A Practical Example - Setting Up An Adwords PPC Campaign To Advertise These Forums

[Clinton]

Interesting aside - I've not started advertising yet, of course, but I just checked the goals in Analytics and we've had six conversions from the Register page and four conversions from the Browse page over the weekend (excluding my own dummy registration to check the process)!

Hmm. That can only mean that people are following the links in this thread and registering!

That's most welcome, but I must remember to create new pages/URLs to link to from the ads so as not to corrupt the results.

Funnily, total other registration over the weekend via landing on the homepage and navigating to the registration ---> Thank you page ... is only five! Just by having this thread we've had 10 more registration than we would normally have had?!

[JJMcClure]

JJMCclure, to answer your post - ok, we'll give the content network a shot, we'll do other landing pages for other groups later, and I get the optimiser stuff now.

I would set a lower max bid price for that. You're doing manual bidding right?

Thanks for the tips, Michelle and the Ad Group breakdowns. Yes, I'll have a display URL different to landing page. About keywords in the copy - I can see how that would help with quality score though it may screw up the copy itself. Of course, if we went with numerous ad groups and landing pages I could easily slip in just the headline keyphrase for that ad group. Want to do us an example of a in-your-face landing page? It may be interesting to test that as well

Yeah, great suggestions by Michelle, I was thinking (and think I mentioned it earlier in the therad) about breaking that Ad group into more specific groups of keywords becuase it's hard to write an Ad that targets people who want to sell a site AND who want to learn how to sell sites. Not the same demographic. The beauty of PPC is that you can get as targeted as you want.

As for the landing page, now that you're going through the same thought process perhaps my the thread where I was picking Michelle's brains for all I was worth about landing page design might ring a bit closer to home (is that the right expression??), it's a nightmare isn't it.

[JJMcClure]

(and a lot more behind the scenes by PM, email etC).

Little surprised to see you say this, wasn't the point to list all the various steps/efforts in this thread, can you post any of the stuff that's been discussed privately?

How's it going?

[Clinton]

Rich, sorry if I gave the wrong impression. Several people have offered help via PMs etc., but that's not running in parallel to what's happening here. For example, one member is helping me identify business forums in which to run banner ads. I had a chat with another about webmaster forums. There's been extensive discussion with someone else about Facebook and LinkedIn.

All such advertising efforts would be tracked separately to the experiment in this thread. I'll post an update later today. What with all the sun out there I've been catching up with some gardening. It's tough being semi-retired! I've got a Rotary meeting this evening and am spending the day in my kids' school tomorrow making a formal visit as a school governor. On Friday this school is closed while all others are open so I'm taking the kids to an adventure park all day - it's a rare opportunity to go to one of these places on a school day and beat the crowds and queues.

So I'm trying to get as much done today as poss (including replying to those of you waiting for me to get back on the blog issue and on writing a blog for this site).

[JJMcClure]

Rich, sorry if I gave the wrong impression. Several people have offered help via PMs etc., but that's not running in parallel to what's happening here.

Okey dokey, no worries.

spending the day in my kids' school tomorrow making a formal visit as a school governor. On Friday this school is closed while all others are open so I'm taking the kids to an adventure park all day - it's a rare opportunity to go to one of these places on a school day and beat the crowds and queues.

Heh, I'm a governor too, not for much longer though.

[Clinton]

Update:

I've tweaked the copy to remove any comparatives like "single most important page"

I've created a privacy policy and added a footer with a link to it as Michelle and Chris suggested.

On the "Register" page I've tried to address the unasked question - "Why are you doing all this for free?"

I added a doc type to each page

I added description and keyword meta tags to both landing pages which some suggest could affect quality score.

Browse | Register

I don't know if any of that made a difference but now the Quality Score has gone up from 5 to 7.

I was thinking (and think I mentioned it earlier in the therad) about breaking that Ad group into more specific groups of keywords becuase it's hard to write an Ad that targets people who want to sell a site AND who want to learn how to sell sites.

Break away on my behalf

It would be handy if one of you who knows what s/he's talking about took Michelle's breakdown of Ad Groups and did something like that complete with Ad Groups + keywords + individual ad copy to go with each. It would help me a LOT.

[Clinton]

In reply to my post above, Christopheravell has offered to help me out with using the info from this thread to setup the campaigns for me in my Adwords account. I know those of you who are experienced Adwords users may think, "what's the big deal", but it's a lot trickier than it looks - there are so many settings in there and they were confusing the hell out of me.

I'm going to be using a few folder and file names to copy the existing landing pages into. I won't link to those from this thread so as not to corrupt the results.

Will keep you posted.

[Andy]

Campaign: Sell
Ad Group 1
[how to sell a website]
[sell a web site]
[sell a website]

Ad Group 2
[sell my web site]
[sell my website]

Ad Group 3
[sell web site]
[sell website]
[sell websites]
[selling websites]

Ad Group 4
[where to sell a website]

Ad Group 5
[website sell]
[websites selling]

Ad Group 6
[selling website businesses]
[selling web site business]
[sell website businesses]
[sell web site business]

Ad Group 7
[selling my website businesses]
[selling my web site business]
[sell my website businesses]
[sell my web site business]

In reply to my post above, Christopheravell has offered to help me out with using the info from this thread to setup the campaigns for me in my Adwords account. I know those of you who are experienced Adwords users may think, "what's the big deal", but it's a lot trickier than it looks - there are so many settings in there and they were confusing the hell out of me.

I'm going to be using a few folder and file names to copy the existing landing pages into. I won't link to those from this thread so as not to corrupt the results.

Will keep you posted.

Shoot, they keep making it more complicated every time I sign in.

Are these the groups you are working with now?

Not sure where you are but if you need ads, PM me with a couple of adgroups you want ads for and I'll come up with some.

Andy

[Michelle]

Want to do us an example of a in-your-face landing page? It may be interesting to test that as well

I can if you like but I'm not sure you would really want a full blown squeeze page associated with you/this site?

[Michelle]

I would set a lower max bid price for that. You're doing manual bidding right?

Speaking of bids...I didn't see discussion about that here but I might have overlooked it as I'm struggling to get time to visit regularly. Clinton what is your approach going to be with your bidding?