How to increase your Google AdWords CTR

by Salim Benhouhou IT Support

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More Money!

One of the most common questions I get when I’m talking to marketers who want to get started with Google AdWords and Pay-Per-Click (PPC) marketing but don’t want to spend a great deal of money for nothing is: “Brad, how do you structure your ad groups for maximum results”? A very good question indeed! One worthy of an answer!

I’ve attempted, in this article, to lay out the process and a great example of how you should structure your ad groups and campaigns in general to make the most money promoting your products with the Google AdWords search network. This will improve your ClickThrough Ratio (CTR; the amount of people who click on your ad to find out what is behind it) and your number of sales!

For a greater understanding of Google AdWords (what it is and does) I suggest you read the below two articles first; they contain invaluable information regarding Google AdWords:

Understanding Match Type

Google AdWords allows you target keywords in 3 distinct “match types“. Those are broad match, phrase match, and exact match. Each of these match types also has a negative counterpart, which is important if you are to create a tightly themed campaigns and ad groups that Google loves.

Now, how AdWords distinguishes between these match types and determines which user query triggers which keyword match type you’re targeting in your campaigns can seem quite complex but it really isn’t. I think the best place to go to understand how this works is straight from the source. I highly recommend you read Google’s explanation of how this works which you can find in the AdWords Help Center.

A Little Keyword Research

Now the purpose of this article is not to teach you how to do keyword research because that’s whole other articles but I do want to give you glimpse of how to build a campaign using keywords that you know are selling products for others.

For more information on Keywords and How to Calculate your Keyword Density please read the below two articles:

What I do is follow a series of processes to find the keywords that are most likely to bring you targeted traffic and fast too. One of those processes is to use spy sites to find out what keywords other advertisers are targeting in their campaigns. One of my favorite keyword spy services is appropriately called Keyword Spy. There is a paid and free version. I highly recommend the paid version if you’re going to be at all serious about your PPC business.

You can also use the Google AdWords Keyword Tool which is a staple resource for the keyword researcher and is a great way to find out who is searching what and where.

Simply use Keyword Spy to gather a list of 50-100 of the top keywords in your niche. The example I’m going to use is the computer hardware niche. So let’s just say you want to run a campaign promoting an eBook as an affiliate. Start your campaign with the top 10-20 keywords sets from your list. So let’s say one of those keywords sets is “replace computer hardware“. The most tightly themed and highly effective campaign setup would be to create one ad group per keyword set, per match type.

Keyword Sets

Keyword sets are simply a set of 10-20 very similar keywords. So a keyword set for the keyword “replace computer hardware” could include 10 keywords such as:

replace computer hardware, replace my computer hardware, how to replace computer hardware, replace computer hardware tips, computer hardware replaced, replace hardware for computer, replace computer graphics hardware, etc…

As you can see from the list above that all keywords have a common phrase of “replace computer hardware” with miscellaneous variations or modifications thrown in. This is a perfect example list of keywords that would make up a tightly themed ad group that Google would love to see structured within your campaign.

Example Adgroup #1: Replace Computer Hardware (exact)

This would be the name of your first ad group, in which you would place the exact match of the keywords within our example keyword set above. So you would place this in the keyword list box for that ad group:

[replace computer hardware]

[replace my computer hardware]

[how to replace computer hardware]

[replace computer hardware tips]

etc…

This is the exact match form of the keyword “replace computer hardware”. That’s it. After that, optimally you would want to create 2 ad variations for that ad group. You ads should include the common keyword in the ad copy. Of course, you would also want to use a tracking script and the given destination URL so you can track if the exact match of and of the keywords in that ad group generated a sale.

So at this point you have 1 ad group set up, you’ve got 2 laser-targeted ads written for that ad group, and you’ve got a tracking URL’s set up for each keyword.

Example Ad Group #2 – Replace Computer Hardware (pm -em)

Basically what that means above is phrase match, negative exact match. That also coincidentally is how this ad group will be set up. Makes sense, don’t it?! Here’s what you might enter into the keyword box for this ad group:

“replace computer hardware”

“replace my computer hardware”

“how to replace computer hardware”

“replace computer hardware tips”

-[replace computer hardware]

-[replace my computer hardware]

-[how to replace computer hardware]

-[replace computer swing hardware]

What you’re doing here is creating an ad group with the just the phrase match keywords from our example keyword set above and then the negative exact match thrown in there as well. What this does it tell AdWords, ONLY trigger the keywords in this ad group if the user searches for a phrase match variation of a keyword in our ad group, and NOT to trigger this ad group if they do an exact search of any these keywords.

In other words, if they search for the exact match you want your exact match ad group to trigger your ad. If they search for a phrase match variation you don’t want your exact match ad triggered but rather your phrase match ad. This distinctly divides the traffic and forces Google not to cross-trigger your ads. This is absolutely critical in terms of increasing your quality score, increasing your CTR, and having Google absolutely LOVE your campaign!!!

Trust me; it’s simpler than it looks…

Trust me, I hear you thinking right now, “wow, this seems pretty complicated“. Well, to tell the truth once you have a set process and the proper tools, it’s really not. If you’re doing it manually, then yes, it is but either way, if you’re serious about your PPC campaign’s profits you shouldn’t take short cuts. This is the way Google wants you to set up your ad groups and campaigns, and the AdWords system will reward you for doing it.

We’ve been at this for nearly 5 years now, and have spent thousands of dollars testing, hundreds of hours putting in work and gathering data, and I’ve not seen a better system for structuring AdWords campaigns yet. So simply put, do the extra work and you’ll see the fruits of your labor – trust me on that.

Broad Match Keywords

Now I know some of you are probably wondering about why I haven’t mention broad match yet. That’s because when you first start your campaign, you should NEVER use broad match. Your conversions and profits will be exponentially greater if you just leave broad match alone for now.

There’s a complete strategy that goes with setting up your ad groups like this and the use of broad match must be done in an almost scientific way. – In other words; broad match is a whole other story.

Structure your AdGroups now!

This is a strategy that you can instantly build profitable AdWords campaigns very quickly. You should go immediately and implement this into your AdWords campaigns and you WILL see some awesome (and almost unbelievable) results. Hope you have found this article on how to structure ad groups for maximum profits extremely helpful and that you take action and put this stuff to work ASAP!