Growing your business with AdWords

Follow our tips and watch your AdWords account ourish

Welcome to Growing your business with AdWords,aguide to help you ensure you get the best results for your business with AdWords advertising campaigns.

This booklet will provide you with all the tips and tricks you need for your account to succeed: 1. Get the basics right 2. Expand your reach 3. Measure your success Getting the most out of AdWords requires ongoing experimentation. Whether youre brand new to AdWords or an AdWords veteran, following the guidelines in this booklet will help you create and hone your campaigns to give you the maximum possible return for your advertising investment. If you are confused by any of the AdWords terms in this booklet, there is a handy glossary at the back to help you out.

How AdWords works

Get the basics right

Account structure Understand how to structure your account to make your campaigns thrive. Keywords Learn how to choose the right keywords to target your customers. Ads Get creative and write attention grabbing ads. 10

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Expand your reach

Content network Target customers who are browsing on sites other than Google search. 24

Measure your success

Understand your success Find out how to measure your performance and get the best possible results for your business. AdWords help resources Glossary 28

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How AdWords works

Before we get in to the details of your account here's a quick reminder of the AdWords essentials.
AdWords is an automated auction. You write your ads and choose relevant keywords (a keyword is the search term word or phrase that a person searching on Google types in which will then trigger your ad). Then, a prospective customer searches and all the ads with keywords related to their search query are put into an auction, including yours. The top ads will appear to your potential customer under the heading Sponsored Links, on the right-hand side or above Google's search results. An interested customer will click on your ad and be directed to your website.
Your ad appears here when potential customers search for your business on Google

Search results

How AdWords works

As well as showing to people searching on Google, your ads can also appear on relevant websites in the content network. When you advertise on the content network, a diverse network of millions of websites, your ads are shown beside website content that is relevant to your customers.You can choose sites you want to appear on or let us match your ads to relevant websites.

How do we match your ads? 1. By scanning the millions of pages on the web, Google'scontextual targetingtechnology analyses the content of different web pages to determine what the site is about. 2. Then, by looking at the keywords and ad text in your campaign, we identify themain concept behind your advertising message. 3. Our system then automatically places the most relevant ads with the most relevant pages, so your ads show to interested users.

How AdWords works

The most important thing to think about when looking at your AdWords account is quality.
Google rewards relevant, quality advertising with a higher position on the search page and lower costs, so making sure your ads are high quality is really important.

How AdWords works

So, what do we mean by quality? Think about how you search... when you type in a search term you want to see an ad that offers the product or service you're looking for. When you click on that ad you want to be taken directly to the product/ service page for more information.

All users are the same. They want to nd what they're looking for quickly and simply and if they do they're more likely to be interested in what they nd and make a purchase or enquiry. This is the basis of how AdWords works: you create high-quality, relevant ads that are useful to those people searching for your products and the Google system will reward you with a higher position on the page and lower costs.

Get the basics right

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Account structure

Account structure
Take a fresh look at your account
Structuring your account effectively can have a dramatic impact on the success of your AdWords campaigns.
A little organisation will make it much easier to create quality ads. It'll also help you determine what's providing value so you can build on your most successful campaigns and edit those that aren't working as well.

Account

Campaign

Campaign

Ad group Ad texts Keywords Ad group Ad texts Keywords

Ad group Ad texts Keywords

Ad group Ad texts Keywords

Ad group Ad texts Keywords

Account structure

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Get to grips with the essentials

Your AdWords account is made up of three levels: account, campaign and ad group.

Your AdWords account is structured to help you create highly targeted advertising. Your account is split into campaigns and each campaign into ad groups. You can think of these as categories and subcategories. Each campaign should focus on a specic product range or area of your business and then each ad group should be even more specic and focus on a subcategory of the main campaign topic. For example if you are a garden centre you could have a campaign focused on roses and then the ad groups (or subcategories) within that campaign could be different types of roses such as scented roses, climbing roses etc.

Take inspiration from the structure of your website when deciding what campaigns and ad groups to create. Look at how you've structured your site and reect this in your AdWords account. A well structured account should not only provide you with better results it will also make your advertising easy to manage!

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Account structure

Examples and ideas you can implement

Before taking you through how you can improve your own account structure, lets take a look at an example of a well structured account.
This example shows what an account could look like for a Garden Centre.

Campaign 1: Seeds Ad group 1: Flower seeds Ad group 2: Grass seeds Ad group 3: Vegetable seeds

GaRDEN CEN T
Campaign 2: Roses Ad group 1: Climbing roses Ad group 2: Bush roses Ad group 3: Scented roses Campaign 3: Outdoor buildings Ad group 1: Sheds Ad group 2: Summerhouses Ad group 3: Conservatories
Home Seeds
Flower Grass Vegetable

RE
ings

Roses

Outdoor build

Account structure

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Tips for creating a winning account structure

A well managed account is a successful account. Implement our tips below to ensure your campaigns thrive.

Give each campaign an appropriate name. Make sure you can identify your campaigns easily. This will make tracking and editing your campaigns much simpler.

Split each campaign into ad groups.Ad groups let you segment your campaigns into multiple parts to achieve even greater focus and simplicity.

Stick toone themeper campaign. We recommend you structure your AdWords account similar to the structure of your website, i.e. separate your campaigns by the themes or product lines your website is divided into.

Try to aim for at least three ad groups per campaign.The number of ad groups you need will vary depending on the size of your product offering and business but aiming for a minimum of three will ensure that each ad group is tightly themed and will help you to write specic ads targeted to your customers.

Just like campaigns, each ad group should have one common theme. Focus on a single product or service that you offer in each ad group. This will make it simple to create focused, effective keywords and ads. For example, a garden centre could have a campaign with the theme of "Seeds", an ad group in that campaign might be "Flower seeds".

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Keywords

Keywords
Reach the right customers
Keywords are the roots of your ad campaign. They set the entire advertising process in motion. If your potential customers are searching for your product or service, theyll nd you more quickly if youve chosen the right keywords.

You should think about your keywords in the same way you have structured your campaigns and ad groups. Each of your ad groups should contain tightly themed keywords.A small group of carefully targeted keywords are farbetter than a large group of un-targeted keywords. For example, an ad group with the theme of climbing roses should only contain keywords specically related to climbing roses rather than a large group of keywords related to owers or roses in general.There is no one-size ts all answer but try to aim for between 5 and 50 keywords in each ad group. Theming your keyword groups in this way will help you when writing your ads and, most importantly of all, make your advertising high quality allowing your customers to nd you easily.

Keywords

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Get to grips with the essentials

When picking your keywords you have the choice to use different matching options. These options give you further control over when your ads should show. To reach the right customers we recommend that you focus your campaigns using broad match keywords along with negative match where needed.
Broad Matchreaches the most users by showing your ad whenever your keyword, or a relevant variation of your keyword, is searched for. For instance if your keyword isred roses, it will trigger your ad on searches suchasred roses,red and pink rosesorrosescoloured red. This is the default option for keywords. Negative Matchprevents your ad from showing when a word or phrase you specify is searched for. If you havered rosesas a keyword and specifysyntheticas a negative match your ad won't show on search terms such assyntheticred roses. To add negative keywords go to the Keywords tab. Scroll down to the negative keyword section, click on the plus sign and add your negative keywords in the box. If you would like to try more advanced options then there are two further keyword options which can be used. We only recommend you use these if you are condent with monitoring the success of your campaign and are able to assess keyword performance. For more information search for keyword matching options in the AdWords Help Centre.

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Keywords

Examples and ideas you can implement

Lets look at a 3 step example of how you might approach creating your own keywords. In this example the campaign is roses and each ad group is a type of rose. 1. Begin by listing all relevant keywords for a campaign. roses, climbing roses,climbing rose, fragrant climbing roses, rose plants, buy bush roses, rose bush, rose bushes, best roses,bush rose sale, shrub roses,luxury red bush roses, hardy climbing roses,cheap roses, climbing rose varieties, rambling roses, climbing roses,spring roses 2. Next split your keywords into your themed ad groups, with relevant ad texts. Ad group 1: Climbing roses Beautiful Climbing Roses Sale Now On. Large Variety of Colours and Brands. Buy Now! GardenCentreSite.com/ClimbingRoses Keywords: (1)roses, climbing roses, climbing rose, fragrant climbing roses, (2) rose plants, hardy climbing roses, climbing rose varieties, rambling roses, spring roses, (3)- delivered, - free Ad group 2: Bush roses Beautiful Bush Roses Sale Now On. Large Variety of Colours and Brands.Buy Now! GardenCentreSite.com/BushRoses Keywords: (2)rose plants, buy bush roses, rose bush, rose bushes, (4)best roses,cheap roses, bush rose sale, shrub roses(5)luxury red bush roses, (3)- delivered, - free

Please note these examples are ctional and are intended for illustrational purposes only.

3. Review and rene. Reviewing the keywords above we have identied 5 we would like to rene: (1) Rosesmay be too generic to be a good keyword. (2) Make sure you dont use the same keyword in multiple ad groups within the same campaign. (Our system interprets this as increased competition for this keyword, resulting in a higher cost-per-click (CPC) for it). (3) Negative match keywords like delivered and freeprevent your ad from showing for searches that contain those keywords. This business doesnt offer delivery or free products so they should include these as negative keywords. (4) Keywords likebest rosesandcheap rosesdont give enough details about the product or products being offered. (5) Keywords likeluxury red bush rosesmay be too specic to be effective.

Keywords

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Tips for choosing the right keywords for your business

Make sure your keywords are right for your business. Use our tips below to ne tune your keyword lists.
Try out ourkeyword tool. Stuck for keyword ideas? The keyword tool, found within your account, provides suggestions for new keywords and can also help identify possible negative keywords.

Think like your customers. How might your customers search for your product or service? Generally the best keywords tend to be2-3 words long.

Match your keywords to your ad text.Each keyword shouldmatch the ad text that it triggers when a potential customer searches on Google.To do this, group all the keywords relating to a particular product or service into a specic ad group. You can then create an ad that matches these keywords so that whatever a user searches for, they see an ad that is very relevant to their search.

Regularly review your keywords. Through regular reviews you can remove keywords which are not providing value and learn from the success of your top performing keywords.

Use negative keywords.Prevent your ad from showing on a search which is not relevant for your business.For example if you sell lawnmowers you may not want your ad to show if a user searches forLawnmower repairsso specifyrepairsas a negative keyword.

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Ads

Ads
Write ads to get your customers clicking
Your customers choose to go to your website over your competitors' based solely on what they see in your ads. If your ads don't grab their attention, you could be missing out on valuable sales.
To get the best results your ads should directly relate to your keywords. This means that when a potential customer searches for your product they see a very relevant ad and will visit your site. Once you have organised your account and have your keywords grouped into ad groups your ads should be easy to write.

Ads

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Get to grips with the essentials

AdWords makes it really easy for you to test out your messaging and see which ads work for your customers. Try testing different ads in each ad group, you may be surprised at what is the most successful.
To test your messaging, write three or four variations of the same ad text in each ad group (as shown below).These ads will all run from the same set of keywords.If you have more than one ad in each ad group AdWords will rotate which of your ads is shown, at no additional cost. This example shows some ads that could be tested in an ad group focused on garden sheds. Garden Sheds Delivery & Fitting Prices Start From Only 150 GardenCentreSite.com/GardenSheds Garden Sheds Sale High Quality Timber Garden Sheds Guaranteed Low Prices. Buy Now. GardenCentreSite.com/GardenSheds Cheap Garden Sheds Free Delivery. 10yr guarantee. Buy Online or Call Us Now. GardenCentreSite.com/GardenSheds

Keywords: Garden sheds, wooden garden sheds, garden shed, buy garden sheds, cheap garden sheds, large garden sheds, small garden sheds

Allow these ad variations to run for a while. Then check your clicks. The ads with the highestclickthrough rates (CTR) arethe ads users nd to be the most relevant to their search. Over time you will learn what works for your business and you can edit your ads accordingly.

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Ads

Examples and ideas you can implement

It can be difficult to know where to start when writing ads, learn what works well and what doesn't from the example below!

When a potential customer searches for climbing roses the two ads below could appear.

Climbing RosesOn Sale Special Offer onClimbing Roses. Buy Online Now. Next Day Delivery. GardenCentreSite.com/ClimbingRoses

garden centre we sell everything you need for your garden gardencentresite.com

Whats right? Headline focuses on the product thats for sale, and contains relevant keywords Description details specic benets of buying the product from this company (Next Day Delivery) Description includes an instruction to customers of the action they should take (Buy Online Now) Destination URL leads to a page on the company website related specically to climbing roses

Whats wrong? Headline focuses on a company description instead of on core selling points and the keywords that trigger it Description is too general it would be much better if it focused on specic products or services offered by the company and it doesnt contain an action the customer should take Destination URL leads to the companys home page, rather than to a page promoting the specic product or service

Please note these examples are ctional and are intended for illustrational purposes only.

Ads

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Tips for writing targeted ads

Ensure your ads catch the eye of potential customers. Try testing out some of our tips to see what works for your business.
Use your keywords in your ad. For the best results put your top performing keyword into the headline of your ad. Use a strong call-to-action. Tell potential customers what action you want them to take when they get to your site e.gBuy now. Call today.

Include prices, special offers and unique selling points. What makesyour product or service offering different from your competitors?

Direct users to the page on your website which is most relevant to each ad. By using a very specic destination URL you can direct potential customers to the page on your website that is most relevant tothe product or service described in your ad.

Expand your reach

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Content network

Content network
Reach customers on relevant websites
Did you know that in addition to showing your AdWords ad on Google search, you can also show it onrelevantwebsites that your customers visit?
The Google content network is a large, diverse network of different kinds of sites that partner with Google. On this network, you can show your ad to potential customers when they're looking at sites related to your products or services.

Get to grips with the essentials

Internet users spend the majority of their time online browsing websites. By advertising on both search and the content network, you can reach your target audience no matter what they are doing online.
When your campaign is opted into the content network, AdWords automatically targets your ads to relevant content onwebsites. This means your message is matched to the right audience at the right time. For example, if you're selling garden tools, our system may place your ad next to a news article that reviews the latest garden tools. In this case, you know that a user who is looking at this web page is likely to be interested in your product.

Content network

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Tips for getting the most out of your content network campaign
To get the most out of advertising on thecontent network make sure that you create a tightly themed campaign that represents your business.
This will help our system match your ad with the most relevant sites on the web. The good news is that the tips in this booklet for creating effectiveads and keywords on search also apply to your performance on the content network. For example, follow ad best practices like using a strong call to action in your ad and making sure you have clear themes in your ad text that match with your keywords. Together these basic actions allow our system to see very clearly what your product or service is and match your ads to relevant websites.

How to review your performance

To understand what's working for your ads on content network websites you should go to the Networks tab of your AdWords account andclick on show details beside your content placements.
Here you can review all of the websites your ads have shown on.As well as this you cansee statisticsabout each site that will help you assess how your ads are performing. To learn more about measuring performance you should refer to the next section in this booklet. On the content network the most important statistic to look at is the clickthrough rate (CTR). CTR is how often people click on your ad, it will give an indication of how well each site is performing. Note that CTR on the content network will typically be lower than for search. After your ads have been running on these websites for a period of time you will be able to use these metrics to see which are the best performing sites for you.You can then look at the possibility of individually managing your cost-per-click (CPC) for the top sites and focus more budget on them.For more information on managed placements search for "managed placements" in the AdWords Help Centre.

Measuring success

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Understand your success

Understand your success

With Google AdWords, it's all about results. To make sure you're getting the best possible results, you should monitor your account performance on a regular basis.
Think about what you want to achieve from your ad campaign. Do you want traffic to your website? Sales? Or your visitors to take a specic action such as signing up to your newsletter? Once you've clearly dened your goals you can use your AdWords statistics and the free tools available from Google to measure your success. Be realistic about what you want to achieve and try to set time aside to review your account regularly, to make sure you're reaching your goals.

Understand your success

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What to look for in your account

The rst, and easiest way to measure your success is to review your AdWords statistics.
Success with AdWords will be different for every business and will depend on your business goals. However, there are a few things to look out for that will indicate your ads are running successfully: Clickthrough Rate (CTR):To get an immediate idea of how well a campaign is doing, check the CTR - how often people click on your ad after seeing it. As a rule of thumb, a CTR on Google under 1% indicates that your ads are not targeted to a relevant audience. Look at this on the Campaigns tab and view the CTR of your individual keywords and ads on the respective tabs. Keyword Status:An Eligible state means your keyword is eligible to trigger ads. Clicking on the icon in the status column will give you more detail on your individual keyword performance. To view keyword status go to the Keywords tab and look under the "Status" column. Average Position:Check the Avg. Pos. column on the Campaigns tab in your account to nd out where your ad is appearing on the search results page. There are up to 11 ads shown on any search page so if your average position is 11 or more your ad is, on average, not appearing on the rst page of search results. You should aim to show your ad on the rst page of search results so your potential customers can more easily nd your ad. First Page Bids:If your ad is not showing on the rst page of search results then you will see rst page bid on the Keyword tab under the Status column. A rst page bid is the cost-per-click you need to set to get your ad showing on the rst page of search results. High rst page bid estimates can indicate that your ads are not as relevant as they could be. Quality Score:Each of your keywords is given a quality score which can be found by clicking on the icon in the Status column on the Keywords tab.Google rewards relevant, quality advertising with a higher position on the search page and lower costs, so making sure your ads are high quality is really important. Use the tips from this booklet to help you improve these stats.

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Understand your success

Interested in delving deeper into your performance?

You may want to install conversion trackingorGoogle Analytics on your site. These free Google products allow you to analyse your account performance based on which keywords and ads convert into sales or leads, rather than purely those that direct traffic to your website. Conversion tracking: In online advertising, aconversionoccurs when a click on your ad leads directly to user behaviour you deem valuable, such as a purchase, signup, page view, or lead.Conversion tracking is a free way to monitor and evaluate how well your ad campaigns convert into meaningful actions like a sale. Google Analytics: Google Analytics is a free website analysis tool which can show you how people found your site, how they explored it, and what actions they took on your site. With this information, you can improve your websites return on investment, increase conversions, and ultimately make more money on the web. For instructions on how to install these tools visit the AdWords Help Centre and search for conversion tracking and Google Analytics.

Understand your success

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Checklist for managing your account

The online world moves very quickly, so what works for you today may not be as successful next week. A weekly review of your account will help you make sure you're getting the most out of your advertising budget. Here's a quick list of actions for you to follow every time you log in to your account. This will help you understand how your account is performing and whether you're meeting your business goals.Performance will vary by account so focus on identifying your best and worst performing keywords and ads, this will help when rening your account.

Remember to repeat this process regularly to continually build on your success.

1. Check notication and account alerts on the home page. When you log in to your AdWords account you will see notications and account alerts from Google. It's important to keep an eye out for these updates as they contain important information relevant to your account. 2. Go to the Campaigns tab and set the time range. The time range setting can be found in the top right-hand corner of your account and should be set to a period of 1-4 weeks to get a good indication of recent performance. 3. Review your keyword performance. Under the Keywords tab review: Keyword clickthrough rate (CTR). Which keywords are receiving your highest and lowest CTR? Position of your keywords. Are your ads appearing on the rst page i.e avg. pos. of 1 -11? Keyword status. Are your ads eligible to show? Quality score. You can see the quality score for each keyword by clicking on the icon in the status column. 4. Review your ads performance. Under the "Ads" tab review: Ad CTR. If you are testing multiple ads in each ad group check to see which are performing best.

5. Rene your keywords and ads. Look at the top performing keywords and ads. Edit those that are not doing well, using your top performers as a guide as to how they can be improved. Delete those that have consistently performed poorly. Use negative keywords to eliminate unwanted impressions. 6. Finally, test new keywords and ads for your campaigns. Use the keyword tool to get keyword suggestions to add to yourcampaign. If you don't have multiple ads in each ad group, you should try adding someto test which work best for you.

If you have conversion tracking enabled, check which ads and keywords are converting into sales.

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Adwords help resources

Grow your business with AdWords!

We hope that you've found this booklet helpful and that you're fully equipped to achieve great results from your AdWords account!
If you would like to keep learning then you can access our online learning materials and resources, including blogs, webinars and the AdWords help forum, from our online AdWords Guide... AdWords Guide www.google.com/adwords/beginnersguide

To make sure that you're not missing out on any of our online communications, check you're opted in to receive online updates from us: 1. Log in to your AdWords account (typeadwords.google.co.uk into your browser). 2. Select Account Preferences under the tab My Account. 3. Find Notication Preferences and click Edit. 4. Review, edit and save your preferences (Customised Help & Performance Suggestions & Newsletters).

Glossary

Ad group A collection of ads within a campaign that corresponds to a group of related keywords. Ad rank Your ads position on a results page. Your ad rank is determined by your maximum CPC bid and your keywords quality score. Campaign A component of your account that allows you to focus your advertising on specic products or services. The ads in a given campaign share the same daily budget, language and location targeting. Each campaign can contain multiple ad groups. Clickthrough rate (CTR) A measure of how relevant users nd your ads and keywords to their search query.CTR helps measure the performance of your ads and keywords. Cost-per-click (CPC) bid The amount you pay each time a user clicks on your ad. You can set the maximum CPC bid (the maximum amount you are willing to pay when a potential customer clicks on your ad) at the ad group or keyword level.

Destination URL The web page on which a user will land after clicking on your ad. It doesnt have to be your sites main page. Also called a landing page. Display URL The URL displayed in your ad to identify your site to users. Impression The number of times an ad is displayed on Google or on sites in the Google content network. Keyword A specic word, or combination of words, used to target your ads to potential customers. When a user searches on your keyword, your ad will enter the auction. Quality score Quality score is a measure of how relevant your ad, keyword, or webpage is. Quality scores help ensure that only the most relevant ads appear to users.

How AdWords work

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