There is a ton of useful information in your main AdWords campaign summary pages, especially now that they’ve released the new interface (still in beta).  However, on these pages and even in Analytics, you don’t get to see the whole story. To most accurately target the keywords, ads & budgets of my AdWords accounts, there are several reports that I rely on which fill in the gaps that are missing from the main performance data.

Search Query Performance Report

Most likely, your ad groups are composed of keywords set to broad, phrase, and exact match (and if not, they should be). With broad match keywords, your ad is triggered when a user searches on a term that Google determines to be similar to your keyword. The Search Query Report lists the exact search queries which triggered your ads and resulted in clicks.

By looking at the report, you can determine new keywords, or even ad groups, which you hadn’t originally included by seeing which terms are receiving the most clicks and/or conversions. I’ve also found the Search Query Report to be extremely useful in determining negative keywords for my campaigns, especially with short-tail terms. The report identifies variations that don’t match the original intent of my keywords.

Account/Campaign/Ad Group/Keyword Performance

Depending on how specific you are looking to get, you might use these reports to see an overall view of your data for any amount of time.  However, I’ve found the best thing about these reports to be their customizability, from a unit of time, to a date range, to specifically what type of data I am looking to see (CTR, conversions, etc.).

I have often used these reports to show the historical success of my campaigns over each day of the week. By selecting “day of week” from the drop down menu and choosing a relatively large amount of time, I can often determine the best days to focus our clients’ PPC budgets, which can be extremely beneficial, especially for smaller ad budgets. A similar report can be used to determine peak hours of the day (choose hourly from the drop down menu). By taking advantage of AdWords’ ad scheduling feature, you can focus your budget only during the hours of the day in which you receive the heaviest number of clicks.

Geographic Report

Whether you are a large nationwide operation or a small local company, geotargeting is an important tool. The Geographic Report is an excellent way to determine areas in which you have the most success (or the least). The report can be customized to show as broad of an area as entire countries, or as narrow as a single city.

If you find that your ads are especially successful in a certain area, it might be worthwhile for you to allocate a certain amount of your budget to specifically target that region (just make sure to exclude that area from any other campaigns which might overlap those targeted regions). You may also find areas where your ads are far less successful. In that case, it may be wise to exclude these areas in an effort to focus your ad dollar on those regions which are most likely to convert.

These are just a few of my favorites. There are plenty of other reports in AdWords that are also highly beneficial, and I encourage you to dig around and explore this often underused feature.  No matter your PPC advertising budget, each of these can help you to allocate your budget in the most efficient, targeted way.

It was the finale heard around the world.  ABC’s “The Bachelor,” Jason Mesnick, chose Melissa Rycroft. Then in the after-show special, he broke off the engagement (GASP!) and gave another shot to runner-up Molly Malaney (GASP!).

The finale marked the end of the 13th season for the series, which has also spawned another show, “The Bachelorette.”  Early seasons of the shows picked up millions of viewers, often being the most watched shows on their respective nights.  But in recent years, viewership has lagged.  Until now.

The much hyped finale aired on Monday, March 2 before 14 million viewers; over 16.5 million stayed tuned to watch the after-show special.  But the marketing didn’t stop after the show aired. All week news reports have swirled with rumors that the show is fake, leaked emails between Melissa and Jason, reactions from the show’s host and producers, and the list goes on.  Even here in our office, heated conversations filled with gasps and screams filled the production area.

Fake or not, there is no getting around the fact that some brilliant (and fairly new age) marketing has gone on here.  Reality TV and our country’s obsession with celebrity culture have opened up a new channel for entertainment marketing.  Rumors run rampant in Hollywood about every celebrity, some of which are completely made up (even by the celebrity’s publicist) as a way to get back (or remain) in the public eye.

The lightning speed of the Internet rumor mill on social media networks and blogs fans the flames. During the controversial finale, angry fans and gossip bloggers flooded Twitter and entertainment blogs to rant about the bachelor’s decision, perhaps leading to the jump in viewers for the after-show special.

My guess is that the upcoming seasons of “The Bachelor” and “The Bachelorette” will continue to ride the high that this finale has produced (producers announced the new bachelorette for next season — a reject from this season’s “Bachelor”). The show has a lot to live up to now -– viewers will now expect more sudden twists & turns, and of course more broken hearts.

Creating and implementing a Google AdWords account isn’t especially difficult. You choose your keywords, write your ads, determine a budget, and voila!  You’re up and running.  However, in order to achieve success with your PPC campaign, there is a certain amount of strategy that you need to consider, especially when it comes to your keywords.

Keyword matching options basics

Google offers four different keyword matching options: broad, phrase, exact and negative.

• Broad match keywords allow your ad to show on variations of the keyword (i.e. synonyms) as well as similar phrases.  For example, if you chose a broad match keyword “phone,” your ad might be triggered by “cell phone,” “home phone service,” “headphone,” etc.
• Phrase match keywords, notated by putting quotation marks around the word, allow your ad to show on variations of your keyword phrase.  For example, if you chose a phrase match keyword “cell phone,” your ad might be triggered by “cell phone providers,” “used cell phone,” etc. New words may be added before or after your phrase, but the phrase must be intact in the correct order to trigger your ads.
• Exact match keywords, notated by brackets around the keyword, allow your ad to show only when the exact phrase is used in a search query with no words ahead or behind the keyword phrase.  In our “cell phone” example, your ad would show only when a user types the exact phrase “cell phone.”
• Negative match keywords, notated by a negative sign before the keyword, are used to ensure that ads do not show for a particular search term.  For example, if you are selling only new cell phones, you might include the term “used” as a negative keyword.

Why is this important?

The main (and most important) goal of PPC advertising is to drive targeted, highly relevant traffic to your website, which in turn will drive sales and leads, as well as serve as a powerful branding tool for your business.  However, if you are running only broad match keywords, you are most likely getting traffic from users who are not looking for the exact product or service you are providing.  At the same time, you don’t want to only use phrase and exact match, because you don’t want to miss out on the additional traffic that broad match keywords can provide.

What to do?

At the start of your campaign, choose 20-25 highly relevant and closely related keywords.  Include each of these keywords as broad, phrase, and exact match.  Give your campaign some time to run and gather data for you.  Monitor your data, and after about a month, run a Search Query Report (found in the Reports tab in your AdWords account).  This report will show you the exact search queries that triggered your ads, which ones received the best CTRs, and which ones are leading to the most conversions.  Because it shows you the exact search queries used, you can also identify any words that should be included as negative keywords.

After your campaign has had enough time to run (1-3 peak business months), delete the keywords that aren’t getting you a solid CTR or conversion rate.  You can also use your top performing keywords to expand your list using words that are close variations of your best ones.

Although it may seem overwhelming at the start to have such long keyword lists, it will pay off in the end, and you will be sure to have the most relevant, targeted traffic coming to your site.

David Kiley of Business Week’s advertising blog, Brand New Day, wrote a post about Pepsi’s new ad campaigns, which capitalize on the current feeling of hope that is spreading across America following Barack Obama’s Presidential win. The ads use President Obama’s campaign slogan “Yes We Can” to evoke the feelings of hope and inspiration that led Americans to vote for him.

Kiley calls the ads a miss. “Call me cranky,” he writes, “but I don’t think an advertiser should lift this phrase for its own use, and especially not launch the campaign right around the inauguration. This is a special time in America—difficult and historic. This ad and its language comes off as a ripoff. Not an homage, but a ripoff. And it cheapens the ad and the campaign. It makes Pepsi look crass.”

Granted, I am a tried and true Diet Pepsi drinker. As all of my co-workers will attest to, if you try to come between me and my Diet Pepsi, we’ve got problems. While I agree that taking a phrase that has so inspired America and putting it on a soda can is a bit cheap, I can’t help but feel that the campaign works. We’re talking about it, aren’t we?

There is no doubt that today’s economy is affecting all businesses. Whether you are a corporate CEO or a small business owner, you are looking for those extra expenses that all add up to big spending.  Before you reach for your scissors to cut out pay per click advertising, let’s take a moment and refine your PPC strategy . We just may find opportunity.

Google recently published six AdWords tactics for tough times. While you may find that not all of these apply directly to your business, there is great value in the idea of adapting your PPC to the current situation.

• Focus your ad text and keywords on low prices and savings. Use words like “sale,” “discount,” and “value.”
• Make sure your ad groups are targeted and relevant. Your keywords and ads in each ad group should focus on a specific product or topic.
• Use negative keywords to filter out traffic that’s not related to what you offer.
• Make it easy for customers to buy. Your destination URL should take customers to the most relevant page according to the query on which they searched.
• Focus your money on the keywords, ads, and ad groups that are driving the most business.  Consider pausing any “branding” campaigns in favor of “selling” campaigns.