In yesterday's Nugget I explained how to set up a single ad using AdWords Express, the simple ad platform within Google Places for Business. During the Express demo setup, I presented yesterday I chose these keywords:
* jewelry stores
* engagement rings
* jewelry
* diamonds
* diamond necklace
I then created this sample ad:
It all looks very simple to set up, but the real power of Google AdWords is the ability to correctly match a specific ad to someone searching a specific keyword phrase. Since the 5 phrases above are very broad, it's possible that Google will show that ad to thousands of people searching for very loosely related keywords to those shown.
Within the search results, Google always bolds the words that match the search phrase. In this example, you can see how the SERP listing for A. Jaffe is displayed when I search for "engagement rings":
You see how the words "engagement," "rings," and "ring" are in bold typeface.
Here's one of the AdWords ads I saw when searching for "engagement rings":
That ad shows the bold blue headline "Engagement Ring" as well as the website address in green with "EngagementRings." You will also notice the word "rings" in bold in the ad text.
That AdWords ad has a higher chance of being clicked simply because the bold words matched the search phrase.
Consider my sample ad above one more time, and compare it to the keywords I chose...
Ad text:
Engagement Ring Jeweler
Worry free diamond ring selection
Browse online or visit in-person
That ad clearly matches these keywords:
* engagement rings
* jewelry
* diamonds
But not these:
* jewelry stores
* diamond necklace
The ROI for this ad would be a lot better for the first 3 keywords than it would be for the other 2. In fact, it's very possible that the ad would never even appear for the phrases "jewelry stores" and "diamond necklace."
Remember that Google shows ads with the hopes that someone will click it. Google makes money when people click ads, so they would rather show an ad with matching bold keywords than one without bold keywords. That's why your ROI would be lower for those keywords with this specific ad.
How can you make this better?
You'd have to create multiple ads within AdWords Express that target only those keywords you could use in an ad together. With this approach you would also need to set a monthly budget for each ad, but that gets very expensive.
The better approach is to use the full Google AdWords so you can group similar keywords together with your ads, then share one overall monthly budget that is shared between all the keywords and ads.
This is just a small example of the flexibility of Google AdWords vs. AdWords Express, but with flexibility also comes complication. It's better to hire an agency to manage AdWords than for you to attempt it on your own like AdWords Express. Just make sure the agency is transparent about what ads it's creating and how it's targeting keywords. Otherwise you'll never know how your money is being spent.
