AMA about PPC Advertising. Google Adwords, Facebook Ads, whatever...

[MNentre]

Eskil,

I've been digging around and cant find much info on this. How does the bidding work if say i want to buy traffic for a large brand name. Currently the branded company is the only ones marketing for their brand and google says cpc is 10 cents. If I target the same traffic, will I be able to rank second for only 1 cent/click? is 1 cent/click the minimum?

Also, is there anything against bidding on a brand and selling something similar but not anything related to the brand. i.e. hypothetically buying traffic for Oakley and selling a sunglasses cleaner product.

Thanks!

 

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[Eskil]

Your always giving up the goods bro. I would like to know what you use to track your campaigns and what do you think about software like CPV Lab for tracking? I own it but have not yet used it for tracking my campaigns, but plan to in the future.

You have been doing this for a while and I would like to know what you use to test, track and rotate campaigns, and what you recommend based on your past experiences?

I use just Google Analytics for the most part these days, but I was also an avid user of Tracking202 for a few years. That is still a good tool, especially for quick testing of new campaigns, and for A/B split-testing. It's up to the last-second accurate - whereas GA can give you delayed reporting of several hours. Overall though Google Analytics is unbeatable for all the amount of data it gathers for you. I've never used CPV Lab, but have heard good things about it. I think it was originally designed as a tracking tool for people running on pay-per-view type networks.

I suggest you give Tracking202 a try (I prefer installing the self-hosted version). Depending on your technical level, it may or may not be for you. It helps if you know some have some basic php language. If you're more of the kind that like things as simple as possible - you can do just as well with what Google Adwords/Analytics gives you (Website Optimizer, etc).

 

[Eskil]

I've been digging around and cant find much info on this. How does the bidding work if say i want to buy traffic for a large brand name. Currently the branded company is the only ones marketing for their brand and google says cpc is 10 cents. If I target the same traffic, will I be able to rank second for only 1 cent/click? is 1 cent/click the minimum?

Also, is there anything against bidding on a brand and selling something similar but not anything related to the brand. i.e. hypothetically buying traffic for Oakley and selling a sunglasses cleaner product.

This issue is somewhat divided. The thing is that if the brand wants to protect anyone else from using their brand name in ads - they have the rights to tell Google to prevent that from happening. They must prove to Google that they are the rightful trademark owners of the name, and Google in their terms say that you cannot bid on other advertisers' trademarked terms.

However.. I have seen more than on one occasion where I was in charge of an account for a client (who rightfully owned the trademark), and where competitors (wrongfully) used their brand in their ads. Despite filing complaints with proof of trademark - Google's response was basically that they cannot stop other advertisers from using the brand in their ADS - only bidding on keywords. But again, they contradict themselves here because if you try to set up an ad with the words "Coca Cola" - Adwords won't even approve the ad...

So, long story short - you're not supposed to, and they may stop you, but you may also get away with it (for a while?). I think it's a sign that Google's ad/keyword verification process isn't perfect.

 

[brycer9]

Hey Eskil! Many thanks for helping me start my business before

I have expanded my inventory since then and am ready to start advertising now. Which type of advertising would you recommend i invest in for a good ROI? This is for the cosplay ecommerce site

 

[Eskil]

Hey bryce,
I responded to this in your progress thread just now. For others who want to read it, go here:
https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/yo...read-video-game-costume-store.html#post271482

 

[Rawr]

I apologize if there is a better thread,


Is there a way to get some free facebook marketing dollars, like a voucher deal, etc? I know they used to give away $50-100 worth before.

 

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[Eskil]

Is there a way to get some free facebook marketing dollars, like a voucher deal, etc? I know they used to give away $50-100 worth before.

Yeah you can still come across coupons like that from time to time. Often times, FB will send out coupons to newly opened businesses. You can also do some searching on Google for "facebook ads coupon 2013", or even go on a place like Fiverr and see if people are selling them (yes, people have been known to sell $50 coupons for $5 there)

 

[Hong King Kong]

Hey Eskil, Thanks for the thread.

I was wondering how much data do we need in order to know if the campaign is successful or not?

I'm currently running my first campaign which are product listing ads for google shopping, I've had about 350 impressions and 11 clicks in 10 days... no sales...

Should I wait longer for more data? Or are those numbers already a sign of a bad campaign?

 

[Eskil]

I was wondering how much data do we need in order to know if the campaign is successful or not?

I'm currently running my first campaign which are product listing ads for google shopping, I've had about 350 impressions and 11 clicks in 10 days... no sales...

Should I wait longer for more data? Or are those numbers already a sign of a bad campaign?

350 imps / 11 clicks is not much at all to base any decisions off of. With roughly 1 click a day it sounds like you either are targeting a very small niche market with low search volume - or you are just not including the right keywords. Also - how many ads and keywords are those numbers spread out across? A handful of keywords and a couple of ad listings? Or hundreds of keywords and dozens of ad variations?

Either way - you are going to need more data before you can make conclusions so try to wait it out longer.

 

[biophase]

Any ideas on how to rank better for Google Product Listing Ads besides increasing CPC? Also, any ideas on how to get your brand listed on the side column of brands in the product listings?

 

[Eskil]

Any ideas on how to rank better for Google Product Listing Ads besides increasing CPC?

The PLAs are still relatively new (Google shifted from the old free product ad system to PLAs last summer), so not everything about their ranking algorithm is yet fully understood. However - it is known that both CPC and product feed relevancy are definitely contributing factors.

There are only 6 ad spots for Product Listing Ads. The good news is that if Google thinks you have more than one product that should show up in PLA for a search - they will sometimes put your ads in more than one spot along with competitors. This is something you don't see with text ads, where only one advertiser can show up on a page at any time.

That being said - the best way to try to 'rank' your PLA ads better is to optimize your merchant center data feed. Give Google as much detail as possible in your feed. Be as descriptive as possible with titles, product descriptions, and also be sure to set the most appropriate category or 'product type' as they call it.

Google gives you 70 characters for the title. Use them well, with the best keywords suitable for that product (without looking spammy). Descriptive, relevant, and to the point.

Make sure descriptions are clean and free of odd characters and unnecessary numbering, part numbers, things like "call us to ask about our specials" etc. Basically anything that you as a customer wouldn't care to see in an ad. Think of descriptions and titles as a way for you to personally tell someone at Google what that particular product is and what it is for.

If you have a large datafeed, this can be done with a script or Excel macros. Otherwise, a VA or someone can go through it and clean them for you. Again, include keywords you want in there that would match with what you are trying to get your Adwords campaign to achieve.

Also, make sure your uploaded feed contains no warnings or errors after submitting. You can check this by going to the 'Data Quality' screen in Merchant Center.
You don't want to be seeing things like this:

Note that some recommendations are not errors. That means that they will accept those submissions - but those problems can hurt your ranking.

Set up scheduled feed updates and make occasional tweaks and changes to your titles, descriptions, or images to keep things fresh. Although there is no proof to support this - it is likely that Google will favor (rank) merchants more who are keeping things up to date vs. stagnant ads that remain unchanged for months. (It's known that Google prefers frequently updated sites over stagnant ones when they rank websites, so there's no reason to believe they wouldn't do the same with product listings).

When setting up your product targeting in Adwords - do NOT attempt to target 'All products' in more than one campaign. This will actually result in conflicting targeting, and according to Google - may result in none of your PLAs showing up at all, or not very often. Instead, target only those product id's that are relevant to that campaign or adgroup and keep them out of others.

Also, any ideas on how to get your brand listed on the side column of brands in the product listings?

I'm not sure what you mean here exactly. Care to share a screenshot?

 

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[LightHouse]

From what i saw when i was running base feeds, all that you could really do when optimizing is what Eskil said and that's to add all the possible information you can to the feed. Even then, authority brands still take precedence and there was no solid data on a way for smaller merchants to optimize for it. Now it's paid so the only real option (which at least it is there) is to increase CPC. The whole thing is a pain, but google is tossing their weight around there for profit.

 

[puckman]

The PLAs are still relatively new (Google shifted from the old free product ad system to PLAs last summer), so not everything about their ranking algorithm is yet fully understood. However - it is known that both CPC and product feed relevancy are definitely contributing factors.

There are only 6 ad spots for Product Listing Ads. The good news is that if Google thinks you have more than one product that should show up in PLA for a search - they will sometimes put your ads in more than one spot along with competitors. This is something you don't see with text ads, where only one advertiser can show up on a page at any time.

That being said - the best way to try to 'rank' your PLA ads better is to optimize your merchant center data feed. Give Google as much detail as possible in your feed. Be as descriptive as possible with titles, product descriptions, and also be sure to set the most appropriate category or 'product type' as they call it.

Google gives you 70 characters for the title. Use them well, with the best keywords suitable for that product (without looking spammy). Descriptive, relevant, and to the point.

Make sure descriptions are clean and free of odd characters and unnecessary numbering, part numbers, things like "call us to ask about our specials" etc. Basically anything that you as a customer wouldn't care to see in an ad. Think of descriptions and titles as a way for you to personally tell someone at Google what that particular product is and what it is for.

If you have a large datafeed, this can be done with a script or Excel macros. Otherwise, a VA or someone can go through it and clean them for you. Again, include keywords you want in there that would match with what you are trying to get your Adwords campaign to achieve.

Also, make sure your uploaded feed contains no warnings or errors after submitting. You can check this by going to the 'Data Quality' screen in Merchant Center.
You don't want to be seeing things like this:

Note that some recommendations are not errors. That means that they will accept those submissions - but those problems can hurt your ranking.

Set up scheduled feed updates and make occasional tweaks and changes to your titles, descriptions, or images to keep things fresh. Although there is no proof to support this - it is likely that Google will favor (rank) merchants more who are keeping things up to date vs. stagnant ads that remain unchanged for months. (It's known that Google prefers frequently updated sites over stagnant ones when they rank websites, so there's no reason to believe they wouldn't do the same with product listings).

When setting up your product targeting in Adwords - do NOT attempt to target 'All products' in more than one campaign. This will actually result in conflicting targeting, and according to Google - may result in none of your PLAs showing up at all, or not very often. Instead, target only those product id's that are relevant to that campaign or adgroup and keep them out of others.


I'm not sure what you mean here exactly. Care to share a screenshot?

it looks like Google is tweaking the program to be more like a display campaign, rather than just traditional search and product feeds. Essentially, Google.com has gotten display ads. It would be nice at the campaign level to just create ad groups with creative rather then deal with the constant feed mess.

 

[biophase]

I'm not sure what you mean here exactly. Care to share a screenshot?

I meant to get your brand listed on the side like in this screenshot.

I actually got my brand into here as of yesterday.

 

[Eskil]

I see what you mean. I'm not entirely sure, but my guess is that it would be based on the most 'prominent' brands in the given category, probably based on amount of listed products each advertiser has, their individual sales performance, or both.

Did you notice if your brand showed up there after sales through PLA were picking up?

 

[5holiday]

Howdy Eskil,

Thanks for sharing your experience with us!

My question is, in your experience, how much have your best skills made up for your worst skills, in relation to starting and running successful businesses?

I ask this because I've always assumed that people with great marketing, advertising and selling skills could in some instances pick products and make them into successful businesses with relative ease when compared to people of other skill sets, such as legal.

Thanks!

 

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[Eskil]

My question is, in your experience, how much have your best skills made up for your worst skills, in relation to starting and running successful businesses?

Hey there,
I would say that my experience with advertising and marketing has been a very big advantage. Knowing how to sell is one of the most important things entrepreneurs should learn. The more you know about the how's and the why's of "people buying things" - the better prepared you will be to sell your product. Heck, even when you are creating a new site or product.

Sure - you can always hire someone to do the selling for you, but with some fundamental, first-hand knowledge - you will be ahead, and can save yourself money and potential frustrations. Also because if and when you decide to outsource your marketing, you can quickly tell if they are onto something good or not. (Same reason I like knowing at least some basic php code, so when I have coders do work, I can at least roughly assess what they have done and judge their work).

 

[Tourist]

Madly taking notes, scratching head, taking notes. About to start a ppc campaign and feeling so green I don't even know what questions I don't know to ask! So thanks to Eskil and everyone who's contributed to this thread!

Got any extra advice on landing pages for physical products? Is it necessary to create multiple urls with keywords? Is it ok to send people to a 'shop' page? I sell raincoats so think a copy laden 'sales' page would be odd at the same time I only have six styles so worry it could be a bit empty.

In the meantime, I'm off to read more about which keywords to go with, got a list as long as your arm just now :sigh:

 

[Eskil]

Hey Tourist,
I can't give a general recommendation as to whether multiple URL / page variations should always be made for physical products, as is often the case; "it depends" on the product, the market, number of product varieties, depth of demographic, etc.

But taking your raincoats as an example - I'll assume that you're selling them for a few different uses and maybe to kids and adults.
You said you only have six styles. Whether that means for men/women, or for casual or hunting, I don't know but either way - let's set up an example approach.

Look at your current products and try to group them by WHO they are for, and WHAT they are for.
For instance, if you have a couple of raincoats that are for designed for hunting, this campaign will use keywords targeting men, hunting/raincoat related keywords, and have a landing page that appeals to that demographic.

This page needs to emphasize the benefits of this particular raincoat, why it's ideal for taking into the woods, how it's made from a durable material, has large pockets for stuff you will carry with you, etc. Also, hunters or guys looking for this type of gear are probably less concerned with price, and more interested in ruggedness, features, and maybe a brand (vs. feeling like they are buying something generic).

Then there's your other raincoats who are cutesie little raincoats for kids. The people who shop for these are most probably women, and they will want to find not only something of quality - but something that will make their kids (and themselves as mothers) look good. Price might also be more of a factor here since young mothers are savvy in finding deals.

Again - maybe you're not even selling raincoats for kids or hunters, so these are just my examples. But my point is this; review your products carefully and try to visualize one or more "typical customer" personas. Then try to your best ability to find what benefits and/or features those people would be looking for. The whole goal when you set up your keywords, campaigns, AND landing pages - should be to give those personas what they expect or want to see.

Now - if your products are pretty much all the same, with just some different colors - and maybe they are unisex and more generic raincoats, then I would try to do some research on what the most important things are when people look for raincoats. I'm sure you still could at least split it up in a men vs. women landing page since with items like clothing, men and women usually look for different things.

Either way, your landing page(s) must always try to do the following:
- Benefits / highlights of the product's properties
- The benefits of why they should shop at your site and not somewhere else
- Convey a sense of value. Both through the benefits above, and also with things like price, shipping terms, return policy.
- If possible, provide social proof like reviews or a mention of "more than x raincoats sold!"
- Convey a sense of trust and legitimacy. Secure checkout, trust icons, professional look and feel, transparency with contact info, etc.

For keyword research, I once again recommend Bing's Ad Intelligence tool, which is an addon for MS Excel. Of course use Google's Keyword Planner too - but Bing's Excel tool can give you lots of additional and interesting insights on demographics.

 

[LightHouse]

To add to Eskils comprehensive answer, the question of multiple LP's depends on how much you want to blow for clicks. Relevancy and CTR boil down to your quality score. The closer you tie your KW groups together with a LP, will not only get you a better QS and a lower CPC in return, you will also see a higher conversion rate as well.

Also, set up conversion tracking, even if it is a simple snippet on the sucess page. You will want that data later to see what KWs actually got you sales. Working off of only clicks and raw traffic is a huge mistake and waste of time, unless you have nothing to sell or acquire

 

[Eskil]

To add to Eskils comprehensive answer, the question of multiple LP's depends on how much you want to blow for clicks. Relevancy and CTR boil down to your quality score. The closer you tie your KW groups together with a LP, will not only get you a better QS and a lower CPC in return, you will also see a higher conversion rate as well.

Also, set up conversion tracking, even if it is a simple snippet on the sucess page. You will want that data later to see what KWs actually got you sales. Working off of only clicks and raw traffic is a huge mistake and waste of time, unless you have nothing to sell or acquire

Yes indeed!

 

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[Gsuz]

Hi Eskil! I started FB Ads today. I read one of your posts recommending to start lower than the bid range FB recommends. Is this still valid? I'm bidding fairly high within the range, but do not get any impressions. However, the campaign was just approved 2 hours ago. Potential reach is 250k. Do I simply have to wait longer? Any suggestions what to do in order to get impressions?

Speed in advance

 

[Eskil]

Hi Eskil! I started FB Ads today. I read one of your posts recommending to start lower than the bid range FB recommends. Is this still valid? I'm bidding fairly high within the range, but do not get any impressions. However, the campaign was just approved 2 hours ago. Potential reach is 250k. Do I simply have to wait longer? Any suggestions what to do in order to get impressions?

You should have seen impressions by now. You could try to slowly increase the bid in increments by like .05 every 30 mins or so to see if they start kicking in. If not, it might be a dud campaign and I would try to re-create it, but this time with a slightly higher bid (still within their range - OR try again with bid below the range). I have had campaigns just start as duds for some odd reason - while others who were basically identical just kick off right away.

 

[1PercentStreet]

Hey Eskil,
Any advice about getting a new FB account up and running if for some reason you got banned?

 

[Eskil]

Any advice about getting a new FB account up and running if for some reason you got banned?

I'm not sure how they check this anymore, but it used to be where you could just create a new account from another FB profile (even on the same IP & credit card for funding).

 

[Vance]

Eskil,

Just came across this thread, thanks for the great advice! I haven't gotten a chance to read it all yet but I will, however I was wondering if you had any recommendations for someone looking to generate quality insurance leads (niche market, but still competitive) via PPC, perhaps on Bing/Yahoo?

I've run very large campaigns on Google in the past however the big dawgs with big wallets have come out of the woodwork so I thought about the Bing market which I've never tried. Not just looking to save money but for quality as well, so I was just going to focus on buyer long-tail keywords.

Thanks!

 

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[royalasg]

What strategy we should follow to roll ad on facebook?

 

[perdanny]

Thank you very much Eskil for this amazing thread (among others), in order to validate the demand for a product im looking into - Baby Monitors, i uploaded my landing page: LullabEye, i'm not quite sure this product is ideal for dropshipping (margins, being electrical) but i picked it up as a case study.
Reading your your thread i came to realised Google is not going to favour my lean landing page that much ,and the copy is not going to convert well because im a newbie (i'm reading CA$HVERTISING as you suggested in your insider call's thread - i'm going to listen to your insider call tommorow aswell while jogging).

I would like to share with you my adwords copy:

I got one campign running for less then 24 hours, i got 2 variants for the ad-text rotating equally as follow:

Baby Monitors
Affordable, Easy To Use Baby
Monitors, Money Back Guarantee
promosepian.com/baby-monitors

Baby Monitors
Look For Top Quality Yet Affordable
Baby Monitor? Check Our Deals!
promosepian.com/baby-monitors

Im redirecting my potential customers to an "out of stock" page, after collecting email addresses.

my ads appeared 43 times with one click (the first ad), by reading your suggetions i might used keywords not targeteted for those in the "buying mode" group, im going to change it.

Prior to running my campaign i watched a video on youtube reccomanding setting the Max. CPC to 0.9$ and Default bid $0.01 so i did that, and i get "Below first page bid" for some of my keywords.

Thanks for this thread, the insider call and the supplement thread i'v read atleast twice, speed++

if you or anyone else got any constructive critique regarding anything i posted go ahead and educate me.