OK, well, the year is rapidly drawing to a close, so let me leave you with several additional quick adwords tips to save you money in 2010 (Thanks VERY much to Jerrold Burke, Jered Klima, Dan Zuzanski, Laureen Hoeft, Rob Sieracki, and all the rest of the Rocket Clicks PPC team for helping me compile this):
- Don’t judge the success of the content network without cleaning it up first. Aggressively look for site and category exclusions (in the content placement report AND the standard user interface for the campaign). As a last resort consider managing effective placements discovered on a CPM basis while you gradually throttle down the automatic placement campaign (you can drag and drop placements between two campaigns using the Adwords Editor)
- In your most profitable adgroups, don’t necessarily split test a new ad with 50% of your traffic unless you’re very early in the game and you’re fairly sure you’ve got a good change to beat the control. Instead, use the Adwords Editor to make several copies of the existing ad, and change only ONE of them. This way, you’re only exposing the TEST to a small percentage of your otherwise profitable traffic… if it’s a bomb, you lose a lot less. If it starts to look like a winner, you can delete many of the other copies to increase the exposure frequency of the test ad (but be careful not to delete the CONTROL copy with all the history until the winner has been firmly declared)
- Don’t be content using just text ads. Local Business Ads, Ad Extensions, and Ad Site Links are very effective yet underutilized media for many businesses. (And in the content network, don’t forget to test display advertising)
- Test something wildly and insanely different from your existing control ad. I mean, something which kind of irks you to try. Onesentance.org is a good source of inspiration for ad copy in this light (thanks to David Bullock for pointing this out). Another good source is to write a controversial ad which goes 100% against all the benefits your competitors are touting. For example, in the adwords market itself you used to see ads saying “You will make money tonight”… so what you’d do instead is say “Some of these animals are lying! Be the tortoise, not the hare”… see where I’m going?
- Take advantage of Google’s Betas, especially if you’re a more traditional e-commerce marketing with an actual catalog of products sold through a shopping cart.
- Don’t use the same copy or landing pages in the content network as you do in search. Content surfers are READERS, searchers are SCANNERS. (We’ll do more on this in a future audio)
- Go through the reporting center once a week to see if there are new metrics available which could be of use. (These days, new data points seem to be accelerating on an almost monthly basis)
And for heaven’s sake, if you’re not a member of my Hyper Responsive Club already, get out there and join before the price increases forever on Friday (or when I hit 1,000 members, which is looking like it might happen before then since Perry Marshall decided to tell his list of 250,000+ people to jump on board today).
Because without the information in this club, I can virtually guarantee you haven’t carefully defined a very specific keyword target to conquer online with focus and determination. And if you haven’t done that, I know you’re suffering with much lower click through, conversion, and quality scores than you’d otherwise have. Join now
I know everyone hesitates to join a new monthly club, and no one wants to commit to a new monthly expense. (Note: you can cancel any time, and even the first month is refundable if you decide you don’t like it for any reason, or no reason at all)
But the thing is, hardly anyone is sorry once they’ve joined mine. Join now
That’s because:
1) YOU’LL SEE A REAL BUSINESS BEING DEVELOPED: This club is one of the very, very few places you can actually watch a real business being developed from scratch. In other words, I don’t only TALK about what to do in some electronic classroom in the sky, I actually SHOW YOU me DOING it as I develop a REAL business. Join now
2) YOU GET 6 To 12 HOURS FOR MUCH LESS THAN WHAT OTHERS CHARGE FOR ONLY 1 HOUR: While most other gurus are charging $97/mo for only an hour or two of THEORY, Glenn’s delivering virtually a whole seminar (6 to 12 hours/mo) for much less. Join now
3) YOU’LL LEARN FROM AN AGENCY OWNER: I’m not only a marketing educator, I’m a Rocket Clicks founder and I’ve seen hundreds of business models from the inside out. Which means, I don’t just guess about what’s working and what’s not, I’ve seen the dollars in vs. dollars out reports. I’m not talking theory, and I’m not going to pee on your back while I tell you it’s raining. You’ll get the straight truth, even when it’s not sexy. Which is what you NEED in order to succeed, rather than just to feel good for a few months while you consume another piece of intellectual entertainment. Join now
4) I’VE LIVED IN THE REAL WORLD: I’ve consulted for dozens of real companies … Lipton, AT&T, Novartis, Panasonic, Whirlpool, Colgate-Palmolive, Bausch & Lomb, Nextel, etc. I might be known in our circles as “the guinea pig direct response guy”, but my techniques are explosive in these circles because they come from an entirely different industry. Join now
5) I’VE DONE WHAT I’M TEACHING: I’ve launched over 17 markets profitably, the vast majority of which had nothing to do with the IM crowd. I’m not a guru who’s done nothing but be a guru.
6) I’M HONEST: You won’t get rich next month using my work. It’s not even within the realm of possibility. But you WILL learn how to build a secure foundation for your business so it can grow and grow and grow. Join now
7) YOU’LL LEARN A DIFFERENT WAY TO THINK ABOUT MARKETING: Perhaps most importantly, I’ll teach you a different way to think about marketing which will last you a lifetime.
BEAT THE PRICE RAISE (On January 1st): Join now
And have a Happy New Year!
Dr. G 
