Benefits

All of AdWords’ ad extensions are touted as tools to help you increase CTR, but how can location extensions in particular aid in your advertising? The biggest reasons to use location extensions are simple: increased relevancy and effectiveness. If you have location extensions enabled in your accounts, when someone searches for a service or product that you offer and is relatively close to your physical location, they may see a pop out of your business name, location and phone number. Seeing that you are close and easy to find, they may be more likely to shop or do business with you!

Where Can They Show & What Do They Look Like

Location extensions can show on either the Search or Display networks and will trigger on mobile device searches, as well. Dependent on the particular format of a particular website or whether or not the search was completed on a Search Partner’s site, etc., a pop-out map showing your location may show up along with your text ad. Location ad extensions usually look like this:

Your ad will populate as usual, but with extended information showing your particular brick and mortar location, as you can see here with the ‘Cheers’ example. Now your searcher knows you are within a reasonable distance to their location, so they are more likely to visit your location than a competitor who doesn’t have a location listed. Should your searcher be looking for you on a mobile device, your address may be clickable for directions directly on their device.  Keep in mind, if you also have a phone number listed in your location extension, you could opt-in to call metrics and give your mobile searchers a click-to-call option (more on call extensions in Abby’s post here!).

How to Implement

You can enable location extensions fairly quickly within the AdWords interface. Once you are logged in to your account, toggle to the ‘Ad extensions’ tab. Here you’ll see an option to select which extension you want to work with from a drop-down menu:

Once you have selected to add a new location extension, you have the option to either manual enter an address for your location or use an address from your Google Places account, if you have one (and you should). If you select the manual entry option, you’ll be prompted to select which campaign you want to apply the extension to, and then will see a drop-down box to select the extension you want to use. If there isn’t one already present in the account, you’ll see an option to add a new extension and the space to do that will look like this:

As you can see, there are open boxes for you to fill in with you location information, and then select a map icon and/or business image to complement your ad. Click ‘Save’ and you’re done!

Probably one of the nicer elements of location extensions is that you can apply the same or multiple addresses to all campaigns within your account. Once a location extension has been added to the interface, you can go back and select other campaigns to apply that existing extension to. However, keep in mind if you share a location extension with multiple campaigns, making a change to one of those location extensions will apply that change across all campaigns using that extension. You can also apply multiple location extensions to a single campaign, but know that you have to meet the following criteria in order for multiple addresses to show with your ad at one time:

• Appear in the top ad position on Google.com
• Be a high-quality ad
• Your campaign is linked to a Google Places account
• You are the primary business owner, and
• Your Google Places account contains at least one location in a given city/area

Ad-Level Location Extensions

The commonplace practice for location extensions is to add them on the campaign level, however there is an option to apply location extensions at the ad level for a more targeted user-experience. Ad-level location extensions are a single address linked to a single ad and they tend to serve less often than those location extensions added on the campaign level as they will only show when the searcher is within the target radius set for that address or if the searcher queries one of your keywords and a location term that is located near your address. As another note, your ad will never show without the location extension if it’s added on the ad level, so be sure no matter who triggers your ad, your location in that ad will be relevant to the searcher.

Well, that’s that! You’ve officially received a 101 lesson in location ad extensions! If you haven’t implemented them yet, give it a go and let us know your results! If you are already using location extensions to improve account performance, tell us how it’s been going, and any tips or tricks you’d like to share with our loyal readers, in our comments section below.

This coming week, some of my fellow PPC Hero’s and I will be posting daily with in-depth analyses of all 5 of the current ad extensions available via Google AdWords. We’ll not only show you how to access and implement each of these ad extensions, we’ll also explain how we’ve used them for our own clients and explore the effects they’ve had on account performance!

Here’s a quick look at what days we’ll cover each extension. Make sure you check back every day next week so you can implement all these extensions in your own accounts quickly and start improving performance immediately!

Monday: Sitelinks Extensions – Felicia

Tuesday: Call Extensions – Abby

Wednesday: Product Extensions – Sarah

Thursday: Location Extensions – Kayla

Friday: Social Extensions – Dave & Series Wrap-Up

Yesterday, Sarah helped you make your way through specialized keyword research for the holiday season, including which holidays to target, gift recipients based on product offerings, research tools to expand your lists when needed and how to choose negatives to pull back those lists should they get a little too broad. So, now what? Now, we put all that research in to an account structure that will not only help you profit off the lucrative holiday season, but will help you manage your PPC account quickly and efficiently! On, Dasher! On, Dancer! On, Prancer and…ok, here we go.

• Budget: Depending on how in depth you chose to take your holiday keyword research and how large your product offering, you may be sitting on a holiday-based keyword list that’s fairly expansive and could cost a pretty penny to cover. For this reason, your first step in determining account structure for the season is to decide how much budget you have to play with.My first recommendation would be to take the list of keywords you want to bid on for the time being and utilize the Keyword Tool. This will help you get a rough estimate of what you could expect to spend per click based on average number of monthly searches and competition for that keyword. Multiply that CPC by the number of clicks you’d need to convert the numbers you’re looking for and see what your budget looks like. From there, you can make decisions to limit the keywords you are going to bid on to meet your budget requirements or increase your budget to allow for full coverage. Holiday traffic for ecommerce accounts is not hard to come by; your biggest question is how much of that traffic you can afford to pull in.

Another factor to keep in mind is how you allocate an increased budget. Should you put it all in        your new holiday-specific account elements or evenly distribute it to your year-round campaigns? The simple answer is: both! Check out how much impression share you’re missing out on from your higher converting campaigns throughout the year and consider whether the gained leads from there could be more valuable than leads gained from holiday season campaigns, etc.

• Incorporate a ‘Year End Holidays’ campaign with promotionally and categorically based ad groups: This is where efficiency will become the name of the game. In order to keep you from chasing your tail and turning individual ads on and off for the next two months, you’re going to want to silo your keywords in to ad groups based on their targeted:

• • Product category
    • Examples: ‘gifts under $10,’ ‘gifts for her’
  • Holiday
    • Examples: ‘Black Friday,’ ‘Cyber Monday’
  • Promotion/Offer
    • Examples: ‘15% off sale,’ ‘free gift with purchase’

As is best practice, you’ll want to make these ad groups as specific as possible so you can accurately write ad copy to fit all the keywords included in the group (more on that from Felicia tomorrow!).  Make an accompanying spreadsheet that includes specific dates you have promotions running and which ad groups should be enabled at that time so you can do a quick filter for promotion and pause those ad groups that do not apply. Finally, I’d suggest setting up calendar reminders if you have to keep track of very many date ranges for promotions so you’re sure to be offering the right sale price at the right time and can avoid upsetting customers for not delivering on an expired offer.

Arranging your holiday efforts in this way will allow you to easily pause and enable ad groups based on current promotional offers as they change throughout the season. Further, you’ll be able to keep the same holiday structure and optimize it year over year, saving you hours of research and spreadsheets in the long run.

• Don’t forget to show your deals to the “normal” searchers: Integrate holiday-geared ad copy in to your year-round ad groups throughout the rest of your account. This will allow those shoppers who aren’t necessarily searching by promotional offer, specific holiday or gifting category to still see your product’s ad, just with a seasonal spin to catch their attention. For example, you could tout your fast delivery times through the holidays because even someone who could care less about Black Friday appreciates getting his or her products quickly, no matter the time of year! Of course, make sure your ad rotation setting is set to ‘Rotate’ or you’ll likely show your year-round copy and null the effort altogether.

• Utilize site links in ‘Year End Holidays’ campaign: PPC Hero has time and again explored the benefits of implementing ad extensions and this holiday-based campaign is no different. You can ad up to 10 different site links for this campaign, which would allow you to direct general shoppers to areas they may be interested in (i.e. Gifts for Him, Gifts under $25, etc.). I’d also recommend now as the perfect time to light the product ad extension fire in your year-round campaigns, as these more easily entice customers to click since they can see the item being advertised to them.

• Accelerate ad delivery, if possible: Budget permitting, my final recommendation for your structure during the holiday season is to set your ad delivery setting to ‘Accelerated.’ Electing this option under this setting will display your ads as often as possible until your daily budget for that campaign is reached. Combining this setting with increased spend allows you to more effectively reach as large a client base as possible and in turn, increase revenue.

What about your experiences? What have you found works for you when it comes to account structure during the holiday season? Share your experiences, thoughts and ideas in the comments section below!

Thanks for reading and make sure you check out the other posts for this series by Sarah, Felicia and Dave on how to conduct holiday keyword research, align ad copy with the season and optimize landing pages to match!

First, let’s look at the data available for a leads-based client. In AdWords on the Campaigns tab, here are the headers I see in my report data:

I have outlined the conversion metrics in the red box on the right side of the menu. Conversions, cost per conversion and conversion rate are fairly straightforward, and likely very familiar to you. You’ll notice that in this particular account I’m only being shown data for conversions that happen once per click. I’ll come back to what this means a little later when we dive into an ecommerce account, but I just wanted to point it out here first. The last column for view-through conversions is probably the least familiar to you. View through conversions are the number of online conversions that happen in any specified time frame after a user saw your image or rich media ad on the Display Network, but didn’t click. Translation: they saw your ad, didn’t click, but converted later without clicking on another Display Network ad.

View-through conversion data can be extremely helpful in creating strategy for your Display Network campaigns. This information can help you determine the most effective placements on the Display Network, and can help you optimize your campaigns based on how people are engaging with your ads even if they aren’t clicking. In other words, just because someone doesn’t immediately click your ad doesn’t mean it’s not effective or memorable.

To get the most out of your view-through conversions, you’ll want to make sure you’re de-duplicating your data. De-duplication is a feature in AdWords that, if enabled, will exclude conversions from users that viewed your display ad but later clicked on your search ad. If this setting is disabled you’ll have to take your view-through conversions with a grain of salt, as you could be getting duplicate conversion counts. So, you’re much better off to enable de-deplication.

To enable de-duplication, go the the Reporting and Tools menu in AdWords and choose Conversions from the drop down list. Once on the Conversions page, select the settings tab from the tabs on your screen and you’ll see the link to edit/enable your de-duplication option:

Now let’s look at an account tracking conversions for an ecommerce client. As you’ll see below, my report information offers me more varied conversion data:

As I mentioned above, I have my conversion data for one-per-click conversions, but now I also have conversion data for many clicks (the fifth and sixth columns above). What does this mean? One-per-click conversions count a conversion for every single click on your ad. If multiple conversions happen after the click,  one-per click conversion reporting will still only report one. Obviously this data is more useful for leads-based client accounts, as it is unlikely that you’d be asking a user to convert in more than one way. Leads-based accounts would count things like filling out a contact form as a conversion, or signing up for an e-newsletter, and these things only need to happen once. It is important to note, however, that you can track multiple types of conversion actions (downloads, signing up for a newsletter, requesting more information, etc.),. Viewing data on conversions by purpose or action name is available on the Dimensions tab:

For more information about defining different conversion types, visit this page in Google AdWords Help online.

Many-per-click conversion data will count multiple conversions per click. This information is useful for tracking conversions that have individual value every time they occur, like an ecommerce purchase. So, one user click can generate multiple conversions (purchases).

You’ll also notice columns for the value of each conversion for both one-per-click and many clicks, which is another useful metric for ecommerce accounts. This is actually pretty simple information, as it’s just the average value, or dollar amount, of each conversion/purchase. While this would generally only show up in ecommerce accounts, you can also assign a dollar value to other lead types, so you’d be able to track this for other conversion types as well. Please note that if you want to assign a value for you conversions you’ll need to make sure the conversion code on your site is also modified. For more information about setting up this information, check out Google’s help page on goals and funnels.

Lastly, the final column provides the total conversion value, which is the total value of all the conversions for a given date range divided by the total cost for all clicks. In other words, this column is showing you your ROI.

To sum all this up, here’s a brief overview of everything I explained above:

• View-through conversions – number of conversions that happen within 30 days after a user saw, but did not immediately click, your ad on the Display Network
• Conversions (1-per-click) – count conversions per one click (multiple conversions after the one click are not counted)
• Conversions (many click) – count conversions every time one is made, i.e. will count multiple conversions per click
• Value/conv. – average dollar amount of your conversions/transactions
• Total conversion value – ROI (value/cost)
• Conversion purpose/action – the specific type of conversion you’re asking users to perform (newsletter sign-up, catalog request, contact information, etc.)

I hope this helps you make more sense of your AdWords conversion tracking, and also helps you dive a little more deeply into your PPC accounts. Will this information help you report on your conversions more thoroughly? Let us know in the comments below.

As always, thanks for reading and stay tuned for more from PPC Hero!

Session Based Broad Match:

What is Session Based Broad Match?

If you’re unfamiliar with this match type in your search query report, a session based broad is essentially an extension of broad match.  After a user types in a query that potentially could trigger one of your ads, the “session” begins.  Google then generates similar terms and considers those previous searches in an attempt to better understand the user’s intent and serve them the most relevant ads.  Your ad could show up if one of the broad match keywords in your account matches any of the similar terms that Google generated.

Issues with Session Based Broad Match

There’s a lot of material and opinions about session based broad match – and a lot of it isn’t good.  If you ignore the match type in your search query reports, you might want to take a closer look.  Here is a handful of session based broad terms that I pulled out of a July search term report.

vampires number to call them (uh…WTQ?)

treehouse

whistle calls

phone hacking scandal

iphone apps

cute voice messages

Sorry, Google, but none of these queries are related to what we’re advertising.  That’s not to say that session broad match can’t bring in conversions that are worth anything, but a lot of them are highly irrelevant and capture the user in a different search state of mind.

What Can Be Done?

Well for starters, if you aren’t paying attention to these impressions and clicks already – you should start.  At this point, you can’t opt out of these session based impressions and if you’re bidding on broad match keywords, you’re eligible for session based broad.  You can, however, apply irrelevant terms to your list of negatives.  Just make sure you’re considerate of what you add as a negative and what match type you use.  I like to take a close look at these session based broad queries in my reports and sort out those that converted versus those that didn’t.  Then, check to see if the conversion was relevant and worth the cost before deciding to implement it as a negative keyword.  Generally, you’ll want to add your negatives per ad group versus the campaign level. Then look at those that didn’t convert and look for negative opportunities there too.

On the brightside, ads served based off of session based won’t affect your Quality Score, but it is possible to spend a lot of money on these irrelevant searches.

Advanced Location Options:

Let’s consider a school in St. Louis that uses AdWords to find new potential students.  A local-based school that is only interested in finding users from a certain, restricted area can do geotargeting for just that area, right?  It’s true, however, AdWords will still also show ads to searchers with the search intent of finding a school on Google that is in St. Louis, even if they actually live in Portland, Oregon.

We can use Advanced Location Targeting for the Google search network to keep ads from showing to those students outside of the desired area, even if they are searching for ‘chiropractor schools in St. Louis’ from their location in Portland.

In the settings for your campaign, select ‘Advanced location options’ to get a list of your potential options.  Under ‘Targeting Method’ you’ll be able to select whether you want to:

• target using a physical location or search intent (Default)
• target using a physical location: Device-based signals
• target using search intent: Location terms in user queries

You can also opt to exclude by a certain method:

• Exclude by physical location only (Default)
• Exclude by physical location and search intent

So what are the differences between these and how will they affect where your ads will show?

• If you leave the setting on the default, the ad could still show for that user in Portland looking at the chiropractor school in St. Louis if they use a location qualifier in their search query.  If your account doesn’t see enough return from users that are out of area, then you might want to opt out of the default option.

• Targeting by physical location only will only show ads to users in the 100 miles around St. Louis specified, despite the fact that people are searching outside the area with a location qualifier.

• Targeting by search intent only will, of course, only show your ads to users who search for something like ‘chiropractor school in St. Louis’ where the location qualifier is included in the query.

• Excluding by a physical location means the ad won’t show in areas that you specifically exclude.

• Excluding by physical location and search intent means ads won’t be shown to users in your excluded areas as well as users who use the excluded area in their search query.

It’s important that when you decide to target or exclude outside of your defaults, to put a lot of thought into how the targeting will work, and whether you’ll be blocking relevant customers from seeing your ads.

So there you have it, a couple of things to be aware of when you’re making decisions on your accounts based off of search intent.  The topic of search intent is vast, and encompasses a lot of different aspects.  What tips do you have?

You are almost at the end of the Yellow Brick Road and will soon be able to see the Great Oz of Google…  You’ve gathered your keywords list from the Scarecrow (Bethany is the brains of this operation for sure!), your account structure is set up from the Tin Man (I really do have a heart!) and you have all your ads written with the help of the Cowardly Lion (Jessica is actually very courageous!). Last steps are to activate your account and track your leads!

Sign Me Up!

Google takes you through four steps to set up your account.  Since you have your research done and all of your settings are ready, this will be fairly simple.

Once you have completed the first 3 steps and reviewed your entries, you will be able to enter your Google account email address and password.  There are two options here – you can sign up with an existing Google account or you can create a new one. It just depends on your preference.  Our suggestion is to set up another email account specifically for AdWords.  This way, if there are additional people working in the account, they won’t have access to your personal email!  Probably not a great idea to give the Wicked Witch of the West access to your vacation plans to the Emerald City…If you are creating a new account, a screen like this will be revealed:You will be asked to go through a couple of checks and balances, like verifying your email address.  After that, there are only a couple more steps and we promise you will be set!

Pay the Piper

There are two ways that you can set up billing with Google for your shiny new AdWords account.

• Postpay payment method – with this option, payments are made only after you accrue advertising costs.  You are billed 30 days after your last payment or when you account reaches its billing threshold.  A credit or debit card can be entered for payment and your ads will typically be shown immediately after authorization.  You can also opt to have your billing drafted from your bank account.  A draft may take a bit longer to approve and thus hold up your account from starting immediately.
• Prepay method – you pay for your advertising in advance of receiving any impressions or clicks.  Google will notify you when your funds are running low and will allow you to replenish the money at any time. Again, you can use a credit or debit card as well as draft the funds from your bank. Same time frames apply for your ads showing as the postpay method.

For more information about how to enter your billing information and how to change it, check out this Google AdWords Help article.

Tracking Your Journey

You are at the gates to the Emerald City.  Wouldn’t it be great to know who else has been there too?  And how they got there?  Well, you can!  The final step to making your AdWords dreams come true is to place your conversion tracking codes.  Conversion tracking is when a cookie is placed on the user’s computer and a correct match is made, then Google credits your account with a successful conversion.  A conversion is designated as a purchase, sign-up, page view or lead.  To view your successful conversions in AdWords, click your Campaigns tab or click on the Reporting and Tools tab and select “Conversions.”

Here are the steps to generating and placing your conversion code snippet:

• click on the Reporting and Tools tab > Conversions
• the code is provided at the bottom of the screen. There are no system requirements for this code to be placed on your site.  In order for Google to track these conversions properly, the searchers must be able to download images as well as have cookies enabled on their computers.

• Now you can copy and paste the conversion code into the associated conversion pages of your web site.  The code snippet should be placed between the <body> tags and NOT in the header or the footer of your code.

For more information on placing your codes or different types of tracking, check out this Google AdWords Help article.

You are in!  The Great Oz of Google will now grant your advertising wishes!  Now, the journey does not end here… there is so much more you can do with your account.  It’s time for optimizations, experiments, mobile campaigns, display network campaigns – the list goes on and PPC Hero (aka Glenda the Good Witch) is here for you.  We will help you through all of it.  So, just click your heels and gather that data.  Remember, there’s no place like Google…

Ready to start filling your designer handbags with the millions of dollars made from the keyword list Bethany taught you how to create for your PPC account?  Well, don’t go hittin’ up 5^th Avenue just yet… You need a fabulous account structure to be able to say “AdWords is a girl’s best friend.”

The most important thing to remember when developing your AdWords structure is that organization is key to making the most of your PPC account.  Account structure and organization will affect your quality score and dictate how your account performs as a whole on the search engines.  Now let’s get to it!

Choosing Your Campaigns and Ad Groups

There are many ways to create a useful account structure.  Your campaigns should be segmented by higher-level ideas so that you can drill down into more tightly themed ad groups and keywords.  Consider the following ways to segment your campaigns:

• Based on the products and services you offer
• Based on geographical location
• Based on performance and bidding
• Based on brand names vs. generic names
• Based on seasonality of your service or product
• Based on keyword match types (you can also segment this way on an ad group level too.)

Make sure that your ad groups follow suit and are relevant to the campaigns you have chosen.  Having a campaign about handbags and associating ad groups focused on shoes and lip-gloss is not in your best interest.  But setting up something along the lines of clutches, fanny packs and slings for your ad groups might perform better.  The point is to make your campaigns, ad groups, keywords and ads all relevant to each other within your structure.  Of course, reviewing your keyword research and lists will help you determine what kind of ad groups you will need and how you can silo those keywords for maximum performance.  It is a good rule of thumb to have around 3 to 5 ad groups per campaign so that they remain easily manageable.  You can always create more concentrated campaigns and ad groups.  For example, you could potentially have campaigns for each kind of handbag such as clutches, slings and fanny packs and break specific ad groups out from there.  Do remember that the more concentrated and organized your structure is, the better your account will perform overall.

Settings – They are kind of a big deal.

Once your campaigns and ad groups are configured with keywords, your next step is to make sure settings are correct.  This is a very important step. Having the wrong settings in your campaigns will not completely ruin your account, but it can cause a PPC Manager to have one too many “Ah ha” and “Oops” moments.

Here are some of the top settings to make sure are set properly:

Locations and Languages – In what geographical locations do you want your ad to show?  Also, are you planning to target people who speak different languages? You can change the setting here to reflect these options. Though available for the Search Network only, there are advanced location options that can be utilized for both targeting and exclusion methods.

Networks and Devices – Pretty much just what it sounds like –this section will allow you to pick where you would like your ads to show on the Internet.

• Search and Content Network –You have the choices of Google search, which is Google.com only, and the entire search network.  This will include Google.com and all of their partner sites.  For new advertisers, this is your best bet since it will get your ads out to the broadest network of viewers.  The content network can be a little tricky to manage, so if you’re a PPC rookie, I highly suggest taking it slow with these options.  For some great content network advice, read Jessica’s post about increasing visibility and relevancy.

• Devices Setting – most advertisers choose “All” for this option.  It allows you to show on desktop computers as well as laptops and mobile devices with full browser capability.  This information can be segmented in AdWords and in time, you may choose to break out separate mobile campaigns.  Before you do, read Amy’s post to get you started!

Bidding and Budget – Arguably, this is the most important setting.  If you set your daily budgets too high, you can blow through your entire month’s budget like a hurricane.  If you set the daily budget too low, your account runs the risk of not spending all of the monthly budget.  Either way, you are not allowing your account to reach it’s full potential.  Lurking quietly somewhere in the middle is the perfect daily budget.  The best way to determine this is to take your total budget, divide it by the number of days in the month and then split out that number amongst your campaigns.  Once the account is running, you will have a better idea of how your campaigns are spending their budgets and can reallocate accordingly!  It is always best to set your budgets at a level you can afford and are comfortable with.  As for bidding settings, the best way to start out is to Focus on Clicks and Manually bidding for clicks.  This choice allows you to have more control over your money.  Don’t be afraid to experiment with the other bidding options, eventually, but wait until your account gains the needed data to make these decisions.

Advanced Settings – the ad delivery option is what you should worry about in this section.  You can show your ads in a rotating fashion, which will allow Google to show them more evenly.  This is the preferred method since it makes a/b testing for your ad copy easier and it also offers better control over your metrics.  Other options include Optimizing for clicks (this is the default – change it!) and Optimizing for conversions.  This setting is not to be confused with the Delivery Method setting in the Bidding and Budget area.  You do want to change the delivery method to Standard, which will show the ads evenly over time and not spend your budget all in one swoop!

These are just the basics of getting started.  There is a lot to learn, but don’t feel overwhelmed.  Like any worthwhile shopping spree, running a PPC account is a never-ending process that takes patience, organization and a little luck when you first start out.

So do you feel empowered to start your account now?  You are almost there!  You’ve got a great outfit, the perfect handbag and now you need the boots to do the walking!  Join us tomorrow for Writing Effective PPC Ads – the 3^rd installment of our series, Starting An AdWords Account From Scratch.

Want more fast PPC management tips and advice? Check out our latest episodes of Ticker Tuesday:

Ticker Tuesday 8: Are You Sure You’re Optimized For PPC Mobile?

In this episode of Ticker Tuesday, we walk through how to optimize for PPC mobile in your Google AdWords ads.

Ticker Tuesday 7: New Ideas For Pay Per Click Ads

In this episode of Ticker Tuesday, we give you new ideas to help improve your PPC advertising ad content, especially in Google AdWords.

Ticker Tuesday 6: Fixing PPC Problems With Keyword Match Types

In this episode of Ticker Tuesday, we have keyword suggestions for how to fix problems in your PPC account.

Ticker Tuesday 5: Setting Up Data Feeds In Google Merchant Center

In this episode of Ticker Tuesday, we take you through what to be especially careful of when setting up a feed on Google Merchant Center.

Ticker Tuesday 4: Understanding adCenter’s Quality Score

In this episode of Ticker Tuesday, we discuss how adCenter’s Quality Score works, and how it differs from Google AdWords’s Quality Score.

For even more videos, check out PPC Hero’s Video Blog Category!

Check out our other PPC how-to videos:

PPC Management For Large Accounts

In this PPC how-to, Hanapin Marketing's search engine marketers discuss how to manage large pay per click accounts.

How To Set Up Conversion Tracking In Google Adwords

In this how-to video, we show you how to set up conversion tracking in Google AdWords, and then how to make sure it's up and running correctly.

For even more how-to videos, check out PPC Hero’s Video Blog Category!

Transcript:

Hello and welcome to PPC Hero’s video tutorials. Today we’re going to be talking about how to set up conversion tracking in Google AdWords. So, let’s get started.

The first thing you’re going to want to do is log into your Google AdWords account.  Now, you don’t need to have any of your campaigns running to set up conversion tracking, but you do need to have the account set up. So we’re going to go to our Reporting and Tools tab, and click on Conversions from the drop-down menu. We’ll then go into creating a new conversion.  There is a new conversion button with a blue plus sign: press that, and it will ask you to name a new conversion. You’re going to want to name this as close to the conversion you want as possible; so here you can see we have a submit a contact form, which would be a good conversion name. However, for the purpose of this video, I’m going to call it Test 3, and choose it’s tracking purpose as other.  I will press “Save and Continue”, and Google is going to take me to the Code tab.

In the code tab, it’s going to first ask me what page security level we have, and there are two choices: HTTP, and HTTPS.  HTTPS means that you have SSL security on your page.  A lot of sites that are set up to take money have this on their sites, so e-Commerce especially. Today, however, we’re working with a website that does not take money from the website, so we will choose HTTP.  You can also put in revenue for your conversion here. So let’s say you have research that shows that every time you get a proposal submitted, you usually get about $100. So that would be a good amount to put in here, so you can better learn to prioritize and plan your marketing schemes. So we’re not going to put that in today, but do keep it in mind.

The next thing Google is going to offer…ask you to do is to set up your tracking indicator settings.  This lets people know that you and Google are tracking their information of when they go online to make a conversion. Now, Google highly suggests that you do this, and they even provide you with two different with small text boxes with different color options. However, if you have the viewer tracking information in your privacy policy you do not need to do this, as long as it is clearly marked in that privacy policy, so we are going to click None because the page we’re working with has this in their privacy policy. I’m going to press save and get the code now, and Google has generated it.

Now here’s the part that a lot of people get a little worried about, about where to put the conversion tracking code. Now I’ll show you: it’s not too hard.  I have pulled up a text file of the code for my conversion page, landing page, here. And you can see that it looks pretty daunting, especially for people who are not developers. However, all I am going to need to do is to put the tracking code at the bottom, between my body tags. So, I am going to copy the code, go into my text editor; you can see that we have the body text all the way to down here.  I’m going to want to go to the bottom, to where I can see the </body>.  This is not the footer, mind you, but bottom of the page. I am going to copy and save my conversion code into the page here, and then upload it onto the website and the conversion tracking will be in.

The one tricky part that you really want to watch out for, is that you are going to want to put this code not on the page with the conversion button, but on the page someone reaches after they click that conversion button. So let me show you an example. let’s say this is our landing page: I got here after clicking on an ad…after putting in a search query and then clicking on an ad. I have now entered all my information and I am going to request a proposal. So this is the page where we do not want the tracking code to be on.  So I click on Request A Proposal, and I am taken to this page…this page that thanks me for doing my conversion. This is the page where the conversion code will be, where you want to put it. It’s actually a fairly simple concept, conversion coding – conversion tracking. It just says that there are certain pages that can only be reached once you’ve made a conversion – usually an order confirmation page, or a thank you page – and that is where you want your conversion tracking to go.

So, now that we have the conversion tracking implemented, there are a few ways to check that it is working. Let’s walk through these really quickly.

Let’s say that I’ve already uploaded the conversion tracking, as this page already has. One way to check would be to view the page source. So I’m going to double-click on the page, and scroll down to View Page Source. It will take me to a page that shows all the coding in HTML format. I will scroll down to the bottom, to see whether or not I can see the Google tracking code. And here it is right here.  You can see it says Google Code for Submit Contact Form Conversion Page, which is what I named that code, and it is above the < /body>, right where it should be. So that’s the easiest way to check to see if it’s in, and that’s the way the Google suggests.

Another way to check is to see if on your landing page you can see the tracking indicator here, if you opted to show that.  And the final way is a little expensive for you, but you can go through, and click on your ad, and make a conversion – a test conversion.  Make sure everyone who manages the account knows that this conversion is not   from an outside source, but is from you. Then, after you log into Google AdWords, you will see the conversion from your ad right in the viewing window. Now, sometimes this takes 24 hours to propagate, so make sure that if you don’t see it, you give it enough time to register.

And that’s all it is for conversion tracking!  Now, conversion tracking is exceptionally important when you are working with a PPC account, so I hope this tutorial has been helpful, and stay tuned for more tutorials from PPC Hero and Hanapin Marketing.

Thank you for tuning in to Hanapin Marketing’s video blog. For more information about the pay per click industry, check out our blog at PPCHero.com, and our Twitter account, @ppchero.

Check out other video tutorials from PPC Hero:

PPC Hero Video Blog 1: Optimizing Your Landing Page

This instructional how-to video discusses landing page optimization for PPC.

PPC Hero Video Blog 3: The Contextual Targeting Tool

This instructional how-to video reviews the Contextual Targeting Tool by Google AdWords.