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If you’re going to work as a PPC consultant or a freelancer (or if you are on the hiring side), you’re probably you should consider documenting your agreement in a contract.

Contracts help both parties understand the terms of your agreement, payment milestones, and protections for both parties. More importantly from a sales perspective, a contract can help you identify “out of scope” work to increase your revenue.

As you can imagine, we get a lot of questions about what type of language belongs in a PPC contract. While only an attorney can provide legal advice, I would like to share some insights I’ve gained over the years as a PPC freelancer and consultant.

DISCLAIMER

This article contains general information only and Jeffalytics is not, by means of this presentation, rendering accounting, business, financial, investment, legal, tax, or other professional advice or services.

This article is not a substitute for such professional advice or services, nor should it be used as a basis for any decision or action that may affect your business. Before making any decision or taking any action that may affect your business, you should consult a qualified professional advisor.

Jeffalytics shall not be responsible for any loss sustained by any person who relies on this article.

Today, I’d like to talk about some do’s, and some don’ts for PPC contracts

Now that we have the disclaimers out of the way, let’s discuss some general guidelines and considerations for PPC contracts, specifically on terms that should and shouldn’t go into a PPC service contract.

Let’s talk about PPC contracts.

Legal-eze

Remember the movie Willie Wonka? There was a part of this movie that gave me contract anxiety. About mid-way through the film, Mr. Beauregarde, Violets Dad, tells Wonka:

Ever since I first saw this movie when I was five years old, I’ve been afraid of contracts.

But, contracts are not for suckers!!

They are for smart PPC managers and business-wise clients.

Contracts help establish:

What work will be delivered, on what terms, and in what time frame. 

Timing for payment and how payments are made.

Contracts also protect your interests

New business engagements are often motivated by optimism and excitement.  But what happens when things go wrong?  Contacts exist to protect your interest when your business arrangements don’t work out.

Contract Pre-Steps

It’s much easier to work through the contract process if you already have a verbal agreement in place. This is especially true in the PPC world, where clients often have big hopes for all the new sales you’re going to bring them.

You want to work to educate your prospective partners about your PPC management process. And you want to establish fair expectations before you agree to anything in writing.

Let’s look at some pre-steps you can take to get the contract process off to a good start.

PPC Contract Pre-step #1

Be clear about your expectations up front.

You need to clearly establish what your clients are trying to achieve.  Then determine if those expectations are reasonable.  Given your resources: can you meet your client’s expectations in a time frame that’s profitable for your business?

Study your clients business and market using competitive intelligence tools. Try to determine what type of results would be reasonable given your experience.

Look for these two red flags in your pre-contract meetings:

1) Clients that expect you transform their business
2) And clients that can’t articulate their needs

Both of these types of clients have a habit of being unhappy down the road. Dissatisfied clients can be very hard to deal with when it comes to collecting your fees.

Knowing this will help you craft the terms of your contract. Example: Consider structuring the payment with an up-front fee, with the remainder due at delivery.

PPC Contract Pre-step #2

Establish a verbal agreement before you write up the contract.

Work to get a verbal agreement in place before you submit a written contract, and verbalize that you understand the client’s targets.

Here’s an example of verbalizing fees and expectations:

Your fee for managing AdWords campaigns is $2,000/month. The client wants to spend $10,000 a month on ads, and they hope to achieve 100 conversions.

If the verbal terms are favorable for both parties, then you can move on to the next step.

Now, let’s talk about what should and shouldn’t go into a PPC contract.

PPC Mastery Course student question

This contract discussion was sparked by a question from one of our PPC Course students.

Dale asks:

A client is asking us to sign their agreement which is outlining the terms of engagement. For instance what work we’ll do each month and the target conversions and CPA, is this normal?

Dale wants to know if it’s standard for a client to put cost-per-acquisition (CPA) and conversion metrics in his service contract.

The first thing Dale should do is consider having an attorney review his contract. You always want to get proper legal advice before you agree to the terms of a contract. Especially, if you do not understand a term, always know what you are agreeing to.

That said, I would never agree to a contract that was contingent upon CPA or expected conversions.

Here’s why:

Results are not always within your control. You can’t predict your client’s participation. You also can’t predict the market or demand for your client’s product. It would be entirely possible to do a great job as a PPC manager, and still not achieve the target CPA or conversions.

Contracts are meant to protect you from liability and outline the terms of payment.  However, they shouldn’t bind your payment to results that rely on factors outside your control.

Here are few more reasons I would avoid specifying results in a PPC contract:

1) Results and activities are a two-way street

Results based contracts assume the client’s participation, and may not allow the service provider to force the client to participate.

2) If the service provider does not have autonomy, then results are not guaranteed

Contracts that specify results assume the service provider has end-to-end control of running PPC campaigns. That’s great if this happens, but from my experience, clients rarely relinquish full control to outside service providers.

3) It’s the adjustments that generate results

Results are driven through adjustments. Adjusting to the dynamics of your client’s market are what drives the best PPC results.

The question then becomes whether your contract allows you the time to achieve the agreed upon results. In other words, is specifying exact results in your contract setting you up for failure? How do you know the results are possible before you’ve even begun to work on the client’s account?

You can’t fully predict results in your clients market. New or increased competition can drastically change your results, and it takes time to fully understand the landscape.

You also can’t predict changes that will occur on the advertising platform. Google can change their policies. Facebook can eliminate publisher posts. You can’t predict these shocks to the market, and they will have a big impact on your results.

With these things in mind, let’s get into the Do’s and Don’ts guidelines for building PPC contracts.

Do’s and don’ts guidelines for PPC contracts

Here are some things you should do to build PPC contract:

Work with an attorney

I can’t stress this point enough. Find an attorney your comfortable working with and have them review your contracts. This is especially important when you’re first starting out.

Limit risks on both sides

Contracts are a two-way street. You want both you and your client to be happy. Try to limit the risk for both parties.

One example of limiting your risk is placing an AdWords account build fee on the front end of your contract. A setup fee can help protect you from the client walking away before you recoup the costs of your startup work.  (To learn more about how I build a PPC service fee you can read our AdWords Specialist article).

On the other side, clients may not want to get locked into a long-term agreement. Clients also need the flexibility to make adjustments.

List payment terms and contingencies

Payment terms should specify when you get paid. And the contingencies should state the work you need to complete.

Protect your best interest

A contract should protect you and your company against liability.

Consider how to define the services you’ll provide

Although results shouldn’t go into your contract, you do need to specify services. Make sure the services you agree to provide can be identified and fulfilled. Additionally, a well crafted services clause can help to identify out of scope work or additional projects for the client.

Make sure each service is clearly trackable

Your services should be line items that you can check off as you complete them. In other words, how does the client know that you have completed the service in accordance with your contract. Consider adding a deliverables or milestone section to your contract.

Add in standard contract language in addition to your services

The services are typically a small part of the contract, but where you will spend most of your time when crafting your contract.

The part we all gloss over as “words, words, words” is what makes the contract enforceable and adds to protection if disagreements occur.  There are a lot of contract templates out there, and you need to be sure they are valid in your state or your country and are crafted with terms favorable to you.

Is your intellectual property being protected? Can the person you are working with enter into a contract on behalf of the company? Are you in compliance with privacy laws of the jurisdiction you are working with? Is there sale, use of VAT tax and who is paying it?

This is where your attorney will be most helpful.

Make sure everybody is happy with the terms of the contract

Work to design a contract that pleases both parties. If one side is unhappy with the contract headed into the deal, they’re unlikely to be satisfied later on. Unhappy clients are hard to collect from, even with a contract in place. The only one collecting in this case will be the attorneys. (ba dom boom)

What types of things shouldn’t go into a PPC contract

Don’t put any marketing language in your contracts

Your marketing is done before people start signing on the dotted line. Sales and marketing language does not belong in a contract.  Your contract should be used to formalize the terms of service and payment, not to advertise your services. If you are signing a contract, then your sales work is done so let’s leave it in the proposal.

Avoid using specific targets or results in your contract

As we discussed earlier, your PPC contract should not commit to delivering results you don’t have control over.

Don’t assume both parties understand industry jargon

Eliminate industry related terminology as much as possible.  Stick to describing your services in clearly understood language. If you need to use jargon or an abbreviation, then define the jargon/abbreviation in the contract.

Don’t sign a contract if it doesn’t feel right

Many of us have done this one. We are eager for new business, so we sign a contract that we start to regret the seconds the inks dry. To avoid this problem, try to give yourself a couple of days to think over any new contracts. If you really want the business, but the terms don’t feel right, consult your attorney.

Don’t leave any language open to interpretation

Here’s an example of ambiguous language from the PPC world: “optimize.” Don’t put this word, or any other words that can’t be defined in your contract.  Optimal is a subjective term, not a definitive outcome.  Stick to language that’s is well defined.

Don’t assume everything is going to work out perfectly (it never does)

The best way to resolve challenges and issues is through communication. Let your client know when you run into issues as soon as you spot them. Let them know the cause and effect of the problem. Is it a time delay? Additional cost? Work together to find a solution. Document any changes to your initial agreement with and addendum or amendment to the contract. 

Don’t forget why contracts exist (for when things don’t go according to plan)

Hopefully, you can do your work and avoid having to execute your contracts. But the PPC world has a lot of variables. Even the best clients can get frustrated when the results aren’t what they hoped for. Contracts protect your interest when things don’t go according to plan.

PPC contract guide

Do you want us to create a PPC Mastery Course contract guide? We have been considering the idea of creating a flexible, but effective PPC contract guide to help you with considerations for crafting your contract.

Is this a product you want?  If you’re interested in purchasing the PPC Mastery Course Contract Guide leave a comment below or send us a message at support@ppccourse.com.

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This post and video was episode 37 in our 90 Day Challenge digital marketing series.

To get access to all 90 videos, subscribe to our YouTube channel. YouTube will send our subscribers weekly emails about all the videos we published over the past week.

Want to know about each video and post as soon as it comes out? Sign up for 90 day challenge email newsletter. The newsletter will be the best way to make sure you don’t miss any of the content.

Today we’re discussing one of the most common arguments in search advertising: branded keywords.

Should you or should you not bid on your branded keywords?

There are very strong cases on both sides of this argument. But, one side’s position is grounded in facts, while the other is based on sentiment.

Let’s take a look at both sides of this argument.

And… I’ll show you why a data-driven analysis provides a decisive answer on how to approach branded keywords in paid search.

What are branded keywords?

Branded or brand keywords are search terms associated with a company’s brand name.

Here are some examples of branded keywords searches:

“PPC Mastery Course”
“PPC Mastery Course reviews”
“What is PPC Mastery Course”
“PPC Mastery Course price”

Should you bid on branded keywords?

There’s a pretty hot debate about bidding on brand associated keywords.

In my experience, about 75% of the PPC community wholeheartedly believes in including brand names in their PPC campaigns.

Yet, there’s another 25% of people that are totally opposed to bidding on branded keywords. The opposition to branded keyword bidding is usually pretty vocal. They can’t fathom why they should have to pay Google a single cent for the brand notoriety they’ve worked hard to build.

PPC Course student question

Shelly, one of our PPC Course students, posted this question in our Course forum.  She wants to know if she should include her clients branded keywords in their PPC campaigns.

Shelly asks:

Fortunately, there’s a right and wrong answer to this question.

Let’s look at both sides of the branded keywords argument, while I answer Shelly’s question.

The “No Brand Keywords” argument

Here are the most common arguments against bidding on branded search terms.

Established organic search ranking

Most companies rank at the top of organic search for their brand name. They’ve spent time and money on building up brand related authority. If they’ve already solidified top search ranking on a keyword why pay to advertise on it?

Google already has enough of our money

Why should you pay Google for ads on branded search terms, when you’re already spending money to advertise on other searches?  The argument here is that you shouldn’t throw PPC money at branded keywords. Instead, save the budget for search terms where you don’t show up in organic rankings.

We own the brand, not Google

This argument is based on outright frustration. “How dare Google make us pay for clicks on our brand!”

They will just click on us anyway

If someone’s using a branded search they must be looking for that companies home page, right? If that’s true, there’s no reason to pay for ads. Your organic result will win the click anyway. Advertising would have you competing against yourself.

The arguments against advertising on branded keywords are usually supported by strong convictions. But they’re not grounded in data.

So what’s the argument for advertising on branded keywords?

Let’s look at how branded keywords factor into organic search results.

As we can see from the WordStream analysis below, head terms, 2 to 3 word search terms, have about a 20% organic click-through-rate (CTR).

Long tail keywords, search terms comprised of 4 or more words, get approximately a 30% organic CTR.

Brand names usually fall into the category of head terms.

So, if your brand ranks #1 in organic search for your branded keywords, you still only get about 20% to 30% of the available clicks.

Even the best organic search results miss out on nearly 70% of all search traffic.

If you rely only on organic search to capture traffic, you’re missing out on most of the searches for your brand.

That’s the CTR argument for advertising on your branded keywords.

Now, let’s look at branded keywords from a customer perspective.

Below are the search results for the manufacture of my favorite drone – “dji.”

The first result is a paid add that fills up most of my screen. The company information shows up on the right side of my browser. Then below the paid add is the latest news about DJI.

If I want to get to the organic results, I have to scroll over halfway down the page. I even have to bypass Dji’s latest tweets to get to their organic “homepage” result.

Does your customer have enough patience to find your organic search results?

Now put yourself in the shoes of a customer. How many people really have the patience to scroll all the way to your organic listing?

The searcher will have to ignore the paid ad on your brand name, if there is one. Then, they will have to bypass all the latest news and ignore your twitter feed to get to your organic result.

I’ll be honest with you. I don’t even want to do that for this result! I want to know the latest information. Why should I scroll down to the organic listing when there’s so much other information to consume?

Search ads give your brand more real estate and more opportunity to get clicks

It comes down to a question of real estate. Are you willing to pay a tax to Google to dominate the search results for your brand? Or, are you willing to potentially give up top-of-the-page space to competing information?

In DJI’s case, they are not willing to lose any real estate. And they’ve done a great job of making sure they own all the clicks for their brand name.

So, we’ve looked the argument for branded keywords in terms of CTR. We’ve also taken a customer based approach to this debate.

But, What does Google have to say about this?

The impact of incremental clicks

In 2011 Google published a study that showed incremental clicks have a big impact on search advertising.

Here’s what Google found:

Listings with paid ads and organic results got 89% more clicks than listings without search ads.

So, combining paid search with organic rank has a significant impact on CTR.

Google released a follow-up study on this same topic in 2012. Once again they found combining paid ads with organic rank has a big incremental impact.

In fact, the biggest incremental gains were found through the top five organic results.

The Google studies are a bit outdated. But, there’s less organic search visibility now than there was in 2012. So, I would expect the data supporting the incremental impact of paid advertising to be even stronger.

What’s my experience with advertising on branded keywords?

I found quite a few other benefits from advertising on brand related search terms over the years.

Ads on branded keywords tend to have a high CTR and quality score

These metrics can improve your account quality score. Increasing your account quality score can help your ad campaigns across the board.

Brand clicks are dirt cheap

Branded keywords usually offer the lowest cost-per-click of all your advertising by far.

Conversions on branded keywords are also inexpensive

As opposed to your organic results, your paid ad directs searchers to the landing page of your choice. Searchers that click on your ads for your brand don’t have to navigate your home page to find what they want. Instead, they are directed to your best answer for their search.

Overall, ads on branded keywords make your account performance better! The benefits of advertising on brand related search terms far outweigh the cost.

So what’s my final answer to Shelly’s question about bidding on brand keywords?

Trust the data. Don’t get hung up on the principal of this argument.

You should advertise on your branded keywords 100% of the time!

Ok, Maybe 98.7% of the time. But if you’re using AdWords, you should be advertising on your branded keywords.

There are very few cases where this strategy won’t work for you. And if this strategy is ineffective for you, it’s likely an indicator of a deeper problem.

You own your brand. But Google owns the Search Network. You’re using their platform to bring in customers. So pay the small tax on your brand. Understand that branded keyword advertising is part of bigger strategy.

A strategy that will produce incrementally better results, and cost-effective conversions!

That’s my take and my resounding data-driven answer to the branded keywords debate.

What are your thoughts?

Do you advertise on your branded searches? Or are you opposed to paying Google for clicks on your brand name?

Post your argument for or against advertising on branded keywords in the comments below!

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This post and video was episode 30 in our 90 Day Challenge digital marketing series.

To get access to all 90 days of videos, subscribe to our YouTube channel. YouTube will send our subscribers weekly emails about all the videos we published over the past week.

Want to know about each video and post as soon as it comes out? Sign up for 90 day challenge email newsletter. The newsletter will be the best way to make sure you don’t miss any of the content.

How many of your current customers do you think you can target using Google AdWords?

Don’t know? Good news! Google can tell you.

Google will even tell you how many of your customers they can find on the Search Network, the Display Network, YouTube, and Gmail.

Crazy, right?!?

It’s called AdWords Customer Match.

Customer Match allows you to use your customer data in your AdWords targeting. And today we are going to teach you how to use Customer Match.

In this post and video, we’ll go inside AdWords and show you how to upload your customer lists. We’ll also run a live Customer Match experiment. Our experiment will test Google’s Customer Match results using customer emails vs. physical mailing addresses.

Follow along! And let’s learn how we can use Customer Match to improve our efficiency and targeting in AdWords.

AdWords Customer Match

Building Adwords Customer Match lists

Creating your AdWords Customer Match list is pretty simple.

Let’s walk through how to get your list set-up.

To get started, click the gear icon in the top right-hand corner of your AdWords dashboard.

Then, select audience manager from your Shared Library menu.

Next, click the blue “+” icon, and choose to create a customer list.

Once you’re in the customer list screen, you can start to set up your new list. You can give your customer list a name. Then, choose to upload your list of customer emails, phone numbers and/or mailing addresses.

Matching customers by email address

To upload a list of customer emails you need to create a plain text file of email addresses. This file can be super basic. You only need one column, with the heading “email.”

Here’s an example of what my customer email CSV file looks like:

Once you have uploaded your list, Google will let you know if your customer emails are in the correct format.

Google was able to interpret 100% of the emails on my customer list.

After your list is in AdWords, Google will attempt to match your list with their targeting data. The matching process takes less than 24 hours to complete.

Customer Match results for our email list

When Google’s matching process is complete, you’ll see results that look like this:

Google was able to match over 50% of the customers on my test email list!

AdWords also provides you a report of where Google matches your customer data. They show you the number of customer matches they found on each of their networks.

The entire process of preparing my customer email list, and uploading it to AdWords took about 30 minutes.  And the result, I now have an audience list that can make my advertising way more efficient.

Out of over 3,000 customers, I was able to match 50% of them with Google’s data.  I can target these customers with ads for new products. Or exclude them from future ad campaigns.

Building an AdWords Customer Match list using mailing addresses

Uploading a customer mailing address list requires some additional formatting. You need to include the first name, last name, country and zip code for each customer.

This list took me a bit longer to prepare than my simple email list. I had to work out a few problems with my CSV file to get my list to upload correctly.

One item of note: You need to format your country column with the correct two-letter country code for each customer.

After I worked all the bugs out my CSV file, I had an address list of 4,199 customers from 97 different countries.

97 countries, wow! It’s exciting to see that PPC Mastery Course has spanned the globe!!

Out of the 4,199 addresses I uploaded, Google was able to read 3,736 of them.

I was skeptical that Google would be able to match my customers using the data in my mailing address list.

The simple fields, name, country, and zip seem like they might generate a lot of false positives.

But, I was also excited to see the results of my experiment.

Customer Match results for mailing address list

Google matched approximately 24% of the customers on my mailing address list.

The volume of my customer matches across Google’s networks was very consistent. Once again, Gmail had the highest match rate out of all Google’s networks.

Demographic data for Customer Match lists

It took a while for Google to return the demographic data for my Customer Match lists.  In fact, at the time I completed the above video Google still hadn’t reported any demographic data for my lists.

Eventually, Google populated the demographic data for my customer email list. Google still hasn’t returned any demographic data for my mailing address list.

Phone numbers for Customer Match lists

We do not collect phone numbers from our PPC Mastery Course customers. So, I was not able to test the effectiveness of customer matching using phone numbers.

I did notice that Google allows a lot of flexibility in the formatting of phone number data.

If you have experience creating match lists using customer phone numbers, leave a comment below.  Let us know how effective phone matching is, and share your thoughts about this feature.

Strategies for AdWords Customer Match

Customer Match lists offer us some new and exciting options for our Ad campaigns.

Here are some specific strategies for Customer Match lists.

1) Sell only to your customers on AdWords

Targeting existing customers is one of the most efficient forms of PPC advertising.

Say for example, you were promoting a renewable product. Possibly a product with expensive ad costs. You could run a campaign limited to your customer list. This strategy would potentially reduce your costs and increase your conversions.

2) Exclude existing customers from your ad campaigns

What if you have a product people only need to buy one time?

For example how things work with PPC Mastery Course.

Excluding your customers from your ad campaigns will make your advertising more efficient. You’ll cut down on serving ads to people that don’t have any interest in purchasing your product.

Customer Match isn’t perfect since we only have a 50% match rate. But, excluding the customers that Google matches should still save us money. Since the ultimate goal is efficient, cost-effective advertising, every little bit helps.

Information is power

When it comes to AdWords targeting, information is power. The more data you can build on your target audience the more efficient you can make your advertising.

The most cost-effective PPC campaigns are the ones that incorporate granular data.

Granular targeting = better results

The more granular you are with your ad targeting, the more you can improve your results.

Look at Customer Match as the next level of granularity beyond your remarketing. If your data in your CRM is up to date, Customer Match should result in even more specific targeting.

Generally speaking, targeting brand/product-aware consumers should produce your best ROI. So, targeting current customers has the potential to be even more efficient than remarketing.

Customer Match limitations

Keep in mind, your Customer Match lists are only as good as your customer data. If you’re not working to grow your lists and bring in new leads, your Customer Match lists will get stale. As your list get’s stale your campaigns targeting those lists will become less effective.

You need to continue to run multiple campaigns and target new leads, as well as your existing customers.

Have you tried Google AdWords Customer Match?

What do you think about Customer Match?  Do you use Customer Match lists in your targeting?  If you do, how effective are they for you?

Leave a comment below.  Share your thoughts on this awesome AdWords strategy!

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This post and video was episode 23 in our 90 Day Challenge digital marketing series.

To get access to all 90 days of videos, subscribe to our YouTube channel. YouTube will send our subscribers weekly emails about all the videos we published over the past week.

Want to know about each video and post as soon as it comes out? Sign up for 90 day challenge email newsletter. The newsletter will be the best way to make sure you don’t miss any of the content.

Just about anyone who has ever run a campaign in Adwords has seen a “limited by budget” message at some point in time.

You have to hand it to Google, this message is both enticing and dangerous.

Google’s little red “Limited by budget” text on your campaign status taunts you like a shady blackjack dealer.

 “Why don’t you double down on that soft hand and get in the game?”

Fortunately, Adwords is not blackjack. We have a lot more options than just raising our budget or standing pat.

But, there is a right way, and wrong way to adjust your AdWords budget.

The good news is we’re going to explain the right way to optimize your budget. I’ll also show you how adjusting your budget the wrong way can cause you to lose money and miss out on conversions.

AdWords limited by budget – What should I do?

One of our PPC Course students recently asked me to help him out with an AdWords limited by budget issue.

This student has a common budget problem that many advertisers face. So, in the post and video below we’ll walk through what to do when our accounts run into budget limitations. I’ll also show you what you need to focus on to adjust your budget correctly.

Monthly vs. daily budgets

Most business look at advertising budgets from a monthly perspective. But AdWords uses a daily system to set your budget.

Calculating your daily AdWords budget

The easiest way to convert your monthly budget to a daily budget is to divide your monthly budget by 30 days.

Google advises that you use 30.4 days to figure out your monthly budget. So, for the sake of playing by Google’s rules, we’ll use 30.4 days in our daily budget calculation.

Here’s an example of a monthly budget converted to a daily budget for AdWords:

$10,000/30.4 days = $328.95/day

Splitting your AdWords budget across campaigns

Most Adwords accounts run more than one ad campaign.

Here’s an example of what our account looks like when we split our monthly budget evenly between two campaigns.

Running more than one ad campaigns is an advisable strategy. And it’s the strategy we recommend in PPC Mastery Course.  Running multiple campaigns allows you to be more targeted with your advertising.  Better targeting make your advertising more efficient.

But, if you’re working on a fixed budget, more ad campaigns means less money for each campaign. As you spread budget across your campaigns, you might find that you quickly run out of money for individual campaigns.

This leads to our “limited by budget” scenario.

PPC Course – limited by budget question

Let’s look at how to fix our budget problem by answering a question from PPC Course Student, Dale.

Dale asks:

In an account there are 2 x campaigns which are each using all of the budget each day with the notice “limited by budget” now being displayed. Due to budget constraints, there is not enough money to fund the campaigns recommended budgets. Would you suggest keep it running as is or putting all of the budget into one of the campaigns and pausing the other?

To answer Dale’s question, we need to focus on the results. Let’s take our two-campaign scenario a few steps further. Using an example will help us see which results hold the answers to our budget problem.

Let’s analyze the two ad campaigns in this example.

Maximizing for clicks?

In the above example, it appears Campaign #1 is significantly outperforming Campaign #2. Campaign number #1 is getting more clicks and has a much lower cost-per-click (CPC).

The CPC data would lead us to believe we should increase the budget for campaign #1.

This is what Google would recommend as well.

Increasing our budget for Campaign #1 is also what Google would advise us to do.  Remember, clicks are how Google makes money.  Google’s is always going to favor optimizing for clicks.

Focus on the conversions

What If we expand our view of our data, and bring conversions into the picture. As we analyze our conversions and cost per conversion, we start to see very different results.

We can see that Campaign #2 is producing a much better ROI than campaign #1. In fact, Campaign #2 is converting at about half the cost of campaign #1.

Focus on the campaigns that meet your objectives

If we take a limited view of our AdWords data, and only focus on clicks, we can be easily misled by Google.

But when we focus on the data that matters, we can optimize for results that equal income instead of clicks.

There are two keys to managing ad spend across your campaigns.

1. Spend more money where you’re getting results.
2. If you’re not getting the results you need, optimize and adjust!

In AdWords, you should always make the adjustments that increase your chances of success.

Let’s look at how we could correctly adjust our two-campaign budget and get better results.

Improve your baseline

If we shift the majority of our budget into Campaign #2, and everything else stays the same, our budget becomes more effective.

Here’s why.

Our increased daily budget for Campaign #2 is likely to yield two more conversions at about the same cost – $16.35/conversion.

We’ll lose 2 conversions from Campaign #1 because of the decrease ad spend for that campaign. But we’ll make that up, plus two more conversions, by increasing our ad spend on Campaign #2.

The net difference is 2 additional conversions without increasing our total budget.

Over time, we could shift even more money into campaign #2 if the results stayed consistent.

Win the optimization game

Optimizing for results is how savvy advertisers make their budgets 2X, or even 10X more effective.

Working through our example, we learned a few things.

• The AdWords limited by budget message can be misleading.
• If you act on the “limited by budget” message literally and blindly, you can lose money fast. You can pump money into the wrong campaign, and cost yourself conversions.
• If you do nothing, and don’t optimize your budget for results, you can limit your best ads. Once again you’ll wind up missing out on customers.

No extra budget required

The AdWords limited by budget alert is meaningful. But increasing your budget is not the same thing as optimizing your budget.

In most cases, you can increase your budgets efficiency by adjusting for results, not clicks.

Don’t increase your spending because Google says your budget is too limited.

Adjust.

Increase or decrease your budget based on the results you’re trying to achieve.

This is how optimization works. No magic bullets, just lots of small adjustments leading to major improvements in results.

It’s easy to get sold on software, big data or artificial intelligence being a “rocket fuel” solution for results. But these tools aren’t quite there yet.

The best way to get great results is through small improvements. 

Paid search strategies

Using a paid search strategy is one of the best ways help you make decision about you Adwords budget.  There are three paid search strategies, and only two are relevant to those hoping to drive a positive short-term ROI. In this article, I share the only paid search strategies you’ll ever need to use.

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This post and video was episode 16 in our 90 Day Challenge digital marketing series.

The easiest way to join the 90 day challenge is to subscribe to our YouTube channel. YouTube will send our subscribers weekly emails about all the videos we published over the past week.

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It’s no secret that Google loves AdWords extensions. However, Google recently killed off one of the most confusing and difficult extensions to implement.

Google has put an end to the AdWords review extension.

Why did this happen, and what should you do if you were using review extensions? This video has the answers you seek!

In this post and video, we’ll talk about what went wrong with the review extension, and what this change means to your AdWords account .

We’ll also discuss how you can use Google’s affection for ad extensions to your advantage.

What are AdWords ad extensions?

Let’s review what ad extensions are, and how they can help your advertising.

Extensions are supplements to a normal AdWords text ad.

If you’ve been using search for a while, you’ve probably seen text ads in many forms. We even did a post last month about the anatomy of a successful text ad in AdWords.

Some ads have more “real estate” than others. They feature more text or links, and might even look different each time you refresh your query. 

Text ads often appear in different formats because of Google’s beloved ad extensions. While there are many types of ad extensions you can use, there are a few common ones you will see all the time. Here are some of the most common extensions.

Callout extensions

The callout extension allows advertisers to “callout” the services, products or benefits they want feature.

Structured snippet extension

This structured snippet is another section of “structured” text that’s used to highlight services or products.

Price extension

The price extension features the price of the product or service that’s being promoted.  Price extensions are a great way to entice or qualify clicks on your ads.

Sitelink extension

Sitelinks allow advertisers to link to additional landing pages in their ads.

We can show how all of these extensions play together using a single ad from Wordstream. It’s a great example of why extensions matter so much.

Their standard text ad takes up just three lines. But using extensions, they gained six more lines of space in their ad. That’s smart advertising!

Google loves ad extensions

Google is so in love with ad extensions, that extensions even factor into your quality score. If you want to get high quality scores, and maximum ad space, you have to use ad extensions.

Google also wants you to love ad extensions. Since using extensions improves your ad quality score, they also impact your ad spend efficiency. A higher quality score means better ad placement, lower cost-per-click, and more visibility.

The key takeaway? Use ad extensions! And use as many as you can. It’s a no-brainer.

What was the AdWords review extension?

Google has eliminated one of their ad extensions, which came as a surprise to many of us. Why? Because ad extensions are loved by Google. Eliminating one means that the extension must have performed terribly.

The review extension was as close to terrible as you can get, and now it’s gone.

Review extensions were a way for advertisers to include third-party reviews in their ads. Third-party reviews are reviews that came from an independent source. Examples of third-party reviews include Yelp customer reviews for a restaurant. Or a customer on Amazon reviewing a product.

The review extension allowed advertisers to feature these third-party reviews into their text ad.

Why was the review extension eliminated?

The review extension sounds like a nice feature, right? Who wouldn’t want to have independent reviews in their ads?

Well, the reality is that the review extension didn’t work very well.

It was difficult to get reviews approved by Google. The dysfunctional approval process frustrated users. And, eventually most advertisers abandoned this extension.

The end result is that, for now, the AdWords review extensions is gone. Google has pruned another Adwords feature that was underperforming.

What are the implications of the extinct review extension?

The removal of the AdWords review extension shouldn’t cause too much concern.  Since this extension was fairly broken, it wasn’t used by very many advertisers.

If you did have a review extension enabled, Google will display your other extensions. Google still wants to show as many extensions as possible.  If you have other extensions enabled, Google will rotate those extension into your ads in place of the review extension.

Goodbye review extension

Google sunsetting the review extension is not a big loss for advertisers. But, we wanted to make sure you knew what was going on in case you were looking for your missing extension. So now you know. It’s not lost, it’s dead.

Keep your AdWords account up to date

You may not have ever used the review extension. But changes like this are always a good reminder to review your account.

Google makes tons of behind the scenes changes to AdWords every month. Google doesn’t announce most of these changes. So when they do announce a change, it’s a good time to take a look in your account and make sure you have everything in order.

Often, when Google eliminates a feature, they add another in its place.  Always be on the look out for AdWords adjustments you can use to your advantage.

Play by Google’s rules

They key to staying current with AdWords changes is to play by Google’s rules. Want to get better quality scores? Better placement? Lower CPCs?

Then learn which part of the AdWords platform Google’s promoting. Test that feature, and if you can use it to your advantage, make the most of it.

Google is still promoting extensions. So use them! Use as many extensions as you can, as often as possible.

Does this change affect your account? Leave a comment!

So what do you think?  Does this change affect your advertising?  Which AdWords extension gives your ads the biggest boost?

Share your answers in a comment below.

Your comments will help all of us stay up to date and learn what we can do optimize our advertising.

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This post and video was episode 9 in our 90 Day Challenge digital marketing series.

To get access to all 90 videos, subscribe to our YouTube channel. YouTube will send our subscribers weekly emails about all the videos we published over the past week.

Want to know about each video and post as soon as it comes out? Sign up for 90 day challenge email newsletter. The newsletter will be the best way to make sure you don’t miss any of the content.

Google recently announced some huge policy changes to the Google Ad Grants program. The changes will have a big impact on nonprofit advertising on Adwords.

One of our PPC Mastery Course students, Seth, asked me to weigh in on the effect of these changes.

In the post and video below I’ll explain what Ad Grants are, and I’ll break down how the 2018 policy changes affect Ad Grants members.

Google Ad Grants

Google Ad Grants are advertising grants that Google gives to nonprofit organizations. The Ad Grants provide up to $10,000 a month in Adwords funds for eligible nonprofits.

While this money is quite generous, it’s always been notoriously hard for advertisers to spend.

Why’s that? Because up until January 2018, Google had capped Ad Grants cost-per-click (CPC) bids at $2.00. Anyone advertising on Google lately knows CPCs can be way more expensive than $2.00!

Ad Grants bid cap removed in January 2018

In December of 2017, Google announced they planned to lift their $2.00 bid cap for Ad Grants members.

But the bid cap change has some strings attached to it: Ad Grants members that want to increase their bids have to use the AdWords maximize conversions bid setting.

What is maximize conversions bidding?

Maximize conversions bidding is an automated bid strategy in AdWords. This setting will increase bids when a higher bid is more likely to result in a conversion.

Google uses a lot of buzz words to explain max conversion bidding. They use terms like “machine learning,” and “automatically optimize.” Reading between the lines, what Google is saying is that this setting will maximize your conversions. All you need to do is click the button, and Google will take care of the rest.

The result is Google will raise your bids if the increased bids will lead to more conversions.

What are the implications of the new Ad Grants bid policies?

The changes appear to be good news. The policy change shows that Google wants Ad Grants members to use this type of bidding.

There’s really no reason for Ad Grants members not to use maximize conversions bidding. This bid setting allows them to spend over $2.00 per click, and should allow them to get more conversions overall.

Increased bids will also help nonprofits come closer to spending their entire $10,00 Ad Grants budget.

Ad conversions vs. exposure

Another positive outcome is the focus on conversions. The change in the bid policy will make nonprofits focus on high converting advertisements. This means more focus on outcomes, vs. just spending the money to increase exposure.

Advertisers will need to hold their results accountable if they want to stay in the program.

Geo-targeting for Ad Grants

Google has also announced a policy change to geo-targeting for Ad Grants. They have mandated that every account must target locations relevant to their nonprofits.

No more worldwide targeting! This is another policy change aimed at increasing advertising efficiency.

Efficient location targeting is one the core lessons we teach in PPC Mastery Course. You shouldn’t target your ads to run worldwide. You want to advertise in the locations that are related to your business, or your offer.

Advertising globally, or over large geographic areas, is inefficient.

So, Google is sending a message to nonprofits – be locationally relevant with your ads!

Ad Grants quality standards

As part of the policy changes, Google has announced account structure requirements.

Every Ad Grants account needs to have at least two ad groups per campaign. The ad groups need to have closely matched keywords and text ads. Every account also need to have at least two sitelink extensions enabled.

Google is forcing Ad Grants members to get granular with their campaigns. They are also forcing them to use ad rotation.

This is pretty amazing! These changes show that Google wants Ad Grants members to have the best success possible.

Google is forcing these advertisers to be efficient. They are telling Ad Grants members that if Google’s giving them 10K, they are going to spend it the right way. Essentially, Google is making these accounts do all the things good PPC managers should do!

Google Ad Grants performance standards

Google has also put new Ad Grants performance standards in place. They will require at least a 5% click-through-rate (CTR) to stay in the Ad Grants program.

The 5% CTR is a monthly target averaged across all keywords.

Now, Google claims to average more than a 5% CTR on all Ad Grants.

This performance standard shouldn’t effect good advertisers that monitor their performance.

But, advertisers that are throwing away money on poorly run ads will get kicked off the Ad Grants program.

Outcome of Google Ad Grants changes

My take? Google isn’t letting non-profits take Ad Grants for GRANTED. 🙄

Good for Google! Companies that can’t figure out how to use $10,000 of free money effectively shouldn’t be in the program.

Google is forcing nonprofits to be better advertisers. And the implications of these changes are good for all advertisers.

The changes maintain the quality of Google searches. High-quality ads on search results help searchers continue to trust Google.

Google comes off looking good for giving away a bunch of free money. And non-profit companies get the opportunity to push more traffic towards their cause. Traffic that Google was unlikely to monetize.

The bottom line is that everyone wins in this situation.

What do you think of the Google Ad Grants changes?

There are over 35,000 members in the Google Ad Grants program.

Have you worked as a PPC manager for a nonprofit? Or are are you running AdWords for your own nonprofit?

If you have experience with Google Ad Grants, leave a comment below. Let us know how you feel about these changes and how they affect your advertising.

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This post and video was episode 2 in our 90 Day Challenge digital marketing series.

To get access to all 90 days of videos, subscribe to our YouTube channel. YouTube will send our subscribers weekly emails about all the videos we published over the past week.

Want to know about each video and post as soon as it comes out? Sign up for 90 day challenge email newsletter. The newsletter will be the best way to make sure you don’t miss any of the content.