Pay-Per-Click Search Engine Marketing

Online advertising expert David Szetela is owner and CEO of Clix Marketing, one of the few agencies that specializes exclusively in pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. His PPC articles have been published in MediaPost, Search Engine Watch, Search Engine Land, MarketingSherpa, and on his company's blog (www.clixmarketing.com/blog). He is the Principal PPC Editor of the paper and online publication SEMJ.org and the PPC expert faculty member for the online certification company Market Motive. He is also a frequent speaker at such industry events as Search Engine Strategies, SMX, PPC Summit, and ad:tech. He also hosts a weekly radio show called PPC Rockstars that is distributed by Webmasterradio.fm and iTunes. Joseph Kerschbaum has optimized thousands of PPC campaigns and is Director of Client Services at Clix Marketing. He has written hundreds of articles on paid search advertising for numerous industry blogs, and he is a regular contributor to Website Magazine and Search Engine Land.

• Foreword xxxiIntroduction xxxiiiChapter 1 The Art and Science of PPC Advertising 1PPC and Direct Advertising Fundamentals 2Components of a Successful PPC Campaign 5Keywords 6Ads 6Bid Prices 7Landing Pages 8Conversion Path 10PPC Campaign Uses 10The Science of PPC 11The Art of PPC 12The State of the PPC Industry 13Chapter 2 How the PPC Machine Works 17Think Like a Search Engine 18How and Where Ads Appear on SERPs 19How Advertisements Are Triggered 20How Advertisements Are Ranked 21How Keyword Match Types Work 27How Ads Appear on the Google Content Network 30After the Click 33Chapter 3 Core PPC Skills and Objectives 37Learn Scientific Advertising and Ad Copywriting 38Know Thy Customer 40Ask the Right Questions 40How Do Potential Customers Search? 41What If There’s No Search? 45What’s Your PPC Strategy? 46Chapter 4 Month 1—Research Keywords and Establish Campaign Structure 49Week 1: Research Keywords 50Monday: Defining Personas 50Tuesday: Using Keyword Research Tools 51Wednesday: Using Your Best Keyword Source—Your Intuition, and Reports 60Thursday: Permuting and Concatenating 62Friday: Researching Your Competitor’s Keywords 63Week 2: Create Your Campaign Structure 68Monday and Tuesday: Planning Your Campaign and Ad Group Structure 69Wednesday: Determining the Number and Granularity of Ad Groups 75Thursday: Getting Acquainted with AdWords Editor 77Friday: Building Out the Campaign 78Week 3: Adjust Campaign Settings 78Monday: Setting Budgets and Delivery Methods 79Tuesday and Wednesday: Setting Your Bidding Strategy and Options 81Thursday: Targeting Networks and Devices 82Friday: Using Ad Scheduling and Geo-Targeting 84Week 4: Use Conversion Tracking and Set Click Pricing 89Monday: Setting Up Conversion Tracking 89Tuesday: Setting Up Google Analytics 90Wednesday: Testing Conversion Tracking 91Thursday: Determining Your Starting Keyword Bids 91Friday: Setting Keyword Bids 95Chapter 5 Month 2—Create Great PPC Ads 97Week 5: Take Stock of Your Advantages 98Monday: Surveying Your Competition 99Tuesday and Wednesday: Listing Your Own Advantages and Benefits 99Thursday: Creating Causes for Urgency 101Friday: Collecting Your Resources 102Week 6: Write Right 103Monday: The Fundamentals 103Tuesday: The Headline—The Most Important Characters 107Wednesday: Line 1—Features and Benefits 108Thursday: Line 2—Urgent Calls to Action 109Friday: The Display URL 109Week 7: Explore Industry Examples 110Monday: The Single-Product Retailer 111Tuesday: The Multiple-Product Retailer 111Wednesday: The B2B Service Provider 112Thursday: The Professional Services Provider 112Friday: The Financial Services Provider 113Week 8: Understand Ads for the Content Network 113Monday and Tuesday: Writing Contextual Text Ads 114Good-Better-Best 116Wednesday: Writing Static Banner Ads 117Thursday: Creating Animated Banner Ads 122Friday: Advertising on YouTube 124Friday Night: Taking Stock 126Chapter 6 Month 3—Design Effective Landing Pages 127Week 9: Understand the Differences between Site Pages and Landing Pages 128Monday and Tuesday: One Store, Many Entrances 129Wednesday: The ADHD Site Visitor 131Thursday: The Golden Triangle 132Friday: The Risky Business of Landing Page Links 133Week 10: Create the Mock-up 133Monday: Start with the Golden Triangle 134Tuesday: Bullet Points, Not Paragraphs 134Wednesday: The Hero Shot 135Thursday: Action, Trust, and Privacy 136Friday: Sample B2C and B2B Mock-ups 137Week 11: Lay It All Out 139Monday: If It’s Not Helping, It’s Hurting 140Tuesday and Wednesday: Form Design 140Thursday: Error Trapping and Handling 142Friday: Spouse Testing before Deployment 144Week 12: Design for Testing 145Monday: Decide on Test Elements 145Tuesday: Headlines, Subheadlines, and Hero Shots 146Wednesday: Action Buttons, Bullet Points, and Form Elements 147Thursday: Testing Never Stops 148Friday: Simple A/B Testing 148Chapter 7 Month 4—Advertise on the Google Content Network 151Week 13: Understand Google Contextual Advertising 152Monday: Ad Types and Sizes 152Tuesday: Ad Formats 156Wednesday and Thursday: Why Search Ads Don’t Work on the Content Network 158Friday: Demand Generation vs Search Satisfaction 161Week 14: Build Keyword-Targeted Ad Groups 161Monday and Tuesday: Why Keywords Are Different 162Wednesday: Building Your Keyword List 165Thursday: Demographic Bidding 170Friday: Ad-Frequency Capping 171Week 15: Build Placement-Targeted Ad Groups 173Monday: Placement Targeting 173Tuesday: Choosing Sites and Placements with the Placement Tool 174Wednesday: Other Tools for Choosing Sites for Placements 178Thursday: Bidding Considerations 181Friday: Separating Ad Types into Ad Groups 183Week 16: Launch and Refine Your Content Campaign 184Monday: Flipping the Switch—Campaign-Management Checklist 184Tuesday: Placement Performance Report 185Wednesday: Site and Category Exclusion 186Thursday: Enhanced Ad Groups 187Friday: Flipping the Switch (Again) and Judging Performance 188Chapter 8 Month 5—Launch Your Campaign 189Week 17: Bid Your Brands 190Monday: Your Brand May Be Weaker than You Think 191Tuesday: Brand and Domain Name Variations 193Wednesday: URL Variations 195Thursday: Competitor Legal and Ethical Issues 196Friday: Competitor-Name Ad Groups 197Week 18: Make Prelaunch Double-Checks 198Monday: Budgets and Bid Prices 198Tuesday: Campaign Settings 199Wednesday: Keywords—The Broad-Match Stomp 200Thursday: Verify Ad Destination URLs 202Friday: Launching Initial Ad Testing 202Week 19: Flip the Switch 205Monday and Tuesday: Launching All Your Campaigns at Once? 206Wednesday: Are Your CTRs High Enough? 207Thursday and Friday: Are You Reaching Your Target Conversion Rates and Costs? 208Week 20: Perform Early Course-Correction 209Monday: Activating Additional Ad Groups 209Tuesday: Adjusting Ad Group and Keyword Bids 209Wednesday: Adding Keyword Variations to Winning Ad Groups 210Thursday and Friday: Adjusting Campaign Budget Limits 212Chapter 9 Month 6—Optimize Your Campaign 215Week 21: Review Your Top-Level Reports 216Monday: Campaign and Ad Group Reports 217Tuesday: Network Distribution Reports 220Wednesday: Ad Performance Reports 222Thursday: URL Performance Reports 223Friday: Placement/Keyword Performance Reports 223Week 22: Review Your Deep-Level Reports 226Monday: Search Query Reports 226Tuesday: Impression Share Reports 229Wednesday: Geographic Performance Reports 231Thursday: Placement Performance Reports 233Friday: Reach and Frequency Performance Reports 236Week 23: Create Additional Useful Reports 236Monday: Quality Score Reports 236Tuesday: Demographic Performance Reports 236Wednesday and Thursday: Google Analytics Reports 237Friday: The My Change History Report 238Week 24: Act on Your Data and Optimize Your Account 239Monday and Tuesday: Improving Your CTR 239Wednesday: Improving Your Quality Score 241Thursday and Friday: Improving Your Conversion Rate 242Chapter 10 Month 7—Test Ads by Using Advanced Techniques 247Week 25: Implement Advanced Text Ad Design 248Monday: Google Dynamic Keyword Insertion 248Tuesday: Ad Sitelinks 253Wednesday: Product Extensions 256Thursday: Product Listings 257Friday: Local Extensions 259Week 26: Insert Ad Text Symbols 261Monday: Bullets and Squares 262Tuesday and Wednesday: Multiple Characters in One 262Thursday and Friday: Non-English Punctuation and Random Characters 263Week 27: Use Google Content Nontext Ads 263Monday and Tuesday: Static and Animated Banner Ads 264Wednesday: Video Ads 266Thursday: Mobile Banners 270Friday: Banner Fatigue and Ad Rotation 272Week 28: Perform Advanced Ad Testing 273Monday: Set Up Split Tests 273Tuesday: Know What to Split Test 275Wednesday and Thursday: Conduct Initial A/B Split Testing 278Friday: Reflect on the Outcome of the Test 283Chapter 11 Month 8—Test and Optimize Landing Pages 285Week 29: Plan Your Tests 286Monday: Prioritizing Test Elements 286Tuesday: Testing Headlines 286Wednesday: Testing Body Copy 288Thursday: Testing Offers 290Friday: Testing Other Elements of Your Landing Page 290Week 30: Use Google Website Optimizer 294Monday and Tuesday: Introducing Google Website Optimizer 294Wednesday and Thursday: Tagging Pages for Google Website Optimizer 296Friday: Validating Your Pages 298Week 31: Conduct A/B and Multivariate Tests 298Monday and Tuesday: Using A/B Split Testing 298Wednesday and Thursday: Using Multivariate Testing 300Friday: Choosing the Right Test Method 302Week 32: Report and Interpret Results 302Monday and Tuesday: Reporting in Google Website Optimizer 303Wednesday and Thursday: Interpreting Test Results 305Friday: Reaching the End of Your Landing Page Testing 305Chapter 12 Month 9—Migrate Your Campaign to Microsoft and Yahoo! 307Why Yahoo! Search Marketing and Microsoft adCenter Matter 308Different Look, Same Strategy 309Week 33: Understand YSM Differences and Advantages 309Monday: Standard and Advanced Match Types 309Tuesday: Geo-targeting 311Wednesday: Ad Types and Lengths 314Thursday: Ad Scheduling 316Friday: Demographic Targeting 320Week 34: Understand Microsoft adCenter Differences and Advantages 323Monday: Keyword Match Types 324Tuesday: Geo-targeting 324Wednesday: Ad Types and Lengths 326Thursday: Ad Scheduling 330Friday: Demographic Targeting 331Week 35: Create Google AdWord Exports 333Monday and Tuesday: Creating the Root CSV from AdWords Editor 333Wednesday and Thursday: Creating the Root CSV from Yahoo! 335Friday: Creating the Root CSV from adCenter 335Week 36: Upload and Fine-Tune 336Monday: Uploading into Yahoo! 336Tuesday: Troubleshooting Yahoo! Import Problems 338Wednesday: Uploading into adCenter 340Thursday and Friday: Reviewing Campaign Uploads 340Appendix A Advanced AdWords Editor 343What Is AdWords Editor? 344Getting Started 344Opening and Downloading Your Account 345Downloading Campaign Statistics 346Uploading Your Changes 346Navigating, Editing, and Expanding Your Campaigns 348Saving Time with AdWords Editor 356Find and Replace 357Detailed Ad Text Changes 357Spreadsheets Are Still Important 359Backup Files (AEA) 359Export Changes (AES) 359Export Spreadsheet (CSV) 359Global Edits 359Upload to Yahoo! or MSN 360Import Changes 360Working with General Tools 360Find Duplicate Keywords Tool 360Keyword Grouper 361Keyword Opportunities 362Appendix B Facebook PPC 363Getting Started 364Targeting Facebook Ads 366Managing and Reporting 371Using Facebook Ad-Performance Reports 373Index 379