Can’t Get Rich

As I’ve mentioned a few dozen times, I’m actively promoting Advaliant’s green tea offer (in hopes of winning their contest).  Right now I’m using Adwords for everything.  Over the past couple of days, I’ve noticed a few interesting things about Adwords, and I guess I’ll share them with you.

1.) Oops, I’ve got a great Quality Score

I’m bidding fairly high on my keywords, just so I can get them to rank on the first page of search results.  Yesterday, I noticed that my QS went from ‘Ok’ to ‘Great’ for a couple of my top keywords, and my ad went from ranks 6-8 to ranks 1-3.   I’m guessing this happened because my CTR is huge.  Anyway, my conversion percentage went in the toilet.  Why?

2.) People are idiots and Google encourages them

You’ve probably noticed that, sometimes, Google puts the first three sponsored ads directly over the search results.  While this is great for increasing your CTR, it will also increase the number of junk clicks you’re getting.  People expect to see ads in the sidebar, not the search results list. If your landing page is obviously a sales pitch, and they’re looking for information about something (for example, green tea), they’re going to click your ad, be disappointed, and leave.  As such…

3.) Ranks 1-3 suck.  Aim for #4.

It’s not all bad.  Thanks to my great QS, I’ve been able to reduce my max CPC.  Thus, I’m saving money, and (in theory) I’m reducing junk clicks.

I remember reading somewhere that reducing your max CPC too quickly will result in Google doing bad things to your ad rankings.  I’m taking it slow with my campaign, so hopefully it won’t get swept off the front page.

Anyway, that’s just something to keep in mind when you’re running a new Adwords campaign.  Hope someone else can benefit from it.

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Remember the scene in Saving Private Ryan when they storm the beaches of Normandy? That’s my schedule right now.

Replace the mortar fire with quizzes and homework, and realize that the sense of urgency is being caused by my day job, not my commanding officer, and you’ll get a clear picture of how frantic I’m feeling right now. They don’t waste time burying us in assignments here.

“Oh hi, welcome to summer session ASSUME THE POSITION YOU HAVE 15 SECONDS TO COMPLY.”

I hate to do this, but posting this week will be at random. Also, I haven’t even started on the podcast for this weekend, and it’s already Wednesday. I hate to let you guys down, but my top priority right now is school. I’ll post when I can, but only if I can think of something interesting or useful to say.  As for the podcast, I’m going to take the video game developer approach and say “it’ll be done when it’s done.”

Oh, and I’ve only gotten 4 leads so far for the Advaliant contest. You can probably beat me with little to no effort, so get going.

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Project Wonderful finally got around to approving my site, so I’ve added three 125×125 spots in my sidebar.  The minimum bid is $0, so go ahead and make some use of it.

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School + work kicked my ass today, so short post.

You’re bidding on 150 keywords for a campaign, and you want to know which ones are preforming, right? If your top keyword is getting dozens of clicks, but no conversions, wouldn’t you want to pull it (and therefore cut costs)? Well, start tracking your keywords.

You haven’t been tracking them this whole time?!

Personally, I haven’t had any need. I’ve been running 90% of my campaigns through Facebook, where keywords aren’t an issue. That said, I’m using Adwords to promote that Advaliant contest right now, so I need to do things right. So, to start tracking your keywords, there are a few quick and easy steps:

Step 0 - Convert your landing page from HTML to PHP

This one’s really complicated - If your original landing page is lp.html, rename it to lp.php. Rocket surgery.

Step 1 - Change the landing page link in your ad

You need to pass a variable from Adwords to your page. Change your URL to “http://www.landingpage.com/index.php?SubID={keyword}”. This will pass the keyword that the user searched for to the SubID variable on your site.

Step 2 - Change your affiliate links to pass the SubID to the tracking site

*Note: This is the barebones method. It does not encrypt your keywords, so the network will know where you are getting your hits from.

Append this string to your affiliate links: <?php echo $_GET[”SubID”]; ?>

So, your affiliate link will look something like this:

“http://www.valtrk.com/URL/track.aspx?AdID=xxxx&AffID=xxxx&SubID=<?php echo $_GET[”SubID”]; ?>”

Step 3 - Check your work

Once you’ve got your updated index file uploaded, go to it and give it a variable in the address bar (ie, http://www.landingpage.com/index.php?SubID=test). Then, right click on your affiliate link and select properties. Did your variable get stuck on the end of the link? If so, good. If not, you screwed up, try again.

Easy

Now, let your campaign run for a few days and be sure to check your SubID reports frequently to see which keywords are performing well. Yank the ones that aren’t, optimize the ones that are, etc. Profit.

Technique learned and shamelessly ripped from Revenue Quest.

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Today marks the start of summer session here on campus. I’ll be taking two classes over the next couple of months (both economics), so that’s where I’ll be focusing 100% of my attention. I’ll do my best to keep to my update schedule, but my articles may suffer on nights when I have big assignments due.

Also, since summer session is starting, and a lot of people will be back on campus, I’ll be able to try some of the techniques that HarveyJ and I discussed on Saturday.

Finally, since I got 3 hours of sleep last night and am about to pass out, that’s all I’m going to wri

(zzz)

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