Dynamic insertion is a great strategy because, if used correctly, it has many benefits.  You can use the same ad to make several, very targeted ads.  You can also update and revise these ads in a snap, when needed.  On top of that, according to a study by Advertising.com, inserting the exact keyword into a paid listing improves CTR by 38% on average.  This makes sense because if you list something such as price in your ad, they won’t waste their time, or your money, by clicking if they aren’t interested.

How is Bing’s dynamic insertion different than Google?

While Google and Yahoo use {KeyWord:Your Default Text Here},  Bing uses {keyword}, {param1},{param2}, and {param3}.  With the variety that Bing offers, you can better target ads.  Use as many parameters as possible to make ads unique and targeted.

Can you explain the different types of dynamic text that Bing uses?

1. Keyword {keyword}: puts keyword matched to a query in your ad title, text, display URL, or destination URL, NOT the query
2. Destination URL: upload {param1} as the destination URL for your ad copy, assign each keyword its own landing page
3. Placeholder {param2}, {param3}: insert these into ad title, text, or display URL, then assign a {param2} & {param3} value for each keyword.

How to use dynamic insertion in Bing

Simple! When creating an ad in Bing, click ‘Insert dynamic text’ conveniently located under the ad title, ad text, display URL, and Destination URL boxes.  Then click placeholder {param2}.  If you would like to use more parameters, simply repeat the procedure.

Great, but how do I set my parameters?

Head on over to the keywords tab and scroll down to the table on the bottom.   There, you’ll have the option of filling in a destination URL and two parameters for each keyword.  Word of the wise: keep things consistent. I.E. put an adjective in parameter two and a price in parameter 3.  You definitely don’t want to accidentally create a jumbled ad because you couldn’t remember which keyword had which parameter.

*REMEMBER the same character limits apply.  It can be tricky, because the parameters will each allow up to 70 characters but the ad title still cannot exceed 25 characters and the ad text cannot exceed 70 limits.  If you accidentally exceed these limits, your ad will not show, so be aware of the length of your keywords before utilizing dynamic insertion.

Is there a way to get around the character limit?

Why yes, yes there is.  You can insert default text so that if your parameters are too long for the ad, the default text will be inserted and the ad will still show. . You can define defaults for all types of dynamic text: {keyword:default}, {param1:default}, {param2:default} and {param3:default}. For example, if you want people to see “All roses are on sale and fresh” when a {param2} or {param3} variable causes your ad text to exceed the limits, type your ad text like this: All roses are {param2:on sale} and {param3:fresh}.

Default text only works when the original parameter is too long so, if possible, It might be a good idea to create a few different templates so that you don’t have an ad that looks really short when your keywords are small..  Of Course, that depends if the ad group has long or short keywords that which would allow for such a template.

To be mindful of your keyword lengths, its easy to do a =len() character count in excel to determine the max keyword length in an ad group.  Hint: this formula is also useful for making sure your ads fit in the character count.

All of the words in the ad start with a capital letter, but my keywords are all lowercase.   With dynamic insertion, can I capitalize the first letter of each in my ad?

You can!  If you’ve already uploaded lowercase keywords into your account and they have history, it’s probably not a good idea to edit them in a way that would make them lose history.  The good news is: you can use parameter two to capitalize dynamic text. Here’s how:

In the ads file, click on any cell within the sheet and type the command Ctrl+H. This will bring up the Find/Replace dialog box. Enter in the text you want to replace, in this case, you want to remove “{keyword” and replace it with “{param2”:

Hit “Replace All” to change all matching values in the document. Once all the “{keyword” values are replaced, save this updated ads file for upload. In the keywords file, click on the cell containing your first keyword on row 1 and then hit Shift+Ctrl+? (down arrow) to highlight all text within that column. Copy it and paste it into any empty column at the far right of the sheet. In this example, I’m using column P, starting with row 2:

Now, highlight the cell to the right of your first keyword, as shown above. Type the equals sign (=) in it and then go to the drop down menu shown above where it says “Q2” and look for the option entitled “PROPER”. If you don’t see it, begin typing it in that field and it will appear. Once you have that selected, a dialog box will appear asking you for a value for “Text”. Enter in the location of the first instance of the text you want capitalized. In this example, it’s P2… column P, row 2:

Hit “OK” and you’ll find that in row Q, there is now a copy of the value of P2, only it’s capitalized:

In order to have this formula repeat for all values in column P, simply grab the tiny black box (your pointer will turn into a plus sign when you’re hovering over it) that appears in the lower right hand corner of the highlighted cell of Q2 and drag it all the way down to the last cell that’s adjacent to your last keyword:

Now all you have to do is copy these capitalized keywords (Ctrl+C), select the first empty cell under the Param2 column of your keyword sheet and then use “Paste Values” from the “Paste” drop down menu:

Your capitalized keywords will appear in the Param2 column and should mirror all the terms in your keywords column exactly. Once this is done, delete the 2 columns you used for the PROPER capitalization formula as they’re no longer necessary. You now have your updated keyword sheet ready for upload.

Upload the updated copies of the ads and keywords sheets and now you’ll find that when you search for your ad that all dynamic terms are showing as capitalized.

So now that we’re all comfortable with using Bing’s dynamic keyword insertion, what are you waiting for?  If you have any other questions, leave a comment and I would be more than happy to get back to you.

Start by doing an audit of your ads. If you have been running your campaign for more than a year, you are probably more than due for a little makeover. By audit, I don’t just mean writing a few new ads and pausing any that are underperforming.  I mean a deep dive – look at not only your ads but also those from competitors and other companies in your industry. If you typed in a few of your high traffic keywords, do you have a good idea of the types of messages that would show up along side your ad? If not, it is time to take a step back and look at the big picture.

One of my clients has several divisions of products and PPC campaigns for each. The divisions are all interrelated but each unique in one way or another. I recently went through an exercise where I compared the ads from each of the divisions to look for similarities and differences to find new opportunities. It was interesting when comparing the stats that the division with the highest click through rate had approached their ads completely differently than all the others. In one case all the divisions had used a question in the headline, except one. That division had double the click through rate of the others, resulting in a better quality score and lower cost per click. When you look at things in a silo (by one campaign, ad group or even client) you can see that one ad is out performing the others but if they all have similar headlines (or use a similar “formula” for instance questions in the headlines) you don’t really know how much better it could be doing.  It was an interesting exercise to go through which led me to realize it was time for an audit and makeover to see if I could do better.

After you conduct your audit of what others are doing, compare that to what is in your account. Identify some new areas to try – if all of your headlines are statements, then try a few questions. Do you regularly have sales but don’t have the offer in your ads? Test it out! Before you start writing, think about why someone would choose your brand over another. This shouldn’t be why you want them to buy your product, but think about it from the consumer’s perspective – why should they care? Ads should be benefit driven. Things like product quality, customer service, prices, selection, etc. can be a better sell to a consumer. Think about benefits that you can offer than no one else can, and work that into your ad.

So you know what others are up to, how alike or different your ads are and you have a list of benefits you can use in your ads. NOW you are ready to write! Here are some general tips to help you get started with your new approach.

1. If possible, highlight more than one benefit but don’t over do it. An ad that says “Great products! Best Selection! Free Shipping!” has plenty of benefits but it feels like an ad is a little over the top. There isn’t enough substance to go around it – try to strike a balance and get the consumer interested.

2. When writing a headline, think about it as a billboard. We all see thousands of ads a day – online, driving to work and watching TV. You know what has grabbed your attention, think about why that is and apply the logic to your text ads.  Explain why you are better than the competition but keep it short, sweet and to the point. You get less than a second to make your first impression.

3. Include a call-to-action.  Tell the user what exactly you want them to do. Is it download a free guide, learn more, see a specific product, etc.  The user should understand from your ad what they are going to find on the landing page.

4. Make sure your landing page pays off the ad. If you talk about a specific product, in the ad, that product should be featured on the landing page.  Use landing page best practices to help improve your landing pages and increase conversions.

5. Follow the rules so your ad is approved right away. Keep in mind character counts as well as basic rules like you can only use one exclamation point per ad.  Stay away from things like “most”, “best”, or “biggest” as these claims aren’t allowed. After you load your ads, go back a short while later and check for disapproved ads just to be sure your ad groups are running.

6. Dynamic Keyword Insertion (DKI) can work if used correctly.  While DKI doesn’t always work, if done correctly you can see success. Use it only in very specific ads and with ad groups that are pretty narrow. It is worth testing in a few ad groups to see if it boosts your click-through rate.

A few other tips – in Google, update the ad serving preferences on the settings tab to “rotate” instead of “optimize.” This will allow you to conduct pure A/B test and run both ads evenly. If the setting is on “optimize” Google will automatically run the ad with the higher click-through rate more often as it is the better performer. Your second ad won’t ever have a chance of succeeding.

Also, test many different ads but not too many. Ad groups shouldn’t run more than 3-4 ads at a time unless you have extremely high traffic. The more ads you run, the longer it will take to get enough accurate data to make a solid conclusion on the success of the ad.

It is important to try different things – put a question in the headline, try using only benefits without a call to action, try an offer or discount in the ad, etc. There are many different combinations to test and see what works best. It is very easy to get stuck in a pattern and sometimes it takes a look from the outside to notice what everyone else has been seeing all long. Making a few small changes to your ads could be the difference between a first date and a door in your face.

To really know how an ad is performing, you have to compare it to an ad that is being served to the same audience. Different ad groups have different keywords, and their users have different search intent. You know that has to impact CTR and conversion rate, people, but lots of us try and test across ad groups anyway. If you’re going to, mitigate the damage by having ALL of the same ads running in the same ad groups so that when you compile statistics each ad text will have an equal chance at traffic, and ensure they at least all go to the same landing page. But yeah, a test is really only valid within its ad group. I’m not saying we haven’t made successful broader generalizations from cross-ad-group testing, however.

Your ads, they have to be on rotate, not optimize, or they won’t receive the same proportion of traffic. This seems obvious, but hey.

You can’t make decisions without statistically valid data. I’ve seen the recommendation that you should choose how many ads to test in your ad groups according to the formula (ad groups # clicks per month)/100, and that seems reasonable to me. You don’t want your test to take a year to run, and it will take that long to get valid data if you run too many ads for your traffic. Use a tool like this statistical validity test to determine if your ads have enough data in comparison with one another to choose a winner. This is especially important in the case of an ad which has been running longer than another and therefore will have substantially more data available.

To make a valid test, you need to try to keep keywords and landing pages as consistent as possible throughout the ad text test. This is why I said sometimes our desire to optimize gets in the way of our desire to test- we want to add modified broad match keywords! We want to change the headline on the landing page!  We wanna use Website Optimizer! But we’re going to screw our ad text test up, and that’s something we’re going to have to keep in mind.

After we remember all of those important little details, to further confuse and enlighten us I’ve attached an excel file which can be used for developing and tracking ad text testing. In the first tab, you can list the various headlines, description lines, display URLs, and landing pages you plan to test. In the second tab, I’ve given examples of the number of ads that would be required to test various combinations of elements. In the third and fourth tabs, there are record-keeping charts in which various combinations can be recorded with or without data for easier analysis later, as tracking ad text changes within the PPC interfaces can be…tricky. You may find this to be the most horrible ad text testing planner ever, but it’s helped me out and I figured I’d share!

PPC Ad Text Testing Template

1. Get your brand name out there – the content network can help deliver a lot of impressions but it is sometimes more challenging to get a click. When writing your ads, don’t forget to put your brand name in the headline or ad itself to capitalize on all of those impressions. Even if a user doesn’t click, they may have noticed your brand name so if they see another placement in the future, they recognize it as something familiar.

2. Consider your audience – do a little research on where you are appearing within the content network, and then customize your ads for these audiences. Keep in mind you may have multiple audiences depending on the range of sites you are on. For instance, if you are selling bicycles, you may be appearing on bike enthusiast or race sites. The people seeing your ad are already in the bike mindset, so make sure you speak their language. On the flipside, if you are appearing on mail.google.com you have a much wider audience. You could appear next to an email about little Susie’s new bike, so speaking the language of a professional cyclist isn’t going to resonate. Spending a little time getting to know where you are showing up and understanding who might see your ad can improve your click-through rates.

3. Research your competitors, then be different – who you are competing with on the content network could be very different than who you are typically up against. Because the content network is based on keyword themes you may show up next to companies or brands outside of your product offering. See what others are putting in their ads and then make sure you are different. A few minutes of research could mean greater success.

4.  Avoid Dynamic Keyword Insertion (DKI) in headlines – because users aren’t necessarily searching for your brand when on the content network, DKI doesn’t work as well as it can in traditional search programs. If you do have an ad with KWI running in the content network, Google will choose a keyword from your ad group and randomly insert it, which may make your ad less relevant.

5. Place your domain name in your headline – consider testing if your domain is self-explanatory and short. For instance if you sell bicycles and your URL is NatesBikeShop.com, putting your domain name in your headline may prove to be successful. If your site is Wheels.com, you may not have as much success as your website could have many different things on it. When people read through websites, they often look for links. Because the headline of an ad is underlined, your headline or domain name could look like a link. It is something to test although there isn’t much data out there proving it works or doesn’t.

6. Call-to-action becomes even more important – try using call-to-action phrases such as ‘register now’ or ‘get a free quote’ to create a sense of urgency. Your user is passively searching; they don’t have an urgent need they are trying to fill. Give them a reason to click now rather than later but make sure you fulfill the claim you are making within the landing page. If your call to action is to register for a conference, make sure the registration form is on the landing page so the user isn’t required to click through further into the site.

7. Test multiple forms of ads – the Google Content Network allows you to use image ads and video ads in addition to traditional ad text. Try something new and see if adding a visual helps your click-through or conversion rate. Image and video ads can only run on the content network and are only allowed in certain placements, but it may be worth testing.

Image Ads

Image ads (a.k.a. banner ads) are run on the content network, and they are a great way to add an additional variable to your ad testing, and reach your customers in a new way. Here are some of the basics that you should know before deciding whether or not you should include image ads in your marketing strategy.

• Image ads can be created for both keyword-targeted and placement-targeted campaigns.
• Your image ads will not show up on every site within the content network, because owners have to opt-in to allowing them. In order to ensure that your ads always have a chance of showing, have a text ad for every image ad.
• Animated ads are allowed for both keyword-targeted and placement-targeted campaigns.
• The image file cannot exceed 50k.
• You can create an image ad in both the Google interface and the desktop tool.
• There are multiple size options for image ads, and you can visit the Google help center to see a full listing of the accepted image ad sizes.
• RGB color format is recommended, because some display devices may not accept CMYK formatting, and the process of reformatting the image (called color matching) is complicated, and has the potential of just showing a broken link instead.
• Use the placement tool to determine which image formats a site allows, so you can be sure that your ads will show on those specific sites.
• In order to include your site URL and a feedback URL, Google may resize your image vertically, but never horizontally. If you want to keep the original proportions, create your ads using these resized formats.

Bidding Structure

The bidding structure for image ads is the same as text, and it allows you to set your bids and daily budgets. When working with image ads, be aware that bids are generally higher than those for text ads, but smart pricing still applies. You can choose either CPC or CPM bidding, but a CPM bid is for a placement-targeted campaign only, and those bids tend to be even higher, because you are vying for a specific position. No matter the type of targeting or ad you use, be sure that your budget is set accordingly, and put in the time it takes to continuously optimize you campaigns to ensure that you are spending your budget as effectively as possible.

If you decide that image ads are worth testing, follow these steps to get started in the Google interface:

1. Create a new content network only campaign. It is easier to analyze the success of your campaigns when you keep search and content separate.
2. Adjust your campaign settings. Choose whether you would like to have your campaign be keyword-targeted or placement-targeted. This is also where you will set your Max CPC bids, and daily budgets.
3. Create your ad groups. Remember to keep your ad groups tightly themed, just as you would in a search campaign.
4. Determine the size of your ad. Evaluate the sites that you are going to be targeting to determine the size of ads you want to display for optimal results.
5. Create your ads. Some sites do not allow image ads, so be sure to create a text ad that corresponds with each image ad so you can be sure your advertisements are being shown. This will also help you determine the success of your image ads in comparison to text ads.
   1. You can have both an image and a text ad running in the same ad group. If you have both, Google will determine which is the best option to show on the site.
   2. Your image name should be descriptive, and it’s recommended to use the campaign and ad group as well so you can easily identify the ad in reports, and the image will be better matched with content sites.
   3. Monitor your ads. Within the AdWords interface, you can run an ad performance report for your image ads to monitor their success, and make informed decisions for optimizations.

Image ads can be a great way to engage your customers and stand out on a page. Our eyes tend to gravitate toward images over text, so if you want to make an impact on your customers, especially on sites that are competitive, image ads might be a great way to go. As with any ad, always be sure to test, test, and test again! By not only testing image ads against each other, but also against text ads, you be able to gather enough data to determine whether or not image ads are a profitable way to expand your reach.

1.  Make Sure Keyword Research is Always the First Step
Whenever beginning a PPC campaign for a new product or site, explore as many keywords and themes as possible.  Do extensive research on the product, the industry or market in which it competes and the products it competes with.  When in doubt, ask for help.

2.  Always Test More than One Ad
Never run a campaign with only one ad.  Why?  Because it leads to missed opportunities for improvement.  Just changing a couple words in the ad text or title line can sometimes result in significant differences in click-through or conversion rates.

3.  Focus on Specific Goals/Metrics
The broad goal is always “As much as possible,” but it’s always easier to optimize for specific goals.  It’s most effective to pick a couple particular goals – i.e., increase CTR by 3% & reduce cost per order by 5% – and focus on optimizing for them.

4.  Analyze, Optimize, Repeat
Optimization is a constant process.  Don’t get complacent, don’t assume past success will lead to future success without adjustments, and don’t ever stop analyzing keyword and ad copy performance.

5.  Read Everything
The optimization tips from your Google or Bing rep, PPC tips from PPC Hero, SEO ideas from SEO Boy, industry news from Search Engine Watch… Never miss an opportunity to learn something new.

That’s all I’ve got today.  I hope I was at least a little helpful for some of you in the PPC world in 2009, and I look forward to being just a little helpful again in 2010.
Happy New Year!

Within the confines of a PPC ad text you need to be relevant to your keywords, list as many benefits as possible, be unique and stand out from your competition, and include a clear call-to-action. As you strive to to incorporate all of these tactics into your ad texts you shouldn’t loose site of the fact that you’re trying to connect with real people.

While monitoring your click-through rate and conversion rate, also the time-on-site, pages per visitor, percent of new vs. return visitors and a plethora of other available stats, you need to remember that these numbers represent people. These stats are numerical representations of how well you have connected with your target audience, and the individuals who make up your audience.

Paid search marketing, and marketing in general, is all about making the right connections with the right people. People have hopes, dreams, needs, fears, likes, dislikes, and the list goes on and on. Your PPC ad texts should address these core concerns.

Often, when writing PPC ads, we focus on why some should click on your ad. A core concern/emotion that is often neglected is fear (or perhaps apathy). You should also take into consideration why someone wouldn’t click on your ad. What keeps someone from clicking on your ad?

This is the great thing about search marketing: someone is searching for you (or someone like you). Don’t take this for granted; you have to take the next step to convince them that they’ve found exactly what they’re looking for.

When optimizing your ad text performance you should think about this: if a user searches on a keyword that is relevant to your products/services, and they see your ad copy (which is keyword-focused and benefit-driven) but they don’t click on your ad. Seems like everything should be in place. So, what fears or concerns is holding a user back? Unfortunately, I don’t have a magic ball to tell you why a specific user, or group of users, aren’t attracted to your ad.

Of course, the best to way find out what works is to split test your PPC ad copy. However, before you write copy to test, you need to meditate on what your audience is looking for. How does your product/service solve their current problem and what can you say in your ad text that will talk to your audience’s core concerns?

The answers to these questions will be different for every advertiser. However, once you have developed a few ideas, molded them into new PPC ad texts, then I wholly suggest that you split test your ads to see if you’ve addressed these issues.

This brings us back to stats. Yes, that which I earlier suggested you step away from to get some perspective, I suggest that you turn to when learning if you’ve improved ads. This is the best way to know if you’ve enhanced your messaging. So, this is a rough outline of the process:

1. Think about your customer’s core emotional concerns
2. Review the ad texts you have running now
3. Meditate on why certain ads have the best response rate
4. Meditate on why certain ads are failing
5. Think about why someone would *not* click on your ad
6. Review your competitors’ ads
7. Write new ads that address these concerns
8. Launch your new ad texts
9. Monitor the performance of your ads
10. Repeat the process and continue to refine your messaging

And the same goes for your landing page. We haven’t even touched on landing pages! You should think in similar terms for your landing pages as well. But that is another article for another time.

It could come down to the fact that your competitors are talking to your audience with more success. Reviewing your competition to see what they have to say could be very enlightening. And it could be that the majority of users aren’t finding what they want at all.

The 95 characters within a PPC ad text (not including the display URL) can be very complicated. The success of your campaign hinges on your ability to appeal to your audience on numerous levels. Be the solution to your audience’s problem/query, address their concerns, and you’re well on your way to success.

Inspired by a PPC Hero reader submission, this post will review some pitfalls that you need to be careful of when using dynamic keyword insertion.

Pitfall #1: Entering the DKI Code Wrong

Both beginners and experienced pay-per-click managers can fall victim to an incorrect keystroke. Whether it is a misspelling, missing space, or extra punctuation, most of us are guilty. However, when it comes to dynamic keyword insertion, a wrong keystroke can make the difference between a highly targeted ad text and ad spam. You have to be very careful how you type in the code. With one mistake your ads will end up irrelevant and in this case, spammy.

In the example below, the manager incorrectly entered the DKI code by adding an extra space before the colon. So the DKI code was entered in as {keyword :Eligo} versus {keyword:Eligo}. That extra space before the colon makes all the difference. When you enter the DKI code, confirm that there are no errors by taking the time to double check your work.

Pitfall #2: Misspellings in Ad Text

Bidding on misspelled keywords is an age-old practice for pay-per-click. But when you are using DKI with misspelled terms, those keywords are going to end up in your ads. In this example, all of these accounts were bidding on ‘chilrens’ to capitalize on a common keystroke mistake in search queries. For all three advertisers, their ads utilized DKI for headlines and the misspelling ended up in the title.

No matter how targeted and relevant you ad is, having a misspelled keyword in the headline or description will automatically hurt your credibility. To avoid this, restructure your pay-per-click account so all misspelled keywords have their own ad group… and don’t use DKI in this ad group!

Pitfall #3: Using DKI for Broad Match Keywords

In the cases below, the pay-per-click managers have combined DKI with broad match keywords. So when a searcher types in ‘Obama’ or ‘Leg Amputees’ they are served ads that are both irrelevant and confusing. Correct me if I am wrong, but I am certain that the Secret Service would not approve the transaction if I tried to purchase President Obama at an online bookstore.

The goal of using DKI is to serve highly relevant targeted ad text based on search query. Relevancy is hard to achieve with broad match keywords because you have a lot less control of when an ad is served. Do not use DKI when you are running broad match keywords. In many cases your ad text is going to end up with non-relevant terms.

If your ad texts look similar to the examples above, then you ad groups are too broad to begin with. Make sure your ad groups are structured properly for DKI so that every keyword in the ad group can appear in your ad text. Also consider your match type. DKI is best implemented in conjunction with exact match terms. By using exact match, you can define the keywords that will appear in your ads, and tailor the ad copy so it remained relevant across multiple search queries.

Pitfall #4: Creating Generic Ads

Formatting is crucial to creating relevant ad text using DKI. I often see DKI headlines that use only one keyword like our example below. This means the entire headline is one word, when is not optimal when you have 25 characters to work with. These headlines often look spammy, and in most cases, do not have high click-through rates.

Boost your headline relevancy by including another keyword similar to the example below. Of course, this format assumes that your ad groups are structured properly. If you cannot achieve something similar, then you need to consider restructuring your campaigns into more targeted ad groups.

Now you know some of the common pitfalls for using dynamic keyword insertion. Always remember, DKI should be used with extreme caution. It should only be used in the case of giving relevancy an extra boost. It should not be the crutch of your pay-per-click campaign. But when you decide to use it, make sure you don’t fall victim to these pitfalls!

For more examples on improper uses of dynamic keyword insertion, check the Your PPC Sucks blog.

I typically like to include as many benefits in my PPC ad texts as possible. Whether a client is offering free shipping, or free returns, or even free estimates/quotes, those ads will typically get the higher click-through rate therefore helping to increase my Quality Score.

One thing I have tried here recently is putting in customer testimonials into my clients’ ad text. I pulled the testimonials right off their website and incorporated them into my Google ads. They’ve been running for almost a month now and one ad has a click-through rate of 9.33% which is 20% higher than the average of my other two ads.

A few other ads I’m testing with the testimonials in them have only been running for a few weeks, but have already exceeded the best performing ad in that ad group. It’s important when you’re testing ads to give them plenty of time to generate enough traffic for a statistically valid sample size. .

If you’re trying to test different messaging in your ads to increase your click-through rates, be sure to check your campaign settings and set your ad delivery settings to ‘rotate’ and not ‘optimize’. Having it set to optimize Google will show only your best performing ad which doesn’t allow you to test your other ads evenly.

Since Quality Score is mainly based off of your click through rates, I would recommend testing all kinds of different messaging in your PPC ads. Try looking at your competitors, and find benefits for your company that can set you apart. Try adding testimonials, offers, phone numbers etc. What may not work for one person may work well for another. It’s up to you to test it and try it out for yourself!

The PPC Hero team frequently receives questions from readers regarding ad serving issues in Google. So, I have compiled a handy top 10 list of reasons why your ads may not be showing in Google. Start from the top and work your way down. By the end, you should (hopefully) see activity in your AdWords account.

1. Campaign/Ad Group Paused. A fundamental element for any campaign, Active vs. Paused. It may seem intuitive, but just make sure your account, campaign, and ad group settings are set to the Active setting.
2. Billing Information Issue. Review your account billing information to confirm it is correct (credit card number, expiration, address, etc.). If Google has any issue with billing, it will not serve your ads.
3. Daily Budget Not Set. Check your campaign daily budgets to make sure it is set above $0. Your ads will not run if you have no dedicated daily budgets within each campaign.
4. Keyword Bids Exceed Daily Budget. Your keyword bids may be too high for your daily budget. For example, if your keyword max cost-per-click is $4.00 and your campaign daily budget is only $10, then Google will not show your ads. If this is the case, just lower bids and/or increase your daily budget.
5. Low Search Volume. If you are not getting any impressions on your ads, it could be due to low search volume for your targeted keywords. Google will note low volume keywords within the “Keywords” tab in the interface. If your find that your keywords have a low search volume, use the Google Adwords Keyword Tool to find related keywords with higher search volume.
   
6. Disapproved Ads. If your ad text does not adhere to Google’s ad text policy, then your ads will be disapproved. When you sign up for email alerts, Google will send you an email if any ad text is disapproved. If you disabled email account alerts, then you can manually check your ad approvals in the interface. To find if your ads have been disapproved, login to your Adwords account and click on the Campaign Management tab. Then click on Disapproved Ads under the Analyze Your Ad Performance section. This useful Disapproved Ads Tool will tell you the when, what, where, and why’s for disapproved ad text. It will also provide suggestions for improving your ad text.
7. Disapproved Keywords. AdWords also reviews and approves your campaign keywords.  If the keywords fall under AdWords prohibited content. Google AdWords does not permit advertising products and websites related to firearms, drugs, cigarettes, pornography, hard alcohol, fireworks, and more.
8. Negative Keywords. Adding negative keywords to your campaigns is a good idea, but you have to be careful, especially when using broad match. Review your negative keyword list. Make sure that you have not added negative keywords at the campaign or ad group level that nullify your keywords within any given ad group.
9. Position Preference Is Preventing Ad Serving. In theory, position preference is a great tool when you want to control where your ads appear in Sponsored Search rankings. But if your keyword bids are not set correctly, the position preference tool can stop serving your ads. According to our Google rep:

   “Position preference instructs the AdWords system to try showing your ad whenever it’s ranked in your preferred position and avoid showing it when it is not. It does not mean that your ad will appear in the position you specify for every single search on your keyword. If you broaden your position preference, you’ll see that the keyword will trigger the ad.”

   So, if your bids are too high or too low for the selected position, your ads will not be served. The Google position preference tool will only show your ad when you qualify for the designated position. To fix this, either turn position preference off, or expand your preference to include more positions.

10. Patience. If all else fails, sometimes it is best to wait. Google ad text and keyword approvals can take up to five days. When you submit your ad text and keywords, you are entered into the Google review and approvals queue. If it has been more than five days, contact a Google rep to see if your keywords and ads have been approved. Here is a related post about reasons why your ads aren’t showing in Google.

If you have worked through this entire list and still don’t see results, then it is time to contact your Google rep. Your account may have bigger problems than bids, budgets and ad text approvals.

Have you encountered any other issues with ad serving in Google? Please leave a comment and share them with us!