Google AdWords - 7 Tips to Run a Successful AdWords Campaign

Google is the most popular search engine in the world and its pay per click platform (Google AdWords) can be considered the best too. Today, only Yahoo's sponsored search marketing platform comes close to Google AdWords.

If you want to drive lots of traffic to your website, you must master Google AdWords. It is a little different from some of the other pay per click platforms. If you do not know how to use it properly, it can sometimes cause you a bomb in advertising cost with mediocre results.

Now, let me share with you 7 tips to run a successful Google AdWords campaign:

1. If you are new to Google AdWords, turn off Content Targeting first. I will recommend you to start with the search network and exclude content targeting at the beginning. This is because if you are not familiar with content targeting, you are going to spend lots of money on it and get mediocre results.

2. Set a daily budget and maximum cost-per-click (CPC) for keywords. A daily budget will ensure that you will not overspend. So determine how much money you want to spend on Google AdWords. Then divide the amount by 30 days. Also, you can set the maximum cost per click for each keyword. The maximum CPC allows you to determine the highest amount that you will bid for a particular keyword.

3. Bid on the right keywords. If you bid on irrelevant keywords, the cost-per-click of each keyword will be higher and you are going to pay more for the campaign. Therefore, always conduct a thorough keyword research to make sure that you have a set of keywords that is related to what you are offering on your website.

4. Place keywords in the right ad groups. If you place all the keywords in one ad group, it is very hard for you to write targeted ads. When your ads are not targeted, there will be lesser people clicking on them. This will decrease your CTR and cause you to pay more for each click.

5. Do split testing by running 2 ads at a time. Always run 2 ads at a time to make sure that you keep increasing the CTR of your ads. With higher CTR, you will pay lesser per click.

6. Place keywords in the title and description of your ads. Placing keywords in the title and description of your ads will greatly improve your CTR, which translates to lower cost per click. But this is only possible if you place related keywords in separate ad groups.

7. Use negative keywords. If you think of any keyword that may cause your ads to show but is not related to your campaign, be sure to place it as negative keywords. You may think that Google AdWords is a pay per click model. Even if the negative keywords trigger your ads, as long as searchers do not click on it, you do not need to pay. Although this is true, but indirectly, you are going to pay more. This is because when these negative keywords trigger your ads, the total impressions of your campaign increase. And because these keywords are not related to the campaign, there will be little clicks coming from them. This means that you will have a very poor quality score and low CTR. Poor quality score + low CTR = expensive cost-per-click.

And do not forget to track campaign performance. You can use Google Analytics to track traffic, conversions and ROI.