MORE TRAFFIC WITH ADWORDS

Transcription

1 ZICHTBAAR BETER

2 1. ABOUT THIS WHITEPAPER The number of online stores is growing dramatically. The expected turnover from online sales will significantly increase in the coming years. The battle for online consumers has merely just started. Brace yourself, operating an online store will become a real top-level sport! In this whitepaper, you will learn how to generate more traffic towards your online store with Google Adwords. You may have a beautiful online store, sell (an) excellent product(s) and provide perfect service, however, if you are not found, you might just as well immediately quit. Visitors do not automatically come to your website, that takes a lot of effort. Sometimes it will cost money; sometimes it will just take a lot of time. It is certainly possible to compete against established names such as Bol.com and Wehkamp.nl. Even better than that, chances are very likely that you could do a much better job! A smaller product range enables you to specialize much better, something that is impossible with thousands of products. And that is where opportunities lie in wait! 2

3 2. GOOGLE IS THE STARTING POINT Nowadays, the majority of visitors get to your online store through Google. This immensely popular search engine has a market share of over 95% in the Netherlands, the advantage being that you know where your potential customers are located, the drawback being that the competition also knows. While operating your online store, a lot of people will claim to exactly know how Google works and what you have to do to get a high rank in Google for your online store. The truth is, that nobody exactly knows which factors determine whether a website will rank high in Google or not. The only party who precisely knows how Google works is Google itself. In fact, almost nothing has changed since I wrote my first book on internet marketing in Of course, new developments have occurred, but everything can be simplified to a specific foundation that more or less has remained the same. The hardest thing is to stay focused and not be swayed by the issues of the day. Experts can extremely fuss about SEO factors, which are not always as important as they would have you believe. Google uses a multitude of factors to determine who ranks at the top or not. In addition, these factors are continuously subject to change. Many so-called experts just follow each other and will, from one day to the next, just as easily walk in an entirely different direction. It is important to keep in mind that Google does not like cheaters. Short-lived success is the highest you will achieve when you try to manipulate Google s search results. However, this whitepaper does not deal with SEO. The fact is, that online storeowners need visitors immediately. Applying SEO is time-consuming and it will take a comparatively long time, before you will see results. You cannot rank at number one with all keywords through which you wish to be found. In most cases, this will only work with a fraction of the keywords through which you would like to achieve a number one position. Traffic from non-paid search results will therefore have to be supplemented by other traffic sources. 3

4 3. WHY PAY FOR VISITORS THROUGH GOOGLE ADWORDS As an internet marketing agency, we daily hear: I never click on ads I run empty on Adwords We prefer traffic through SEO via SEO (non-paid search results) I prefer to solely advertise on Facebook We stake everything on social media Adwords is too expensive for me In most cases, there will only be one possible answer, being: You re either doing something not entirely right, or doing something wrong. Postulate: I never click on ads This is possible, of course. Then again, the fact remains that others do it, and their number is significant. Because a Google ad is always relevant to the search task in question, advertising through Google is far more effective than other forms of promotion. When purchase-based search tasks are concerned, more than 75% of all clicks is allotted to Google Ads. This makes sense, Google reserves an increasing amount of space for sponsored ads on the first page. 4

5 3. WHY PAY FOR VISITORS THROUGH GOOGLE ADWORDS As can be seen clearly in the illustration above, almost 80-90% of all search results are some form of advertisement. If for example, you search for the term iphone, as shown above, in fact no online store is visible above the fold in the area with non-paid Google search results. Without Adwords, it is almost impossible to obtain susbtantial turnover from Google. Particularly when you are starting a new online store and have not yet become an established brand. When you start an online store and determine product prices, you will have to consider the costs for Google in your marketing plan. It is also important to know that ads have to be paid for. Therefore, it is crucial for you as an advertiser to be only visible when it really matters. Sometimes you will have to pay a lot of money per individual click to get a good ad ranking. These costs can only be recoverd if the ad closely matches the search task, which is why ads sometimes are more relevant than non-paid search tasks. This particarly applies to e-commerce related search tasks. Laying out ad texts is something you can do yourself, so you will be independent of what Google shows, as opposed to non-paid search results. 5

6 3. WHY PAY FOR VISITORS THROUGH GOOGLE ADWORDS Postulate: We prefer traffic through SEO Because the first page is almost completely dominated by paid search results, appearing on the first page will not even suffice. In fact, depending on the search task in question, especially if it is purchase-related, only a top 3 position will do. In other words, non-paid search results are less prominently visible in Google and SEO is becoming increasinly difficult and less effictive for e-commerce related search tasks. Those who pay attention closely, will find that paid search results largely consist of images, with chances of them being blicked even more likely. After all, a picture is worth more than a thousand words. Non-paid search results for purchase-related search tasks are often dominated by price comparison websites, which, in general, are not really a better alternative to Adwords ads. When information about noncommercial topics is concerned, non-paid search tasks are often a lot more relevant, because they are not interesting enough for advertisers. It goes without saying, that someone looking for information on a specific subject and having no intentions to buy whatsoever, will not click on ads. It is likely, that this is also the nuance that should be added when someone claims not to click on ads. Those who really never click on ads, will get burned, because different suppliers often charge different prices for the same product. Google Shopping ads ( ads with images) immediately show where a product can be purchased for the lowest price. Anyone who solely clicks on non-paid search results will then have to hope that the cheapest supplier has his/her SEO act together, otherwise he/she will always pay too much. In short, those who do not use Google to generate more visitors for their online store, will ignore 95% of all Dutch internet users. 6

7 3. WHY PAY FOR VISITORS THROUGH GOOGLE ADWORDS Postulate: Adwords is too expensive for me That s fine, but keep in mind, that each time that someone is looking for products that you sell, ads of competitors will appear that will serve and pinch your customers. If that is cheaper for you than using Adwords, you are in a privileged position and will not need additional traffic to your online store. Congratulations! Postulate: I run empty on Adwords With this, we can help you. You will likely have used a Google voucher with 75 euro Adwords credit to try out Adwords. It is fairly simple to setup an Adwords campaign, but more effort is required to use Adwords in an optimal and profitable manner. Of course Adwords boils down to advertising, but in many cases, this method can still be configured to make it profitable. 7

8 4. OPTIMAL USE OF ADWORDS It all starts with creating a Google Adwords account. This can be done here: adwords.google.com As soon as you have created an Adwords account, you can get started immediately. To ensure activation of an Adwords campaign, you will first have to enter your billing data. Important! I will not provide a step-by-step explanation of where things can be found, due to the fact that Google frequently changes the interface, as a result of which, this whitepaper in a worst-case scenario could become outdated immediately after publication. The same applies to the images used within this document. It might very well be that the Adwords interface looks just a little bit different than shown in this whitepaper. In itself, that does not make a lot of difference, because basic functionality will not change dramatically and settings can more or less be found and changed in the same area, at every level. For an extensive step-by-step help you can refer to Google s excellent support pages. In this whitepaper, we will discuss the key points for a successful Adwords campaign. 8

9 4. OPTIMAL USE OF ADWORDS Note: This whitepaper is not a complete reference. After reading it, you will be capable to decide whether you will do Adwords management yourself, or put it out to a specialized Adwords agency. If you choose the latter option, it is important that the Adwords agency in question at least is certified as a Google Partner by Google. Google Partners can easily be recognized by the following logo: Use the URL below to verify the validity of the certificate of the Adwords agency in question, or to search for a partner: 9

10 5. SETTING UP NEW CAMPAIGNS A campaign that works at least consists of one ad group, i.e. one single ad and a minimum of one associated keyword. After completing your registration and logging in to your Google Adwords account, you will find a campaign that has an ad group, ad and one or more keywords at its disposal, which you created while setting up your Adwords account. From now on, if you want to start new campaigns or change existing ones, you can do so by selecting the Campaigns tab in your Adwords account. You can change items in Adwords campaigns as often and whenever you like. In addition, it is also possible to stop campaigns temporarily or permanently, at any given time. Account Campaign Campaign Ad Group - Ads - Keywords Ad Group - Ads - Keywords Ad Group - Ads - Keywords Ad Group - Ads - Keywords Ad Group - Ads - Keywords Account Online electronics store Campaign TVs Campaign Cameras Ad Group Flatscreen TVs Ad Group Plasma TVs Ad Group Digital cameras Ad Group Compact cameras A good method to achieve an effective Adwords campaign is to follow the structure of the website or online store, as seen in the practical example in the image above. An often-heard statement is Adwords does not work, we run empty on click costs. Setting up a single campaign and adding a few keywords nowadays will not suffice by a long shot. In the past years, Google Adwords has expanded in possibilities enormously. 10

11 5. SETTING UP NEW CAMPAIGNS Setting up a successful Google Adwords campaign requires a strategy determined in advance and taking the right steps. First of all, keyword research followed by navigation recommendation is of paramount importance to your online store. The more relevant the pages of your online store are to the keywords you wish to advertise with, the higher the quality score assigned by Google. Subseqently, a high Google quality score will result in lower costs per click. A well-organized website structure not only matters to SEO, but also to Adwords! You can use keyword research results to set up campaigns in the search network. In general, we adhere to the following principle: In case of a limited budget, we recommend to solely advertise in the search network. When a larger budget is available and you wish to position your brand in the market, we recommend using the display network as well. It is wise to create a separate campaign for each campaign type. To find the keywords that are relevant to the products that you sell, a keyword tool is available. When you are signed in to your Adwords account, you can find the keyword planner in the Tools tab. Important! You can send keyword options with keywords in Adwords campaigns. Wide search: keyword. Keywords can be specified in several ways. When you specify keywords, their wide sense is used by default. This implies that your ad will also be shown by keyword variants. For example, if you enter car insurance, your ad(s) will be shown when a search task is performed that contains both words, regardless of their order. The same applies when your words are part of a bigger whole, or if people perform search tasks such as car insurances, insurance of your car or insuring your second-hand car. Custom wide search: +keyword. Use the wide search modifier to further refine your wide keywords. It is an Adwords targeting tool, enabling you to configure keywords that have a wider range compared to a word group search and offer more control than a standard wide search. Modified wide search terms consist of words prefixed by a plus sign (+ without a space), and a single space to separate the individual search terms. An example: +red + tulips. 11

12 5. SETTING UP NEW CAMPAIGNS Search by word group: keyword. If you specify your search terms between quotes, for example red sports car, your ad will only be shown if search tasks contains these terms in this exact order. Your ad will also be shown, if your search terms are used in the same order and occur in a larger search task.note: in the example above, your ad will be shown with the search tasks red sports car and super fast red sports car, but not with sports car with a red color. Exact search: [keyword]. This will show your ad solely with search tasks that exactly contain the same word group. To achieve this, place search terms between straigh brackets. For example, if you specify your keywords as [order flowers online], your ad will only be shown if search tasks contain these exact keywords and in this order. If the words you have specified are merely a part of a larger search task, your ads will not be shown. In the above example, your ads will be shown for a search task containing order flowers online but not for order flowers or order flowers online through internet. Exclusion search term: -keyword. Use this to prevent your ad from being shown with search tasks that contain this term. To do so, prefix the words you wish to exclude with a minus sign (without a space). For example, let us assume you sell antivirus software. You could exclude the term free, because someone using this term in a search task is probably not willing to pay for your antivirus software. When you enter antivirus software -free, your ad will not be with search tasks that contain your keywords in combination with free. It is vital to create separate campaigns for each product type, category or target audience. Ad groups also must have their own ad texts, site extensions, location extensions and/or call extensions. In addition, you can also follow separate bidding strategies for products with a higher or lower profit margin. 12

13 5. SETTING UP NEW CAMPAIGNS An example of how to set up an Adwords-campaign: Campagne 1 Iphones Ad group Iphone 4 with search terms and ads focusing on iphone 4 Ad group Iphone 4S with search terms and ads focusing on iphone 4s Ad group Iphone 5 with search terms and ads focusing on iphone 5 Ad group Iphone 5c with search terms and ads focusing on iphone 5c Ad group Iphone 5s with search terms and ads focusing on iphone 5s Campagne 2 Iphone-accessoires Ad group Iphone chargers with search terms and ads focusing on iphone laders Ad group Iphone covers with search terms and ads focusing on iphone hoesjes Ad group Iphone speakers with search terms and ads focusing on iphone speakers Ad group Iphone headphones with search terms and ads focusing on iphone headphones Ad group Iphone screen protectors with search terms and ads focusing on iphone screenprotectors What are extensions? Call extensions. Use call extensions to add your phone number to ads. Location extensions. Use location extensions to display your business address with your Google ads (where applicable). Site links. Adwords Site links is a search task-based ad tool, which enables you to include up to four extra URLs to more detailed content behind the destination page of your site. Site links increase the value of your Adwords advertisements, because you can add extra volume and relevant links to your ads when generated by search tasks. Our own experience has shown us that the CTR (click trough rate) of ads with site links is significantly higher compared to those without. If you use this option, you can enter additional URLs as site links. Site links are only displayed when your ad is listed in the top area of sponsored search results, for positions 1 to 3. Google randomly displays site links (or not), you cannot influence this process. 13

14 5. SETTING UP NEW CAMPAIGNS In Adwords ads, you also cannot influence the display of reviews in the form of stars. This will happen automatically when you meet the criteria Google has set for this. You will need sufficient reviews from, for example, Trustpilot or Kiyoh. Ads with site links, reviews and a phone number will attract much more attention, which will very likely get you more clicks. Why do consumers buy from you or the competition? In the ad texts or site extensions you can emphasize the unique selling points (USPs) of your product(s) or online store. This is important, for there are several reasons that make people decide to buy somewhere. Below, you will find a number of reasons why people could decide to buy from you: Being the cheapest Fast delivery Low shipping costs Vast product range High review scores (reliability) User-friendly online store Make sure your customers have good reasons to place orders with you, otherwise all effort will have been in vain. 14

15 5. SETTING UP NEW CAMPAIGNS Determining the price of your Google AdWords ads It is hard to determine in advance, what the maximum is that you would have to pay for a click on your ad. This depends on a number of factors. Everyone has to decide for himself/herself how much someone clicking your ad is worth. If you operate in a branch of trade that lends itself to conducting business online, you will often have to bid high on search terms, because you are dealing with more competition. When your branch of trade conducts a lot of business online, the words that are bid upon will have a high commercial value. Let us assume that you sell mortgages, based on an average brokerage of 2,000 euro. Each visitor will likely be worth more than if you were to operate an online flower store with an average turnover of 20 euro per customer. You can easily calculate how much you can spend on Google Adwords. You can advertise in Google Adwords up until the moment it will cost you more than it returns. The beautiful thing about Google Adwords is that you not only see how much it will cost you, but also how much it will return. We will get back to this in detail later. The first step in assessing your advertising budget is setting a daily budget. You have to specify this while creating a campaign. Subsequently, you will have specify the maximum CPC (cost per click). Using the previously discussed search term planner, you can gain insight in what to expect in clicks, based on your daily budget, maximum CPC and the keywords you will enter here. 15

16 6. GOOGLE SHOPPING Besides text ads, Google also shows ads containing images. These are Google Shopping ads. Using Google Shopping campaigns will enable you to advertise very effectively. In general, conversion percentages of this kind of campaigns are higher than regular advertising campaigns. After all, the product being searched for is immediately visible as an image. With this, it is important that a number of issues are well-organized in your SEOshop online store. The automatically generated Google Feed will consider the items listed below: Product title Price Meta description (the English description in the SEOshop back office) Product image(s) Google Category It is therefore important that the text fields contain highly relevant search terms, because Google largely decides itself which product(s) is/are shown, based on these fields. To advertise in the Netherlands, it is also important to complete the Google Category field. Contrary to advertising in Belgium (with the Dutch feed), a 16

17 6. GOOGLE SHOPPING completed Google Category field is required for a number of product groups. The URL below lists the various categories: For all target countries, except Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, India, Mexico, Norway, Poland, Russia, Sweden and Turkey, the google product category [google product category] feature is required for all goods that belong to the categories Clothing and accessories, Media and Software. If your products do not belong to one of these categories, or if your feed is targeted at Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, India, Mexico, Norway, Poland, Russia, Sweden and Turkey, this feature is recommended, but not required. 17

18 6. GOOGLE SHOPPING Google Shopping Ads (formerly known as Google Product Listing Ads - PLAs) was updated this year; you can now also set up campaigns that focus specifically on products within certain categories or brands. Creating Google Shopping campaigns within Adwords has been updated as well (see the image below). To get started with Google Shopping, you will need a Google Merchant Center account. You will have to connect it to your Google Adwords account, in order to use Google Shopping. When you create a Google Merchant account, make sure to use the same address that you use to login to your Adwords account. You will also need a product feed for Google Shopping. SEOshop will automatically create it for you and you can find this feed in your back office through SETTINGS > Affiliate > Google Products in the left menu. You can cut and paste the feed into your Google Merchant Center. From then on, you are ready to advertise with Google Shopping campaigns. 18

19 7. RLSA CAMPAIGNS RLSA stands for Remarketing Lists for Search Ads. This means you can use remarketing in Google s search engine. With RLSA, you can get the maximum from campaigns in Google s search network. Using RLSA makes it possible to reapproach visitors who previously visited a website through an Adwords ad. These visitors already showed interest in the site in question and its products or services. RLSA therefore is a very powerful tool to reapproach people who previously have shown interest, but ultimately did not proceed with the desired action (such as conversion, registration, a request etc.). A proper use of RLSA might yet persuade the visitors to proceed with the desired action. Practical experience has shown that the results of RLSA are very positive. Retargeting visitors from the past will approach a relevant target audience. As with remarketing in the Display Network, relevance influences Click-Through Rates and conversion percentages. In addition, RLSA has also often shown costs per individual conversion to be significantly lower, compared to regular campaigns and advertisements. RLSA may therefore not be absent in Google AdWords campaigns! 19

20 7. RLSA CAMPAIGNS Using RLSA RLSA can be used in two ways: 1. Adding RLSA to existing campaigns: By adding remarketing lists to certain campaigns, the CPC bids for current search terms can be modified in terms of percentage. This is a fast way to configure RSLA, as well as a convenient method to gather visitors to subsequently expand strategies. 2. Starting a separate RLSA campaign: A separate RLSA campaign that solely targets certain remarketing target audiences offers new possibilities. Ad texts can be modified, so previous visitors will see different, more relevant texts For example, it is possible to include coupon codes in RLSA ads to yet persuade people to complete an action. Implementing RLSA with remarketing tags In order to use RSLA, it is necessary to place a remarketing tag in your online store. This code fragment with modified parameters must be placed on each page. This will gather your visitors and connect them to the various marketing tools available in Google Adwords. Subsequently, strategies may be applied to creating target audiences and campaigns. If you own a SEOshop store, placing the remarketing code is easy. You can do so by cutting the code and pasting it in the area through SETTINGS > Javascript > Tracking in the left menu of the back office. 20

21 8. DYNAMIC REMARKETING CAMPAIGNS Dynamic Remarketing currently is a hot item. Which makes sense, for practical experience has shown that it works very well. Dynamic remarketing is a campaign type within the Display Network of Google AdWords. With dynamic remarketing, campaigns and ad groups can be targeted specifically at visitors who have looked at certain products or categories. In addition, Dynamic Remarketing makes it possible to reapproach people that have abandoned their shopping cart and still have them convert. Besides retargeting visitors who have visited certain pages, dynamic remarketing (and remarketing in general) can also very well be used during holidays and promotion periods. By storing visitors and buyers during the year, these people may be reapproached during holidays, with attractive offers that match their interests and purchase history. 21

22 8. DYNAMIC REMARKETING CAMPAIGNS Setting up dynamic remarketing To set up dynamic remarketing, you will need more than just a Google AdWords account. A Google Merchant Center is required, to connect it to a dynamic remarketing campaign (without the connection the dynamic aspect will be lost and it will be a regular remarketing campaign). In addition, it is necessary to place the remarketing Tag on your website. This is a code fragment with modified parameters, which must be added to each page of your website. This way, website visitors are gathered in the various remarketing lists within Google Adwords. When, after leaving your online store, these individuals visit another website that is part of the Google Display Network, they will see the Dynamic Remarketing ads with products that they previously viewed in your online store. Remarketing vs. Dynamic Remarketing In the past, it was already very well possible to reapproach website visitors with a remarketing campaign or through remarketing groups within a campaign. Dynamic remarketing however goes a little further The difference with regular remarketing is that with dynamic remarketing you connect a campaign to the Merchant account in front of the website. A Merchant Center is therefore needed to set up a dynamic remarketing campaign. Because of the connection between Adwords and the Merchant account, dynamic remarketing allows to retarget visitors with products they have actually viewed. These visitors have previously shown interest in the products in question and therefore are very relevant and worthwhile reapproaching. Because dynamic remarketing campaigns can be set up very specifically, the relevance of campaigns and ads significantly increases. A higher relevance often results in higher click-through rates and an improved conversion percentage, compared to regular campaigns. In short, a dynamic remarketing campaign may not be absent when advertising with Google AdWords. Dynamic remarketing increases the relevance of campaigns, as a result of which performance within AdWords will improve in many cases. 22

23 8. DYNAMIC REMARKETING CAMPAIGNS Implementing Dynamic Remarketing Tags Dynamic remarketing tags are more difficult to implement, because their code is not identical for each page. There are several ways to implement tags. Most tags can be implemented using Google Tag Manager. Remarketing can also be configured through Google Analytics, however, this does not yet work for search engine remarketing (RSLA). But it is included in the road map. With the tag assistant plugin (for Google Chrome) you can check whether tags have been placed correctly in your online store. The plugin can be found here: For a fee, SEOShop partner OOSEOO Internetmarketing can help you set up dynamic remarketing in case you are having problems implementing this yourself. Remarketing Target Audiences You can create various target audiences in your Adwords account that you can target with remarketing: Besides the search network, Google also has the display network. Your ad can be shown in both. Besides showing your ads in relevant search results, Google can show them in websites connected to Google s display network. 23

24 9. ADVERTISING IN THE GOOGLE DISPLAY NETWORK Websites that are part of Google s display network can use Google Adsense to show Adwords ads that are relevant to their website content. In exchange, they will receive a fee. Ads in the display network usually convert significantly worse than ads in a search engine. The display network is most suited for branding, contrary to search engine advertising. In most cases, search engine advertising results in substantially more conversion and a higher success percentage. If you use (dynamic) remarketing through Google, your ads will also be shown on websites that are part of Google s display network. Conclusion Make sure that Google Analytics is connected to your Google Adwords account, for this will enable you to measure conversion of your Adwords campaigns up to keyword level! 24

25 INFO OVER OOSEOO SEOshop Keizersgracht EE Amsterdam The Netherlands OOSEOO Euroweg 39a 3825 HA Amersfoort The Netherlands ZICHTBAAR BETER facebook.com/seoshop twitter.com/seoshop linkedin.com/company/seoshop-group-b.v. facebook.com/ooseoo twitter.com/ooseoo linkedin.com/company/ooseoo-internetmarketing With over 3,000 online stores, SEOshop is the market leader in the Benelux countries and one of the fastest growing hosted e-commerce platforms in Europa. This year SEOshop was nominated, Internetmarketing is a full-service internet marketing agency. Our strength is that we will work for you as if it were our own company. Your online visibility is our business card! among others, for the Deloitte Technology Fast50 Rising Star and the Techtour, as well as several other prestigious awards. Meanwhile, the team consists of 37 motivated young professionals and still keeps growing every month. OOSEOO is a Google partner and Google Adwords expert. When it comes to quality, we belong to the top 25 of the 4,000 Google Adwords agencies in the Benelux countries. In addition to Adwords, you can also call upon us With SEOshop you can start a professional for SEO and web design. online store from 39,- a month, that offers you complete design freedom, without the need for installing software and maintenance You have a fully complete online store at your disposal, with extensive marketing and sales tools. Furthermore, SEOshop provides added value, OOSEOO has been a SEOshop Gold Partner since the first hour. We build templates and provide tailor-made solutions for the SEOshop platform. In 2013, we launched SEOmatic, our first template. owing to the availability of a variety of additional tools through the SEOshop App OOSEOO Store. Start your online store Contact OOSEOO (Dutch) 25