For our project in COMM 464, we had to run an AdWords campaign for our client. Having had very little knowledge of AdWords and how it operated, this was definitely a steep learning curve. That being said, I thought I’d share my new wisdom with everyone so that your campaigns can be more successful than ours was! Follow these tips and I’m sure you’ll be rolling in the clicks and impressions in no time!

1. Keywords: Relevancy is key. Keeping keywords connected with the benefit the consumer will gain from this product/service and relevant information is key to a good keyword.. Terms must not be too specific nor too broad. For example, “restaurant” is too broad of a term but “spaghetti and meatballs restaurant” is too specific. Terms that are too broad generally also require a higher bid price.

2. Bid Strategy: Google suggestions of autobid prices is a good place to start. In general, it at least allows your ad to compete for a display position. However, if you identify keywords that may be worth further investigation and are really targeted to the audience you want, manually setting bid prices will help gain clicks. This increase in bid price can be based upon the average CPC that is displayed in the AdWords dashboard. Make sure to set a maximum/day so that you don’t run the wallet dry!

3. Ad Design: Designing the ad itself is one of the most important parts of a successful AdWords campaign. First of all, it is important that the headline is company specific and contains relevant terms. The details below should offer insight into the product or service offered and how it can benefit the consumer. Finally, the link should be short and link directly to the page that is most relevant to the description.

Remember these tips when planning your next AdWords campaign. Run successfully, they can provide great ROI, run unsuccessfully, they can be a royal waste of money!