Google Adwords Accounts
Setting Up a Google Adwords Account
You can reach the advertising interface of Google Adwords by searching for the expression “Google Adwords” or via the direct link: www.adwords.google.com. If you are professionally involved in Search Engine Optimization, it is recommended to use the “My Client Center” service that enables you to look after a large number of user accounts from one interface. This service also provides certain benefits and offers to those who use it with a certain number of accounts.
You should note that unlike most Google services, you cannot enter Google Adwords immediately with Gmail account information. New registration is required and only in the course of the registration can one use Gmail account details. During the registration it is recommended to choose the standard edition of the Google Adwords account and not the starter edition.
A Google ad campaign is possible in two ways:
Search (an ad campaign focused on keywords)
Content (an ad campaign focused on websites)
Each of these types of ad campaigns requires different techniques in order to achieve maximal results with minimal investment (aspiration for optimal ROI (return on investment). Please see the pages that deal individually with Advertising on the Search Network and Advertising on the Content Network for guidelines and tips.
Registration
You should note that during Google Adwords account registration there are a number of factors that cannot be changed afterwards:
- Currency of payment – if dollars are chosen, one cannot change it afterwards to shekels. If one works professionally in website promotion, it is advisable to choose dollars so that one can work with companies abroad.
- Payment method – credit or direct pay from a bank account. In Israel only the credit method is available.
- Time zone
Features of an ad campaign that can be set:
- Focus – Search Network or Content Network
- Daily Advertising Budget
- Target Audience – language and geographic location
- Timing – hours and dates when ads will be displayed
A separate ad campaign should be conducted if you want to have different parallel settings for one or more of these features (e.g. one to display to an English-speaking audience, one to display to a Hebrew-speaking one; one to display on the weekdays, one on the weekends)
The Structure of a Google Adwords Account
A Google Adwords account consists of campaigns, each of which contains adgroups, which can contain multiple ads and keywords.
Google Adwords enables you to conduct a number of parallel ad campaigns (up to 25 per account), including ad campaigns of the same type (Search or Content). The performance of all campaigns run in the account has an impact on the Quality Score of any individual keyword (see Advertising on the Search Network for more details).
You should note: it is not recommended to run two parallel campaigns for the same keywords. The reason is that Google will never display more than one ad from the same Google Adwords account on the same page.
If you nevertheless want to use the same keywords, you can solve the issue by running the two campaigns at different hours of the day or different dates.
It is important to be aware that the hours of operation of the campaign have great significance. There are hours and dates when many surfers will click less on the ad, thus harming the CTR rate. For example, for a site dealing with vacation cottages it might be more worthwhile to run a campaign towards the weekends, during the days when it is more likely that there will be more surfers searching for cottages for the weekend. For a site that sells flowers, it might be wise to focus the campaign towards Thursdays and Fridays.
The Importance of ROI (Return On Investment)
An important principle in advertising with Google is to check that the investment really is worth it for your business. Sometimes by doing an ROI calculation you can see that advertising with Google is not profitable.
For example – if 10,000 users a month enter a website via Google Adwords advertising, and one hundred of them complete a transaction with the average value of $100, then the maximum investment for a single click must be a dollar (because 10,000 clicks will then cost 10,000, which is exactly the profit achieved by those clicks). The goal is to invest as much under a dollar as possible per click in order to begin to earn profits.
In order to achieve this, you should be constantly tracking the statistics from your Google Adwords account and checking if you are achieving the stated goals.