What may come as a surprise to some readers is that every Google AdWords user, be it a professional or casual user, has concerns related to their ad display.   The root cause of this problem, and evidently why the answer is so coveted, is that Google has created AdWords as a dynamic, ever evolving program to ensure users don’t gain an unfair competitive advantage.

While there is no single definitive answer to why your ad isn’t showing, I’m going to highlight a few of the more pertinent and common reasons.  In doing so I hope to clarify some of the issues that restrict ad display and subsequently help you learn more about Google AdWord’s inner workings.  Read along and you’ll quickly realize why it’s so critical to have an efficient, well organized campaign manager and how they can alleviate your stress.

In today’s blog post I’m going to address budget restraints, future posts related to ad display will focus on ad rank, disapproved ads, and a tantalizing piece on the Infinite Realm of the Internet (essentially the chaos theory).

Budget Restraints

To ensure this section doesn’t remain too abstract I’m going to put forward a pretty basic example to exemplify why your ads will never show 100% of the time.  If a client of ours begins a $3000/month campaign we’re going to set daily parameters of a $100/day budget.  This budget mandates that Google stops the ads from displaying once the $100 has been spent, but Google takes this one step farther by displaying the ads on a rotating basis to ensure they don’t only display for the first few hours of the day.  So if your ads aren’t being displayed sit back and relax, it’s likely your daily budget has either expired or your ads are being carefully presented on a calculated interval.

On the other end of the spectrum, meaning the ugly side, your budget may not be large enough to bid on certain keywords.  This problem may arise when starting a new campaign, ad group or set of keywords, or even as the market becomes more competitive and Cost Per Click (CPC) rises.  When working with a tight budget an AdWords user may be forced to consolidate their keywords to specific queries instead of a broad match.  If the campaign is being poorly managed, it’s very possible that your daily budget may only accommodate one or two clicks when targeting keywords with a high CPC.  In this case, the best plan of action is to rework the campaign so more specific (and hopefully cheaper!) keywords are utilized.

Make sure to check back for future posts related to Ad rank, Disapproved ads, and a tantalizing piece on the Infinite Realm of the Internet. Additionally, I’ll be routinely checking the blog for questions and comments so feel free to leave your thoughts!

Of the wide array of benefits and services Pay Per Click marketing offers users its the straightforward capability to track ROI that has made Pay Per Click so popular.  By monitoring expenditures, leads generated and ultimately the business they translate to a Pay Per Click user can accurately analyze the effectiveness of their campaign.  The central component of this process is the evaluation of leads, and as such this post is going to detail and analyze their vital role.

In the following post I’m going to detail some methods and questions critical for analyzing the value of your Pay Per Click campaign’s leads.  These have been addressed here to assist you in the analysis of your Pay Per Click campaign, and ideally will guide you in analysis of the value of a lead, the ROI you’re campaign is generating and ultimately what can be done to improve your campaign.

What Qualifies as a Lead?

First, let’s start by clarifying what a lead delivered from the internet encompasses.  Is it simply someone visiting your website, or do you designate a lead as someone who completes a special action like emailing or calling you?  This step serves as the base for all future analysis, so make sure you’ve correctly defined what a lead constitutes to you, why they’re qualified as a lead and how you’re tracking them.

What is The Value of a Lead?

Upon establishing what qualifies as a lead it’s time to start tracking the value of such a lead.  It’s likely you already have a method of evaluating leads, but note that an online lead may differ drastically when compared to a more traditional lead.  Leads should be evaluated in a comprehensive manner that covers short and long term value, overall value, ROI based upon service performed and any other valuation deemed pertinent.

One of the more general and utilized metrics in evaluating lead value is the denomination of short versus long term lead value.  Short term value will differ vastly among business disciplines, a lawyer may see an immediate return on investment if a lead translates into a legal representation in court, while a dentist may see ROI increase with time.  Acknowledging when and where the lead will convert into a profitable endeavor is vital to ensure you give it the necessary time and attention.  When evaluating a lead’s value be sure to include associated long term value, often derived from referrals, reviews, multiple visits, etc, to ensure your evaluation of a lead’s value is comprehensive.

This post was designed to offer a short, albeit broad, overview of evaluating the value of a Pay Per Click lead.  It’s probable that most of this information isn’t new, but what needs to taken out of this post is that all of this information is valuable to you and your Pay Per Click manager.  Maintaining an open, well communicated relationship with each other will ensure leads are generated for the type of business you want and that your campaigns operate at their full potential.

Quality Score has transformed PPC and continues to play a central role in the success of a PPC campaign. Once upon a time you could buy your way to the top of the search engine using PPC simply by bidding higher than your competitors. With the advent of the “Quality Score,” you can no longer simply plunk down the money and expect to reap the rewards. Just like we eventually had to turn to experts in order to navigate the ever more complicated and time-consuming wold of SEO, PPC requires more and more expert oversight in order to make it worthwhile. So what is a Quality Score,and how can it make or break your PPC Campaign?

Because the subject of Quality Score is an extensive subject, I’ve broken it out into three parts more detailed parts.

• Part 1 – What is a Quality Score?
• Part 2 – How does a Quality Score Work?
• Part 3 – How to Achieve a High Quality Score

Because this is just an overview of what and how Quality Score works, I will continue to post additional information on this topic in the coming months as it is such an important part of creating and managing a successful PPC campaign. Whether you are personally overseeing your campaign or have hired an expert to manage it for you, it is really important to make sure that your campaign is being managed with Quality Score in mind.

For the visually inclined, here is a great video that covers all of the most important aspects about Quality Score.

Improving Quality Score

To ensure the best possible ad quality it is essential to narrowly target keywords, ads and landing pages to a user’s search query. Although there are many factors that go into Quality Score, it is important to follow the following steps towards achieving the best possible Quality Score.

• Organize your campaigns by topic. Create separate campaigns for each of your product lines, resources, or brands. This helps you monitor your advertising more easily and make the necessary adjustments to improve your campaign performance.

• Create highly specific ad groups. As with your campaigns, each ad group should center on a single product or service to ensure your ads reach the most qualified users. Build a list of keywords and then separate them into related ad groups.

• Avoid duplicate keywords across ad groups. Google shows up to one ad per advertiser on a particular keyword, so there’s no need to include duplicate keywords with the same match type in different ad groups or campaigns. Identical keywords — those with the same text and match type — compete against each other, and the better-performing keyword triggers your ad. Additionally, it is a violation to setup multiple accounts for the same advertiser and can result in getting banned from the program.

• Choose your keywords carefully. Include specific keywords that directly relate to the specific theme of your ad group and landing page. For optimal ad visibility, use broad match to capture relevant keyword variations, along with singular and plural versions.

• Use unique keyword URLs. Keyword destination URLs send users to a specific landing page, ensuring your customer arrives immediately at the most relevant page for the keyword that triggered your ad

• Include keywords in your ad text. Include your keywords in your ad text (especially the title) to show users that your ad relates to their search. If your ad shows when a user searches on a keyword in your ad group, the keyword will appear in bold in your ad text. Also, users tend to search for products and services, so avoid using your company name in the ad title unless your goal is brand/company name recognition.

• Create simple, enticing ads. What makes your product or service stand out from your competitors? Highlight these key differentiating points in your ad. Be sure to describe any unique features or promotions you offer.

• Use a strong call-to-action. Your ad should convey a call-to-action along with the benefits of your product or service. A call-to-action encourages users to click on your ad and ensures they understand exactly what you expect them to do when they reach your landing page.

• Test multiple ads in each ad group. Experiment with different offers and call-to-action phrases to see what’s most effective for your advertising goals.

• Evaluate your campaign performance and make changes as necessary. Allow your ad performance to help you determine effective strategies for achieving your goals. As you observe your ads over time, you might notice things that are working especially well (or not so well). For example, if you find users aren’t responding to a particular call-to-action in your ad text, delete that ad and try something else. Testing and modification is vital to running a successful campaign because even if you’re on top, your competitors are likely trying to mimic your success. Besides there is always room for improvement in any campaign no matter how successful.

By using the above techniques you can ensure that you are atleast paying attention to your campaign’s quality score. It can a lot to manage a campaign sucessfully, and quality score is not a measure if the campaign is sucessful or not. However, with a great quality score, the likelyhood of sucess is much higher.