IMPROVE
GOOGLE ADWORDS CAMPAIGN PROFITABILITY THROUGH
ELIMINATION OF LOW QUALITY CLICKS
ADVANCED STRATEGIES FOR ONLINE
MARKETING
BY ALEC CAMPBELL, PRINCIPAL CONSULTANT, iCHANNEL
STRATEGIES
Improving paid search marketing performance
can be achieved by removing low-quality clicks
that have little chance of converting. Low-quality
clicks result from a poor match or connection
between a user search and the product or service
being marketed. Using tactics designed to eliminate
poor quality clicks, and improving the overall
relevance of the marketing campaign, will result
in better results and increased profitability.
Increasing competition leads to
higher keyword prices, therefore one of the
most important metrics in a search marketing
campaign is the conversion rate of clicks to
actions. An action might be a sale, a lead,
or any other desirable, quantifiable result.
Faced with increasing keyword prices, maintaining
an acceptable return from a search marketing
budget requires constant improvements in the
conversion of clicks to actions.
To improve the profitability of
a search marketing campaign, it is advisable
to focus on the factors that affect the conversion
of paid clicks to leads or sales. The conversion
rate is defined as follows:
Conversion rate (%)
= x/y * 100
where x = ‘measurable action’ defined
as a sale, phone call, email, or other valuable
result that can be measured.
and y = number of clicks
There are two ways to improve the conversion
rate:
1. Increase the number of measurable
actions (x)
2. Decrease the number of clicks (y)
In this article, we focus on the latter. Of
course, we are not advocating that in all cases
the marketer reduce the number of clicks. Our
purpose is to provide guidelines on improving
the conversion rate and the campaign profitability
through the removal of low quality clicks, i.e.
those least likely to convert. A successful
implementation of this strategy will free up
campaign resources which can then be reinvested
to increase the number of higher quality clicks
leading to more conversions and a higher conversion
rate.
STRATEGY
Improving the overall quality of clicks requires
the implementation of tactics to remove poor
clicks that have little chance of converting
to sales. The goal is to focus campaign resources
on medium to high quality clicks.
High Quality Clicks: These
clicks are the most likely to convert as they
represent searches that are highly relevant
to the product or service the marketer offers.
A marketer would be willing to pay more for
these clicks as they are the most valuable.
Medium Quality Clicks: These
clicks are relevant but the searches are more
general in nature and therefore representative
of searches from users in an early stage of
the purchase decision. They have value in
terms of awareness that may lead to sales
in the longer term and as such, a marketer
would be willing to pay a lower cost-per-click
(CPC).
Low Quality Clicks:
These clicks are worth little or nothing. They
are not relevant to the marketer’s business
and should be eliminated if at all possible.
Think of high quality clicks as being from
internet users looking for an immediate solution;
they are ready to make a purchase decision.
Medium quality clicks are from legitimate potential
customers that may not urgently need to buy
a solution; they are fact finding, collecting
information on what is available in order to
make a possible purchase at a future date. These
clicks are still valuable but harder to quantify.
Low quality clicks are from users who are not
in the marketer’s target market; these
clicks are for the most part irrelevant.
LOW QUALITY CLICKS
There are several reasons why a marketer might
be getting low quality, irrelevant clicks.
1. Generics Keywords
With generic keyword phrases, it can be very
difficult to ascertain what information the
internet user actually seeks. The less specific
the keyword search phrase, the harder it will
be to match a solution to the user’s needs.
Example: The phrase ‘attorney
new york’ provides no information on the
type of lawyer the user seeks. A law firm specializing
in one particular practice risks getting a lot
of poor quality clicks advertising on this keyword
phrase.
2. Broad Match
With broad match, an ad might appear for keyword
combinations that aren’t really relevant
to the marketer’s business.
Example: A search for ‘online
legal education seminars’ is not relevant
for a company that provides only classroom-based
courses but may well be bidding on the broad
match term ‘legal education seminars’.
3. Content Match
Clicks occurring as a result of Google’s
Content Network (Content Match in Yahoo) are
not as high in quality as direct search clicks.
This is because content match clicks are a result
of ads appearing on websites that are deemed
to be related to the keyword selections but
are not actual searches. This is considered
contextual advertising and as such may be useful
for building awareness but not, in general,
for immediate results.
4. Wrong Solution
A disconnect can occur between the customer’s
actual needs and the product or service being
offered. The keyword choice was correct but
the user couldn’t make a determination
until after clicking on the ad that the marketer
did not offer the solution they needed. There
are numerous factors that might cause this –
price, product specifics, time, location, etc.
Example: Someone searching
for a 4 bedroom detached house is not likely
to take an action on a website marketing 2 bedroom
condos even though the keyword ‘real estate
in cleveland’ may have been relevant.
5. Keyword Confusion
A marketer’s ads might be appearing for
a product or service for which the keywords
have relevance but the ads do not.
Example: The keyword ‘bass’
is relevant for fishing, beer or a musical instrument.
This shouldn’t produce many clicks, but
on occasion it will just out of curiosity from
click happy internet users.
6. Click Fraud
Clicks that come as a result of fraudulent usage
from a competitor or spammer.
IDENTIFYING LOW
QUALITY CLICKS
To identify poor quality clicks, the best place
to start is with conversion tracking. Conversion
tracking enables the marketer to track a website
action such as sale or form completion back
to the keyword choice and ad that was clicked
by the user. This will provide valuable information
on which keyword and ad copy combinations are
providing the most value per click and, just
as importantly, it will help identify those
that are not producing good results –
the low quality clicks.
To dig deeper into the reason why certain
keywords are not converting, a marketer should
analyze its website statistics. These statistics
are available through an analytics package such
as WebMethods, Coremetrics or Clicktracks. If
the marketer is not using an analytics package,
these statistics may be available through the
hosting company or IT person if hosted internally.
Any decent package should provide a report
of the search terms used to reach the marketer’s
website. This will include both paid search
and organic clicks. The information contained
in this report should be highly useful in determining
which keyword searches are irrelevant to the
marketer’s business. These are the keyword
searches that can be removed or at least modified
by negative keywords or more effective ad copy.
{Note: One word
of caution here if you use Google Analytics.
This particular program does not provide the
actual keyword phrase entered by the user for
its CPC reports. Google Analytics reports only
the search terms on which the marketer bids
regardless of the actual term entered.}
Unfortunately for a marketer that depends
mainly on phone call leads, there is no easy
way to identify which keywords led to such actions.
Several companies have recently launched products
aimed at solving this problem by requiring users
to click to call. A phone call lead is initiated
when the user enters a phone number and the
system establishes the connection between the
marketer and the user. The action is thus measurable
and can be traced back to the keyword.
However, given the nascent stage of this technology,
it has not yet gained end-user acceptance. Until
this occurs, a marketer with a lead generation
website must rely on the information provided
by emails, form completions or other such measurable
actions.
SOLUTION: IMPROVING
CLICK QUALITY
Completely eliminating irrelevant clicks is
close to impossible; however, a number of steps
can be taken to drastically improve the overall
quality and performance of search marketing
campaigns. Incorporating the following tactics
into the campaign strategy should result in
significant improvements in the overall conversion
rate.
1. Content Match
Content match should not be considered part
of a search marketing campaign. Google and Yahoo
serve these ads on their publisher networks,
AdSense and Content Match respectively. The
ads are placed on sites that are deemed to be
contextually relevant to the product or service
being marketed.
Content match typically generates a lot of
impressions, a fair amount of clicks but few
conversions. This is because these clicks are
not from active searches. They are from users
who spotted an ad while surfing an AdSense or
Content Match network site. This is similar
to online advertising with one important distinction
– the advertiser is paying on a per click
basis instead of a cost per thousand impressions
basis.
The option to include content match clicks
should only be selected if the marketer believes
the value of the awareness generated from the
number of impressions outweighs the poor conversion
results.
If this isn’t the case, it is best to
deselect content match and focus only on direct
search.
2. Broad vs Exact Match
In theory, a keyword list could be large enough
to include all of the possible search terms
that someone might use to find information on
the products or services a marketer offers.
If this were the case, broad match (or advanced
match in Yahoo) would not be needed. Using only
exact match to exert complete control over the
searches for which ads appear, a marketer can
be confident that all clicks would be relevant.
In reality, it is highly unlikely that a marketer
will think of every possible combination of
search terms. Thus, a combination of broad and
exact match is usually the best solution. To
cut back on the number of irrelevant searches,
enter the same keyword terms twice – once
for broad match and once for exact match. The
exact match terms should be bid at a higher
rate than the equivalent broad match terms.
This will result in the exact match term being
used when someone types in that exact keyword
phrase. This is important as the exact match
term is more valuable because it is a higher
quality click. All of the information about
that search is present; it is an exact match
and therefore, highly relevant.
Broad match selections can still be useful.
If the user enters a keyword term that contains
all the words of the marketer phrase but in
a different order or with other words added
in, it might still be of value to show the ad.
Not knowing exactly what are they are looking
for though means that this click is not as valuable
on average, and therefore, the bid should not
be as high as the exact search term. A good
rule of thumb is to bid all broad match terms
at 50 to 75% of the amount bid for the equivalent
exact match terms.
3. Negative Keywords
Information from keyword discovery tools and
web referral stats on the relevant keyword terms
people are actually using to find certain products
and services will also uncover a lot of related
keywords that are not relevant. These can be
used as negative keywords to prevent ads from
appearing when broad match keywords cause ads
to be served for non-relevant searches. For
example, a provider of high-end products or
services will not want ads appearing when someone
uses the terms ‘cheap’ or ‘cheapest’
in addition to the keyword terms that are relevant.
Adding these as negative keywords will cut down
on the number of low quality clicks.
4. Ad Copy
Modifications to ad copy can be a very effective
way of filtering out low quality clicks. There
are generally several criteria a user contemplates
when considering the purchase of a particular
product or service. Price is almost always one
criterium, and there are bound to be several
others including product features, specials,
and service guarantees. For example, a company
that provides seminars knows that its customers
value date, location, price and course content.
If the price is too high, date or location inconvenient
or the course content not to the user’s
liking, a conversion will not occur. Though
not in great detail, enough information can
be included in the ad copy that only people
interested in that particular course at that
time, location and price will click through
the ad.
5. Geographic Limitations
If the product or service has geographical limitations
– i.e. the marketer only services or delivers
to a particular geographic area, then it might
be best to limit ads to only show in this area.
Be warned though, people from outside this area
may be legitimate customers. For example, they
might be looking for services on behalf of other
people.
6. Time-based Limitations
There are instances where a marketer might consider
limiting their ads to showing at particular
times. Here are two examples:
a. Most leads are generated by phone calls
and the business does not have an after hours
answering service. In this case, it is probably
best to limit ads to show only during business
hours. At the very least, marketers should
specify on their websites that after hours,
a person should send an email. It is unlikely
that they will leave a phone message.
b. From the campaign stats, it might be obvious
that most leads are generated at a particular
time of the day or days of the week. If this
is the case, it might be worth considering
turning ads off at times or days when conversions
are poor.
7. Click Fraud
There really isn’t anything that can be
done to prevent click fraud as there’s
nothing to stop anyone from repeatedly clicking
on ads. However, Google has built in click fraud
detection which should capture and filter out
a lot of fraudulent activity such as repeated
clicks from the same person during a specified
period of time. For added security, click fraud
detection tools may be useful. There are many
available either as stand-alone products (Click
Forensics) or as add-ons to website statistics
programs such as ClickTracks. Click Forensics
also provides a free tool for marketers that
register for their Click Fraud Network.
AD RANKING:
THE CTR ISSUE
One possible side effect of implementing the
tactics discussed above is a change in the click-through
rate (CTR) which is an important factor in search
engine rankings. As Google, Yahoo and MSN factor
bid rate, click-through rate, and ad quality
into their ranking criteria, a lower CTR will
lead to a lower ranking. Tactics designed to
limit when an ad appears to only relevant searches
(e.g. using exact match) will improve CTR and
ranking at the same bid amount. However, tactics
designed to lower the possibility of an ad being
clicked (e.g. ad copy limitations) will inevitably
result in a lower CTR and thus, ranking.
Maintaining ad visibility near the top of the
search results may now require higher bids.
This may seem unfair but on average, it still
works in the marketer’s favor. The average
cost-per-click might be higher but the average
cost-per-conversion should be lower as the increase
in conversion rate due to the elimination of
a great percentage of irrelevant clicks leads
to a higher return on investment.
SUMMARY
Marketers have typically measured paid search
advertising success in terms of visibility –
their ads were ranked at or near the top of
the search results. The majority of search marketers
spend too much time focusing on clicks and not
enough time on conversions and the actual return
for the marketing dollar spent.
An effective search marketing campaign should
be measured in terms of quantifiable results
such as sales or leads. Success is determined
by the ability to convert clicks into actions
that lead to new business. Optimizing campaign
performance is therefore dependent on maximizing
the conversion rate.
Alec D. Campbell
Principal Consultant
iChannel Strategies LLC
Phone: 215-840-9255
Email: info@ichannelstrategies.com
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