

Offer HN: Adwords/PPC Help - glasner

Today seems like the day for lurkers to give back, so...<p>I've been doing PPC for over 10 years. My focus has mainly been advertising large, retail  catalogs, but I've also worked with info products and service businesses.<p>I'm happy to help in anyway I can including:<p>- long-tail keyword ideas 
- account organization
- ad copy
- bidding strategy<p>If you have a general question or don't mind sharing the details with everyone, I can answer here. Otherwise, I'm available at the email address in my profile.
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Morinoko
Hi, thanks for the offer.

A general question: I do some Google PPC, LinkedIn PPC and Facebook PPC. I
point those ads to specific landing pages relevant to the ads and keywords on
my site.

I also track everything with Analytics (i check visitors, referrals, time on
page, page views, keywords, countries).

I have a very small number of conversions (contact email sent via form). But I
guess it's a numbers (%) game: I have a small amount of visitors.

The thing is: I check almost every day my stats on Analytics, but after my
routine check of the stats i mentioned earlier, i really don't know what else
to do/check/verify and what sort of "next action" I have to do with all the
data I gather.

I guess, my question is: what's next?

~~~
glasner
Are you using broad match? If so, you should regularly:

\- build out your list of negative keywords \- create new ad groups with exact
matches on any queries that trigger your broad matched keywords

Also, test your ad copy continuously. You want to maximize both your CTR _and_
conversion rate. I'm still changing ads for keywords I added 6 years ago.

Really it's just a matter of coming of with things to test and testing them,
much like the iterative process of improving a website.

re: Social Ads

I have much less experience. What I've done though is to continually tighten
the demographics I'm targeting. You end up creating a ton of ads, but it's the
only way to find the nuggets.

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matthewcford
I have a question about the qual score, for one of my most visited and
converting keyword I have a qual score of 2.. probably because it is a broad
match term (most exacts are 5-7) Is there a way to improve this, should I
create a separate landing page, I already use the keyword but maybe not
enough. loading time score reports no probs.

~~~
glasner
If it's a _very_ general term, you can expect a lower quality score. I would
break out all the queries it's being matched to as exact matches, effectively
using the broad match to research keywords.

~~~
linktylr
Not to step on your toes glasner, as it is an easy mistake to make, but match
type DOES NOT affect quality score. All keywords on phrase and broad match are
judged ONLY on instances in which the search query precisely matches the
keyword, regardless of match type. This is referred to as the exact match
subset.

You can find more info here:
[http://www.rimmkaufman.com/rkgblog/2010/09/28/negative-
keywo...](http://www.rimmkaufman.com/rkgblog/2010/09/28/negative-keywords-do-
not-affect-google-adwords-quality-score/)

Do you maintain "scent" from keyword to ad copy for this keyword?
<http://www.grokdotcom.com/topics/senseofscent.htm>

If scent is not maintained you are hurting your clickthrough rate which
accounts for a majority of the weighting behind quality score.

~~~
glasner
No problem. Thanks for expanding.

I didn't mean to imply that changing the match type will magically increase
quality score. To me breaking them out as exact matches is about making the
targeting better, both for the text ad and the landing page, which sets you up
for a better quality score.

~~~
linktylr
Agreed. Broad match ads necessarily include less targeted ad copy which will
ding clickthrough rates.

I'm fond of the "keyword trap" approach as described here
[http://www.clickequations.com/blog/2008/12/the-match-type-
se...](http://www.clickequations.com/blog/2008/12/the-match-type-series-
june-2008/), but the same thing can be accomplished in one ad group with
multiple match types if bid correctly.

Is this helpful matthewcford?

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Andrew_Quentin
Google has again offered me a free £75 voucher. I run an info business. Is it
worth it to spend their money? Is it like gambling, will I get addicted to it
and loose in the long run? And just how do you promote an information
business, I mean, basically, is it worth it to spend the time in spending
their money?

~~~
glasner
I delved deep into Adwords after suffering a SEO slap from Google, that cut my
revenues (and staff) in half over night. As long as you find your niche and
stay on top of it, Adwords is the best bet in my experience.

I would say run some tests with the voucher after learning the basics. Focus
on long tail keywords that describe the problem you help to solve. If you want
to share the product here or via email, I can give you more guidance.

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techbio
Do reliable price competitors to AdWords exist for niche arbitrage?

What sorts of advertising opportunities are there to yield a CTR/CPC
combination ultimately yielding more than AdWords CPC?

Of course, I truly admire Google, and doubt any would exist for any length of
time. Thoughts?

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todayiamme
Wow.

When I put up my thread ( <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1826828> ) I
had no clue that it would spark off something like this. This community truly
is amazing.

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dennisgorelik
Did you have experience with AdWords API? I'd like to advertise large number
of jobs (hundreds or thousands) from my job board www.postjobfree.com using
few-cents bids on Google AdWords. Would AdWords API be right tools for that?

~~~
glasner
You can definitely do this the API. If you can handle doing some manual work,
you could export files from your program to import into the Adwords Editor.
The fees for the API can be limiting when you're dealing with w/ a lot of
changes.

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brettmjohnson
As a developer and long time Mac user, I can only ask, "How is Adwords any
different on PowerPC?"

[In other words, if your niche uses some obscure jargon or acronym, don't
assume most people know what it means...]

~~~
techbio
Pay-Per-Click (PPC)

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danielnicollet
I will email you now. Thanks for this. Our site is at
<http://commerce.exorbyte.com> and we need this type of help.

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glasner
UPDATE => I received more emails than I had expected, but I'm going to work my
way through them today. More emails are welcome, but it might take me a day to
reply.

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daveambrose
Just sent you an email!

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kapauldo
Hey, thanks for the offer, I was just about to take you up on it, but I don't
see your email in your profile.

~~~
glasner
Just updated my profile.

