Brittany Lynch

A lot of people ask me what type of advertising do I use? Do I just use AdWords ? Do I use other search engines? What about other traffic sources? So I thought today I’d discuss a bit about my ‘traffic portfolio’.

Which of my readers have a traffic portfolio? By traffic portfolio I mean to say you are using a number of different sources to drive traffic to your website.

Here is what my portfolio is made of:

JV Traffic ( Affiliate promotions/webinars): 25%

AdWords: 10%

CPV: 15%

Tier3 Search Networks:10%

Organic:8%

Media Buys: 25%

Misc.: 7%

Let’s go over them.

AdWords: Not much to say here…you all know that I still have love for AdWords, but in light of the recent AdWords bannings, it just ISN’T wise to put all your eggs in one basket. If you’re using ONLY AdWords to drive traffic to your web properties, you need to change this up now because you get yourself in a tricky situation.

JV Traffic: Have your own products? Building a list? You need to be using JV Traffic. Some of my best coversions come  from JV/affiliate traffic. Check out the warriorforum to recruit partners to promote for you. If you don’t have your own product, or even your own list…and you want to make serious CONSISTENT money online, then you need to build a list…and eventually develop a product. But one thing at a time, focus on building that list.

*TIP: If you have the opportunity to run a webinar, DO IT. Webinars convert like Crazy. I generally convert anywhere from 40-65% of the people on call into buying my product. Insance conversions. I often run these with JV partners. The JV partner promotes the webinar to his/her list, I get on the call and do 50 minute content call, then pitch my product for 10 minutes. The people on the call LOVE this because they are getting high quality info, and my JV partner loves it because he/she is getting 50% comissions. Think about it Oh and if you’re interested in having me on a webinar with YOUR list do let me know: brittany@brittanylynch.com

CPV/PPV: This stands for Cost Per View or Pay Per View. I use a few networks for this traffic and have found that it is far cheaper than AdWords traffic and converts really well. The trick here is getting enough traffic with this form of advertisment. I’ll be scaling up my CPV advertisment in the future. I wouldn’t suggest starting with CPV but if you already have an AdWords account and you need to diversify I’d start looking into the various CPV networks and start an ad campaign.

Tier3Networks: Believe it or not there are other ad networks out there aside from Google, Bing and Yahoo :O GASP!. Start looking around for them. 7search.com is a great network where I have been getting excellent conversions and a reduced cost of what I’m seeing at Google. One of my students actually put me on to 7search and I’ve been using it ever since with great success.

Organic Traffic: I Don’t focus too much energy on organic traffic because personally I’d rather pay for traffic. Put a dollar in and get a few out. In my mind this is like free traffic, because I’m getting a return on my investment. The benefit to paid traffic is that you can control HOW much traffic you want and thus control your income much easier than with free traffic.

Media Buys: My favorite type of traffic. I love doing media buys. A media buy is when you go direct to another website and purchase adspace on that particular site. This is generally very cost effective and has given me great conversions. The trick here is testing several websites, and keeping an eye on your numbers so you know which sites are converting, then eliminate the sites that don’t convert and scale up your traffic and ad budget on the sites that do convert.

MISC: This is anything that doesn’t fall in the above categories, things like advertisement on large social networks sites, mobile ect.

Alright well now you know what traffic I use to drive visitors to my web properties. What do you use? What would you like to learn more about?

I’m in the processs of creating bootcamps on all of the above topics, so let me know if you’re interested in any particular topic and I’ll let you know when the first bootcamp is ready.

Cheers guys and enjoy

To your success!

Brittany

Contest Start Date: Today July 9, 2010

Contest End Date: Tuesday, July 23, 2010

Contest: Who Can Make The Most Money Through The Method Outlined In This Free Report: https://ypm.infusionsoft.com/go/proof/brittany. Daniel is also giving away an insane $539 Free Gift just for a measly $1 test-drive of his coaching program … so go check it out now as the doors may close again any time! https://ypm.infusionsoft.com/go/gogift/brittany

Contest Prize: First Prize = 3 half hour Coaching  Sessions With me.

Second Prize = 2 half hour coaching sessions with me.

First Prize = 1 half hour coaching session with me.

Need Help With AdWords? Affiliate Marketing? Building A List? Whatever you want!

Download Both Free Reports – Daniels Available In the Links Below. Mine Available In The P.S

Hey Guys,

I’ve decided to run a contest. Who doesn’t love a good old contest?

It is VERY last minute, but the best contests are last minute. Action takers are rewarded.

I decided to run a contest after I read a great free report by Daniel Wagner.  Daniel is giving the report away as part of the pre-launch of his upcoming product.

————————————————–

Click The Link To Grab Your Report!

https://ypm.infusionsoft.com/go/proof/brittany

————————————————–

Normally free reports aren’t all that good..but I can promise you that this is the best free report I’ve ever seen. Daniel could be charging upwards of $99 for this report…WHY? Because the methods outlined really CAN and WILL make you money if you put them to action.

That is the key, take action. Make some money over the next few days, and then have a coaching session with me, to take your online business to the next level.

————————————————–

Click The Link To Grab Your Report!

https://ypm.infusionsoft.com/go/proof/brittany

————————————————–

What do you have to lose?

Check out some of the testimonials from people who have taken action already:

“This report rocks!! I used your method on a product launch. I just added some traffic & I made 4 sales today!! AWESOME!! The thing is I am just a newbie! Thanks a million Mr. Wagner.” Ryan

“BRILLIANT report and I have spoken to someone who put the steps into action that NIGHT and made money in half an hour. She said she was so excited she almost stopped breathing – cos it WORKED….just like you said it would.”Eileen

“Amazing report Daniel, I love quick cash methods and this is definitely one of them ”

Go Grab The Report Now, As It will be taken down shortly!

————————————————–

Click The Link To Grab Your Report!

https://ypm.infusionsoft.com/go/proof/brittany

————————————————–

Please let me know what your results are!!! I’m looking forward to seeing how everyone does.
Cheers

Brittany

P.s Free Traffic Sources For Contest To Accompany Daniels Report

Facebook is currently the most visited site on the web.  Snapping up 35% of online traffic, this social media behemoth boasts exposure to over 400 million customers and more than half of those users return daily.  With this level of activity and loyalty, it’s no wonder that online advertising models are starting to take Facebook advertising more seriously.  Before you start a Facebook advertising campaign, there are a few things you should understand first.

#1: Facebook is not a traditional Search Engine: This statement may seem obvious but it’s important to remember as you set about developing your Facebook ad campaign.  You cannot just simply use your existing AdWords campaign material, drop it in to Facebook and expect to get the same results.  Facebook is more about the display rather than the search.  If you think about the search funnel, Facebook users from a potential customer perspective are at the head of the funnel.  Or, more appropriately they are BEFORE the head of the funnel.  Facebook users are in ‘pre-search’ mode.  They are using phrases that indicate interests in people, places or events rather than the traditional keyword search strings.

#2: Know Your Demographics: One of the best functions of Facebook advertising is its incredible demographic profiling abilities.  When you are setting up your ad, you have the ability to structure your campaign based on your traditional demographic targeting options (age, sex, location) but also keyword interest areas.  For example when some one signs up to Facebook they fill out their profile, they fill in interests, gender, job, company, fans of.., self employed versus job” Here is an example, lets say that you’re promoting an offer that is targeted to males who are self employed between the age of 30-40, you can target those settings exactly.  What this all means is, you absolutely must do your demographic research before you start this process so that you are certain to most effectively reach your audience and maximize your CTR.

#3: Be prepared to Micro-Manage: Facebook advertising is still in its infancy and as a result, there are not as many intuitive tools available as other PPC models like Google AdWords.  Be patient—they’re coming but they’re not all here just yet.  Facebook did officially go live with its “Insight Tool” on June 7, 2010.  This tracking tool provides daily information such as page visitors, fans who liked, commented, and posted to your wall.  This information is more pertinent to a specific fan Page you might have, but it is helpful in managing your demographic sets.  However, in general, be prepared for now to maintain daily contact with your ad and its performance so that you can adjust accordingly.

#4: This is one instance where recycling is bad for your ‘health’: Remember, this is not a traditional keyword based search system.  Facebook users are searching for people, places, events and things that tie these all together.  Since this is the case, you cannot expect to simply recycle your existing Google AdWords campaign and expect it to work on Facebook.  Instead, focus on creative a captivating, visually appealing ad and the user benefits.  There is a reason Facebook has the “Like” button.  If someone’s Facebook friend likes you, then you will get a boost of instant credibility.  Cater to their interests.

#5: Expect lower CTR but don’t let it get out of control: You should expect to have a lower CTR for your Facebook campaign (due to different search patterns and functionality) but don’t let it hit rock bottom before you respond.  Watching your ad performance daily (at least in the beginning) and tweaking will keep you on top of your CTR game.  Just because you can expect an initial lower CTR does not mean that you should be satisfied with poor performance.

Keep these tips in mind and you will be on your way to successfully launching your first Facebook Ad Campaign.  I’ll be watching the Facebook PPC trend very closely and keeping you up to date.

Any seasoned PPC advertiser will freely admit that not every campaign was a success.  The most successful advertisers will tell you that they took those failures, analyzed them and turned them into a success.  They accomplish this by continual analysis and testing of landing pages and advertising strategies.  You should already be reviewing conversion data but if you never do anything with that data then your conversion rate does not improve.  Failure to improve your conversion rate ends up being not only more costly for you but decreases your competitive outcomes in your niche.

Before you start testing, you need to understand the basic elements that should be considered when developing your testing strategies.  First and foremost, understand that testing has to be an integral part of your campaign—not an afterthought!  You can test using multi-variate testing or you may want to try the Taguchi method (NOTE: there are multiple people and organizations available that can perform these tests for you if you are not comfortable with doing them yourself but be prepared for the expense should you decide to go this route).  The Google Website Optimizer utilizes the basic A/B multi-variate testing method and is fairly simple to navigate for a first time user.

When testing, think about different elements that can be tested.  This part of the process is not the time to be narrow-minded.  Realize that there are multiple features of a campaign (some seemingly insignificant) that can have major impact.  Consider the following:

1. Vary the times and days your ad is running.  You may be convinced that your target audience peak time is Monday through Thursday 2 pm to 10 pm but unless you run that specific ad during other times, you really do not have a proper frame of reference.  Your audience may be shifting times or even better, you may find a new audience to target all together. 
2. Speaking of new audiences…don’t narrow your focus too much.  You want to target your audience but not at the risk of alienating another potentially stronger audience.
3. Test different dimensions of your campaign

• Creative-alter the visual appeal of your ad (color, graphics, etc.)
• “The Pen is Mightier..” Try different ad copy to see if different words trigger different (and more successful conversion behaviors)
• What is your targeting model? Are you targeting based on a list, consumer behaviors, certain triggering actions, etc.?
• Your offer-Keep in mind that different buyers are all at various phases of the sales funnel so consider testing the benefits of a financial offer vs. a process benefit (loyal customers get certain perks) as well as thinking about changing up your calls to action
• What measurement metric are you using?  Yes, a direct sale is great but it’s not the only measurement of success.  Referrals, returns, frequent visits, bookmarking, etc. are all markers of success.

I’m sure I don’t need to remind you why tweaking to maximize your conversion rate is so important but just in case: higher conversion rates mean more money in your pocket that can be used for other media outlets, product diversification, etc.  Ultimately, the key to remember is that the 40% conversion rate is not impossible but you absolutely must commit to continually testing and tweaking your ads to maximize your success.  If you are currently converting at 10%, then that means that 9 out of 10 people are completing your call to action.  IF YOU ONLY GET ONE MORE PERSON OUT OF TEN TO CONVERT YOU HAVE DOUBLED YOUR CONVERSION RATE!  So, even the slightest change can have a dramatic impact.  Stay tuned for a follow-up post where we’ll discuss how to make use of Google’s Website Optimizer in your testing strategy. 

**Bonus Tip**

Don’t forget that you should also test your autoresponders too!  Your goal is to maximize delivery and open rates.  Here are a few things you should be looking for when testing autoresponders:

• Time of day mailed out (What time seems to get the highest response?)
• Number of mailings sent in a week (are you sending too many? Too few?)
• Day of the week (e.g. Do people open more on Tuesdays but click through and convert more on Wednesday?)
• Content vs. Promotions

These are just a few ideas to get you started!

Google Ad Innovations: Analytics Intelligence (Status: Fully Released)

I thought that a discussion on Analytics was a perfect way to end this latest series on Google Ad Innovations.  After all, what good would it do to put all these cool features in play if you weren’t going to be able to see how well they were working (i.e. translating into cash flow!)? 

With Google Analytics Intelligence, http://www.google.com/analytics/analytics-intelligence.html, your website’s traffic is continually being watched for any significant changes that take place.  If something drastic happens (like your bounce rate suddenly jumping because some accidently changed a landing page), you would like to know that right?  So you would need to set up an alert.  These alerts can be customized for the information you want to see.  Within this feature are some very sophisticated algorithms that could allow you to learn of data insights or inconsistencies that you might have otherwise missed or at least not caught right away.  Aside from that, this eliminates your need to cipher through tons of data.

Analytics Intelligence filters through it for you and condenses the information you need into an easy-to-understand format that will allow you to implement an appropriate action plan much quicker. 

This is definitely a case of time=money.  Even better, there is built-in flexibility here that allows you to get data alerts on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis so it suits your needs. 

To access this tool, log in to your Google Analytics account (or create one for free if you do not already have one. Analytics Intelligence is a sub-feature within Google Analytics.  Here is where you will create your custom alerts.  For example, one user from the Google Discussion Forum commented in that he was going to create the following alerts:

“Here are the first 5 custom alerts I’m setting up:

1. When bounce rates for paid search are going up

2. When conversions on a daily basis are higher than normal

3. When the percentage of new visits is less than X

4. When returning visitors are less than X

5. Any significant changes in goal data”

Here’s a link to a great video that helps you learn how to interpret those alerts: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRvUpoTT-Bo

So no matter what you are looking for, there are a variety of Ad Innovations out there that will enhance the user experience all with the ultimate goal of driving traffic to your site and increasing those conversion rates. 

Before I close out this series, I’d also like to take a quick second to talk about some new Ad models that we are also starting to see more of.

YouTube Video Targeting Tool (Status: Open Beta):

Google has long since searched for a way to monetize the very popular YouTube. It appears that now they might have found a way with the introduction of a suite of YouTube advertising tools and options It is a fact that millions of YouTube videos are viewed on a daily basis. It is also a fact that this is an advertising market that is yet untouched. Due to the overwhelming availability of advertising space, this is a very cost effective place for advertising. However, because it is so overwhelming, Google recognized the fact that giving advertisers the ability to fine tune their YouTube advertising campaign would be imperative for success.

So what tools and options are available to you? Let’s first talk about ways you can advertise on YouTube. Your first option is the InVideo Overlay ad. This option will allow an advertiser to have a flash media ad appear within a video. Approximately 15 seconds after the video starts, the ad will appear as an overlay and will stay visible for about 10 seconds. If the viewer does not click on that ad within that time, the ad will simply fade away. Another option is to have a more traditional text or banner ad appear on the webpage. This can be a companion ad to the InVideo overlay ad. The third option is also an InVideo ad. However, instead of completely fading out after 10 seconds, a tab will remain throughout the video that allows the viewer to access the ad at any time they deem convenient during or immediately after viewing. With either InVideo option, the video is paused in the background while the viewer watches the ad and resumes right where they left off after the ad is finished.

Now that you know what your options are for types of ads, how do you make sure you’re getting those ads to the right audience? This is where the Video Targeting Tool comes into play. To access this tool, go to http://www.google.com/videotargeting. This tool is an AdWords feature that allows you to fine tune the placement of your advertising within the YouTube market. More specifically it allows you to create a very specific (targeted) media plan. Within this targeting tool, you can create your media plan around specific keywords and select individually among verticals (categories), channels, and even specific movies. As you are creating your plan, you are able to see real-time statistics about popularity and views. This makes this data very valuable to you and your product. Additionally, you do have the ability to create a plan based on demographics. You will want to choose the best filter option based on your product/service and the campaign you wish to run.

Never before has YouTube been able to take their vast inventory and offer it up to AdWords advertisers in such a way that they can comprehensively structure a media plan to positively impact their business. This self-service tool combined with strong advertising options will allow advertisers for any company to preserve brand integrity at a level not achieved before. Still in Beta testing and only available in English, this is a tool we will certainly watch to see if YouTube can finally produce a positive ROI.

BONUS CONTENT:

YouTube Insights for Audience(Status: Open Beta):

This is a tool that you may use as an advertiser but not necessarily in the traditional sense.  Let’s say your company has a YouTube channel.  On this channel, you will have videos and such that you have uploaded.  These videos could contain any sort of content.  They might be commercials, interviews, product mentions, etc.  YouTube Insights for Audience allows you to measure information about the audience interaction with your videos.  You can see quantity views, geographic distribution, age distribution, summary reports, etc.  This is important because it gives you insight into your target audience. 

If you discover, for instance, that your YouTube video about AdWords is being primarily viewed by females ages 30-50, then you have information that will allow you to target your audience more clearly.  This tool allows you to gain more insight to the user behavior specifically on YouTube.  You define your audience and then you can see what kinds of videos they like (or don’t).  This is not only another method of Targeting but it may give you some new information about your audience that you would not have gotten otherwise.  To use this feature, you need to have a YouTube account.  Then, follow these instructions:

To see Insights on your own videos, log on to YouTube and click on the “Insight” button under “Account” > “My Videos” > “Insight.”

So, while this particular innovation is open to anyone with a YouTube account, I felt it deserved at least a little mention while we were on the YouTube subject.  The more you know about this vast and popular media rich environment, the better. 

In my last post, we discussed a bit about the new Google Above the Fold Display ad innovation.  Today, I’d like to share some info on another innovation but first, I thought it best to make sure everybody knows what we’re referring to when we talk about Display Ads.

Display ads are what are previously known as banner ads. They generally are graphic and image-based, and are displayed on websites. Display ads will often encourage a user to interact through a video or rollover display, complete a form, or to click through to a website for more information. 

Google Ad Innovations has enhanced their Display Ad offerings by giving advertisers new options that utilize existing technologies in more effective advertising strategies as well as taking a fresh approach to the YouTube video advertising platform.

Remarketing (Status: Fully Released)

You might have heard of the concept of remarketing before, I’ll admit it is something that I find really interesting and effective.

Remarketing is a cookie- based system that lets you show your ads to people who have visited your site in the past. These ads can appear on any site that the user visits, provided it is within the Google content network.

As I said, Remarketing is not a new  concept and has been in use for a long time in the media buy industry. The past year Google has tested remarketing with over 500 companies, and has finally released it to the public.

Any AdWords advertiser can use remarketing to reach users as they’re browsing the web on sites within the Google Content Network. It is a great way to connect with users who, based on their past browsing histories, have visited your website.

Okay, let’s see it in action…let’s say I’m doing a big product launch and I have a ton of web traffic arriving at my site. A cookie will be placed on these users, and if they don’t buy then I can use remarketing to essentially stalk errr I mean follow them around the Internet.

A few of the Key Benefits:

• You can target people based on the pages of your website that they visited
• you can target all people who visited your site with the same ads
• you can target people who left your site without buying anything,
• you can target those who did not buy something they put in a shopping cart
• you can target people who bought from your site

This really takes precision marketing to a new level. The best part of AdWords remarketing is that you can set up a different remarketing campaign for each page on your website. This is awesome, because it means that I can message my ads differently, which is so IMPORTANT. A user who abandons their shopping cart has different interests and needs form the person who didn’t try to buy the product at all.

For example, maybe a high shopping cart abandonment rate suggests that your shopping cart process needs some rejuvenation or that the shopping cart text does not reflect the text on the sales page. Now you can message those users that abandoned the shopping cart with a message like “Did we do something wrong?” Brittanylynch.com has recently revamped its shopping experience we now have improved checkout times and ease of use..or something along those lines. Really powerful!

A study published by the NetWork Advertising Initiative showed that behavioral-targeted online ads are more than twice as valuable and effective as non-targeted online ads….Interesting. And this doesn’t even touch the tip of the feature/benefit list of remarketing.

This is something I have had an interest in long before Google adopted the concept, but I’ll be sure to test the AdWords version and let you know my results.

Above the Fold Advertising (Status: Fully Released)

Above the Fold is a phrase that started with newspaper publication.  With a newspaper, it referred to the area of print that was located above where the paper was folded.  This particular area has always been considered prime because of its presumably higher visibility. 

Often, advertisers will have to pay more for space “Above the Fold”.  In the electronic world, above the fold is not as literal but it still references the area that the viewer will see first; the area that the viewer sees without having to take any extra action such as scrolling or clicking through. 

In its truest form, it’s the most passive way to reach a viewer.  One online survey company, Vertical Response, conducted a survey that showed that 43-60% of all clicks in email marketing happened “above the fold”.

I also ran across a cool Eye Tracking Study that shows that visibility of information on a webpage maintains 85% effectiveness down to just “above the fold” but dramatically decreases to 50% below the fold all the way down to 20% at the bottom.  This information is valuable for you to know as an advertiser.  When you structure the creative and text elements of your ad, you will want to make sure that the elements that are important for the searcher to see are placed in the “hot” zone.  If you don’t, then the placement of your ad “above the fold” could be for naught.

These statistics highlight just how important that piece of screen real estate can be when we think about CTR’s and Conversion rates.

So, as the name suggests, this ad option means that your ad will ONLY appear on visible screen when browser window loads.  Yes.  You’re right, different screen resolutions and monitor sizes will make it impossible to guarantee exact placement but this feature certainly grants you much more control. 

I’d also like to point out that before you make any changes, you need to be certain that switching to Above the Fold Advertising is something that would truly benefit your campaign.  Running a report to determine the adwords ad position that converts at the highest rate / lowest cost will help you be certain that this is something that will help you

Today’s blog highlights some other newly available search innovations that not only offer up great functionality but some different approaches to budget concerns.

Product Listing Ads (Status: Limited Beta)

This one takes very little explanation.  Product listing ads are search ads that are enhanced with images, pricing information, and even the seller’s name. 

Product listing ads do not require any additional keywords or text because of the usefulness of the additional enhancements. 

Product Listing Ads is not to be confused with Google’s Product Extensions.  Product Listing Ads are placed by Google based on their own algorithm that chooses the when, where and how often (could be a downside since you give up the control on that part). 

This type of Ad listing is ideal for merchants with large inventories because it operates under a slightly different pricing structure than traditional Google Ads.  Product Listing Ads are based on Cost-Per-Action pricing methodology so you only pay if that user clicks your ad AND completes a purchase. 

This is a great use of your budget and gives you prime opportunity to showcase all of your products (no worries about individual clicks and listings here with the cost-per-action base). 

Unfortunately, this particular model is still only in limited beta phase so it is only available to a select number of U.S. retail advertisers but you can rest assured that with success, the availability will expand to other retail candidates. 

Comparison Ads Model (Status: Limited Beta)

Think pre-click lead qualification tool.  That being said, before we go any further, you should probably know up front that this particular model is only available to select U.S. companies in the mortgage loan and credit card industries at this time but Google anticipates broadening the scope in the future. 

This Search feature allows searcher make side-by-side comparisons on products.  Consumers will like it because they don’t have to register any personal data to get their comparison unless they choose to at that particular stage in the comparison process. 

Instead of using this older “register now so we capture your info early” model,  searchers can continually refine their search to find the product that suits their particular needs most accurately before divulging any personal information.  Hopefully this will avoid alienating that segment of searchers that decide to walk away from the search process altogether at the first sign of filling out any forms when all they really want to do is get some information and shop around. 

Google has also worked to make the search experience must faster by returning search results to the shopper more quickly.  This speed combined with transparency and consumer privacy will boost consumer confidence in the sector of advertisers who utilize this type of search service. 

From your perspective as an advertiser, you will know that the data that you are getting is from searchers who are genuinely interested in your product or service and not just a casual shopper.  In addition, because the search feature affords the consumer a more pleasant search experience, your company gets the benefit of improved consumer outlook at the process as a whole.  Finally, another unique feature here is that as an advertiser, you only pay if the searcher requests a quote or actually calls the phone number on your offer.  Obviously, this means that the value of that conversion goes up tremendously!

I hope you enjoyed learning about the Ad Extensions available with Google’s Ad Innovations.  Today, we’re going to delve into some of the other Search Innovations.

AdWords for Mobile (Status: Open Beta)

Ok, so this one is not to be confused with mobile advertising.  So here’s the scoop.  AdWords for Mobile gives you flexibility to monitor alerts that you set up for those keywords and campaigns in AdWords that you’ve so carefully crafted. 

Any changes, updates, and even deletions can be done right there from your phone (currently only compatible with Android, iPhone, and Palm Pre devices)!  This ability to make account changes and stay on the go allows you to respond to activity with your account quickly and efficiently whenever you need to. 

You’ll need to create your alerts and campaigns in the web interface but after that you can look at a variety of statistics right from your phone.  An example of an alert you may want is to be notified when your clicks reach 90% of your budget. 

We can’t always predict when that’s going to happen but you certainly want to be able to respond when it does.  So, with AdWords for Mobile and your nifty smartphone, you can react to the alert without the anxiety of worrying about how long it will be before you can get back in front of your computer. 

Now, you can make simple changes from the phone but keep in mind that you will need to make any major changes from the web. 

Also, you should note that this information is only in reference to keywords and campaigns but it is still a nice little tool when you need to do a quick check up on those items no matter where you are.

Search Funnels (Status: Limited Release)

You’ve done your homework.  You’ve carefully crafted keywords for your campaign.  How do you truly measure how effective it is?  Search Funnels is how. 

This is a set of reports that gives you a very targeted analysis of click behavior prior to conversion.  Before, all we have had access to is to the only what happened in that last click prior to conversion.  Now, Google has provided advertisers with a very sophisticated way to track and analyze search behavior through all layers of the search funnel.  Using these reports (which are generated from conversion paths or a sequence of ad clicks that lead up to conversions), you are gaining valuable knowledge about consumer behavior.

So first, let’s take a look at the “funnel”.  Traditionally, all sales processes go through a sales funnel so the online sales process is no different. 

As you can see in the process illustration above, each of the steps can be directly linked to a step in the search funnel of online consumer behavior.  So, as an advertiser, knowing your strengths and weaknesses at each of these stages would not only be valuable but critical to the success of your campaign.

In a recent blog post by SEER Interactive (Click here to see the post), Google’s Search Funnel reports are laid out in great detail, along with screen shots so that you can get a nice feel for how these reports will look.  From a basic perspective, you, the advertiser, is going to want to review the Path Length Report and the Time Lag Report.  The Path Length report is going to let you know the number of searches a customer conducts before the conversion is complete.  By contrast, the Time Lag report is going to tell you how long it takes to complete the conversion from the moment the customer starts their search.  Both of these reports rely on data gathered from impressions and clicks.  At a deeper level, you would then review the Assist reports: these reports will tell you what keywords “assisted” in the conversion.  Why might this be important?  Suppose the keyword that “assisted” your customer to the purchase was actually in the middle of the search funnel.  This knowledge would allow you to tighten the entire structure of your advertising campaign.

So, let’s say you are an advertiser who is using keywords “hotels in London”, “hotels in Kensington London” and “Four Towers London” and “Four Towers Hotel Kensington.”  If I, as the searcher, am searching for a hotel in London, I might start with a generic search using keywords “best hotels in London”.  I might see your ad that was triggered by my keyword search.  Perhaps I click on your ad.  At this point (my click point), a cookie is placed on my computer.  So, I might look around a bit and then leave the site.  It could be for any number of reasons but for this example, let’s just say that I’m not quite ready to book anything just yet because I realize I do not know exactly where in London I would like to stay.  After a little more research, I realize that I definitely want to stay specifically in the Kensington area of London. So, when I enter a more qualified search phrase of “hotels in Kensington London”, your ad is triggered and appears again.  I click on it and remember that I’ve been here before but did not realize that it was in Kensington.  Duly noted but I’d still like to see what other options I might have in the area.  After I research a number of other options but ultimately I decide that your hotel is most appealing.  I remember it was called “Four Towers Hotel” so I go to Google and search for “Four Towers Hotel Kensington”.  The ad comes up and I click on it again.  This time, I book a room.  Since I booked, the cookies that were placed on my computer every time I clicked on the ad will interact with the cookies on the booking confirmation page.  Google will count my booking as a conversion for the keyword “Four Towers Hotel Kensington” since this ultimately was the keyword that linked me to making the reservation.  However, without the Google Search Funnel analysis, you, the advertiser, would have had NO idea how heavily the other keywords influenced my decision to book the room at your hotel.  Without that critical information, you might have even decided to remove those earlier keywords from your campaign making a false assumption that they were not working.  This could be a very costly assumption.

In summary, when you know how customers are searching, you are able to more effectively maximize and prioritize your keywords, adgroups, and campaigns.