019 0

Ads & Ad Groups

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Overall Thoughts

This topic came as a surprise to me this week. I always thought creating ads was just a way to show your product or business. But, there is much more thought that goes into it! Creating and editing successful text ads is a much deeper thought process than I originally imagined. Here’s some things to look out for.

What makes a successful ad?

When writing an ad, there are many things to consider. Such as highlighting uniqueness, including prices and promotions, empowering customers to take action, and more that we will touch on later in this post. A successful ad grabs the attention of possible customers or clients, and pulls them in. The ad needs to be simple and easy to understand. But, also not so simple that you can’t tell what the product is. An ad also has eye drawing colors and easy to read font type. Making sure you have these things in your ad is so important! Put yourself in your customer’s shoes and ask your self: “what would appeal to me as a customer of this business?” Now, let’s talk about making a good ad.

Highlighting Uniqueness

Make sure that your ad shows that your business is unique. What makes it different from all of the others like it out there? Do you have free shipping? Do you have a shocking variety? Products or other offers that make you more competitive? Put them on the ad! Ads are all about drawing people in.

Prices, Promotions, & Exclusives

If you are planning on having good prices, promotions, and exclusives, you can show it in your ad. Customers often look at ads and weigh the decision in their mind whether they need your product or not. But they do need it (in your eyes at least)! So help make the decision for them. Give them what they need to make the decision to visit your site.

Empower Action

Give your customers the power to take action. Give them every opportunity to feel that they have all the facts. Tell them what they can buy. Tell them how they can contact you. Use different calls to action. What do I mean by this? Use words and buttons that say things such as “purchase”, “call today”, “order”, “browse”, “sign up”, or “get a quote”. These words tend to draw attention and draw in customers. Give the customers the power. You’ll be grateful you did!

Keywords

Last week’s post explained keywords. Well, in this weeks post, we are including them in our ads. And it is smart if you do! Including at least one of your keywords shows the relevance of the ad to your product, a.k.a. what people want. This can ad to the simplicity factor of your ads – it’s straight and to the point.

Matching Ads to Landing Pages

Your landing page is the page that you’re linking to the ad. It’s the first thing people are going to see when they click on the ad. Make sure that they match. People see the ad, and they might be confused or less interested when they see that the landing page doesn’t quite match the ad or the theme it gave off. If you put promotions or products on the ad, make sure you’re also showing those promotions or products on the landing page. People might leave your site if they aren’t seeing what they expected to see.

Appealing to Mobile Customers

In today’s day and age, everyone and there dog have a smart phone, tablet, or other mobile devices. So, it’s important that you appeal to them. Personally, I see more ads on my smartphone than I do on my computer, I even click on more ads on my smart phone than on my computer. Again, put yourself in your customer’s shoes. Think about what they would be seeing your ad on. In addition to this, putting a phone number on your ad gives customers the power to call you. Mobile ads are one of the best ways to get your business the recognition it needs.

Wrapping Up

Now that we have the basics of a good ad, it’s time to experiment. Create a few ads, three or four, and use different messages. These ads all together are an ad group. Keep track of which ads in the group are the most successful and use those. Make sure you are also paying attention to common ad mistakes. Make sure everything is clear, your URLs are working, there’s no awkward spacing or extra capitalization.

You do not need to use each and every one of these basics. Don’t clutter your ad. Remember, simplicity is key- get the message across. But, not too simple. Find a good balance. Now go create create your ads!

June 15, 2019 0

Choosing A Business Structure and Making Your Business Legal

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Overall Thoughts

This week’s topic was one of the more confusing for me. I felt lost often, and had to research and pay close attention to understand. But, now I’m at a better understanding and will share my thoughts with you!

Business Structures

A business structure is basically choosing the form of your future business. Structures vary widely, but you should be careful when choosing. Choosing the right structure is critical. This will help you with all of the legalities for your business. There are four types.

Sole Proprietor

A sole proprietorship is the most traditional business structure / form. Under this structure, you go into business under your own name or under a DBA (“doing business as”) name. A sole proprietorship offers the least amount of protection to the owner of the business, but it is the easiest to set up. This means that if your company were to be sued or attacked legally, your personal assets are what is in danger. While this is unfortunate, if you aren’t worried about being sued, or the business is only open for a short time, or you’re looking for easy set up- then this is the structure for you.

Partnerships

Partnerships are very common. A partnership can occur when 2 or more people own a business together. In terms of ease to set up, it is much like a sole proprietorship. This structure does offer more legal protection since there is more than one owner, but that doesn’t make the owners invincible. A partnership has many benefits. Some including, easier to set up, more than one owner to operate the business, easier brainstorming of new product/ business ideas, etc.

Corporations

This third form of structure creates separate legal entities which are jointly owned by multiple investors. There are two forms of corporations: S and C. Each form has unique benefits and disadvantages. These benefits and disadvantages range from raising capital to paying taxes and so forth. But, they are more protected legally.

Limited Liability

The last business structure is limited liability, or LLC. This is a newer structure, but it combines some of the better features of partnerships and sole proprietorship. There is an ease to organization, as well as a pass through taxation. An LLC is separate from its owners, meaning that you have more private protection. LLC’s are solely responsible for debts and obligations. You can lose money invested in the company, but your personal assets are not at risk. Personally, if you’re starting a small business, this is the structure I would recommend.

What Do Legal Structures Incorporate?

Legal structures all depend on what business structure you choose. Each business form determines amounts of regulatory paper work to be filed, liability on a personal level regarding investments in your business, and taxes you need to pay.

Do The Research.

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: do the research. Do not go off what people tell you or what you first come across. Look at all of your options. Look into set up, taxes, paperwork, etc, and see which is really right for you.

Concluding Remarks

Choosing a business structure and legal structure go hand in hand. Don’t be afraid to ask a lot of questions and do a lot of research. Make sure you are doing this to fit your needs, not the needs you want to fit. Make sure this is doable for you and your business!

June 2, 2019 1