Trada worked with PPC industry pros to collect the most impactful, often underrated tools that will make your job easier by giving you a more informed, effective and profitable paid search marketing program. We’ll outline a few on the blog, and we suggest you register for our upcoming webinar, where we’ll explore all 7 tools in depth.

Tool #1: Task Management.

We’re all busy managing a million different tasks in paid search. Whether you’re a member of an in-house PPC team, a marketing director with many more tasks, or an agency with PPC clients, you need a way to prioritize, recognize patterns and detect problems early on.

Joey Muller and Terry Whalen from CPC Search suggest Producteev, a task management tool. In the webinar, we’ll show how you can use this tool to tag email communications and identify issues.

Tool #2: Understand the potential you’re missing.

Brad Geddes, author of Advanced Google AdWords, Google AdWords-approved Seminar Leader, and high-profile conference speaker and consultant, shared a tool and tactic with Trada that can help you understand where you’re missing potential impressions due to budget, Quality Score or bids. In the webinar, we’ll go deep on how to pull the reports, how to aggregate and compare the data, and how to zero in on exactly where you need to optimize to boost AdWords performance.

Tool #3: Boost conversions easily.

We know that having highly targeted landing pages for each ad group will help boost Quality Score. And we know that conversion-centric design–making it incredibly easy for your visitors to convert–is essential to running a profitable AdWords/PPC campaign. But the barriers of time and resources leave many marketers–even sophisticated ones–knowing they could do better.

Matt Heinz, blogger, internet marketing consultant, and author of Successful Selling and many other business books, suggests empowering yourself with a landing page tool like Unbounce. It’s affordable, and it allows you to build and test landing pages easily, without the help of a designer or developer. It’s so easy you’ll have the time to build a tight, relevant campaign with a landing page for every ad group.

Join us for the webinar on May 16. We’ll cover strategies for using Unbounce and 4 more Advanced PPC Tools from more marketing pros, including Brad Cohen from Janrain, Matthew Umbro, founder of PPC Chat, and Jeanne Gaudet from Search Influence.

The post From the Pros: 7 Advanced PPC Tools appeared first on Trada.

The giants of online advertising can afford to pay more for clicks. Why? Because they have worked to understand their customer Lifetime Value.

In this webinar clip, Trada’s Anna Sawyer and Matt Hessler discuss how your SMB or mid-sized company can compete with the Goliaths of paid search by increasing your understanding of your customers’ buying behaviors.

Average Order Value: Stretch your PPC marketing dollars by increasing cart size!

You can increase your customer Lifetime Value and directly impact your marketing potential by increasing your customers’ Average Order Values. In this webinar clip, Matt and Anna share actionable, right-now strategies for increasing cart size. It’s simple: pay for a single click to bring a customer to your website. Once they’ve reached your site, it’s up to you to show them related items, bring in a larger order value with free shipping (above a certain spend) and direct them to ‘popular items’.

Finally, veteran eCommerce PPC marketer Bill D’Alessandro joins Anna and Matt to talk about our view of the ‘all-in on automation’ craze.

PPC automation is very cool. It allows big advertisers to test ads for massive product sets and share data across marketing disciplines. But if you’re a mid-sized company with sophisticated needs, but without a multi-million dollar/month PPC budget, what’s the best solution?

Matt, Anna and Bill from Elements Brands discuss automation, human intuition, and the Trada solution, which brings the best of both worlds to mid-market PPC advertisers.

Want more PPC webinar content? Visit our free webinar videos on YouTube.

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We don’t talk a lot about what we do around here, but Trada has grown and changed and has built a large community of successful advertisers, so we want to take the time to share a customer story.

Trada assigns professional pay-per-click Optimizers to help out your small to medium-sized business – when you may not have the resources for a large in-house PPC team. We work with your team to optimize PPC campaigns on Google and Bing.

Christopher Ward, the founder and president of Lazy Day Pools, is one of our clients who was able to grow his business with the help of Trada’s PPC experts. His biggest challenge managing Google Adwords in-house was time. As his company grew, he found that he could not effectively manage both the PPC account and his growing business. He quickly determined that he needed some outside expertise to move his AdWords performance to the next level and free himself up to run his company more efficiently.

Chris learned that Trada’s performance-based model would allow him to benefit from the experts at Trada without losing transparency. “I’ve been able to expand my paid search team to 4 experts without adding any overhead, and they’re driving results. As a business owner, this is a no-brainer.”

With Trada, Chris was assigned a dedicated account manager and a team of Optimizers to help manage Lazy Day Pool’s paid search account. His team of Optimizers quickly and effectively identified areas of improvement and built out his campaigns with additional keywords, ads and bidding strategies.

With the help of Trada’s team of Optimizers, the Lazy Day Pools campaign is delivering conversions at Chris’s target price and giving him the visibility he needs into the success of his campaigns. “Without Trada, I couldn’t afford to hire an in-house team or a dedicated account manager. Trada’s solution is head and shoulders above the rest for growing companies.”

Chris’s team of Trada experts is optimizing ad copy and using A/B ad testing, and has facilitated 700% increase in CTR (click-through rate). This has resulted in a flood of customer contact requests. “Once I get a form completion, I have an 80% chance of closing that sale,” Chris says. “The Optimizers are dedicated to solving problems like that. They’re the experts about paid search, and I stick to running my business.”

To see more Trada reviews and how Trada can help your business, please read our Trada reviews from actual clients, and visit our case studies page.

The post Trada review: Are you a mid-sized business that needs PPC? appeared first on Trada.

Trada and Unbounce hosted a webinar recently, in which Trada’s Anna Sawyer and Oli Gardner from Unbounce delved into what Enhanced Campaigns mean for you as an AdWords advertiser, and how you can prepare for Enhanced Campaigns now.

But you don’t have to watch the whole webinar: we pulled the clip about Enhanced Campaigns so you can get right to the good stuff.

Want more webinar content? Visit our webinar videos on YouTube.

The post Google Enhanced Campaigns: What to do NOW appeared first on Trada.

Can I bid on my competitor’s brand name keywords?

The short answer is “Yes, you can.” In days past, it was considered taboo to bid on your competitor’s brand name. Companies would hire agencies to scour the Web searching for anyone who was bidding on their brand names and send them cease and desist letters. However, rules have changed and it is now considered best practice in most agencies to encourage their clients to bid against competitors. What companies cannot do, however, is include trademark names in their ads. Google and Bing will both disapprove your ads and penalize you if you  try to use trademark names in your ads.

What are negative keywords and how do they help me in my campaign?

Negative keywords are keywords companies select to prevent their ads from showing up on searches that are irrelevant to their business. For example, a manufacturer of hiking boots that had “hiking boots” as either a phrase match or broad match keyword, would want a negative keyword of “snow” since they do not sell snow boots. What a company does not want to do is include a keyword that is part of their business. In this example, the company would not want a negative keyword of snow boots, since boots is a keyword they are bidding on. This not only is good business practice, it further qualifies your lead and prevents unwanted click costs.

Does quality score really matter?

Quality score is the search engine’s rank of how relevant your keyword is to the information on your website as well as how useful it is to a user searching for products and services online. Scores range from 0 to 10 with 10 out of 10 being the highest a keyword can receive. Quality score affects not only the cost per click a company will pay for a keyword but also how high your ads rank in the search engine. Your quality score is an important factor in your pay per click campaigns, and companies want to do what they can to make sure their quality score is as high as it can be. The more relevant your keywords are to your business, the higher the quality score will be.  Companies should work closely with their web development team and their search engine marketing team, to make sure that keywords are on the site and the pay per click campaign that make the most sense to the products or services sold.

Want to learn more about Quality score? Trada hosted a webinar with the Google AdWords team very recently: it contains the most up-to-date information about how to understand quality score in 2013.

The post 3 Basic PPC Questions Answered appeared first on Trada.

What else does it mean?

1. AdWords campaign managers will need to overhaul their strategies – fast
2. Platform solutions for PPC are scrambling to update their products
3. Trada’s human-powered solution is more adaptable, intuitive and groundbreaking than ever

From Google

According to Google, Enhanced Campaigns are designed to help advertisers promote marketing messages based on people’s context (location, the device they are using, the time of day), all within a single campaign. This change is meant to address the knowledge that the majority of search engine users are using multiple devices. Google promises that Enhanced Campaigns will streamline and optimize the way we bid, that we will be able to deliver more targeted ads to users across devices, and that advanced reporting metrics will be available in one place.

You should be concerned

If you’re concerned that you’ll need to change your strategy, you should be. We’ve all been trained to run ads for devices in separate campaigns, and the best PPC managers’ strategies for mobile and desktop have been established and tested. Google has released guidelines for users who want to embrace the switch right away, but all campaigns will be moved over to the new system by mid-2013.

That said, the update promises to bring great value to your campaigns. It is worth it to learn the rules now to take advantage of this opportunity.

Public outcry

Many PPC managers in the industry are frustrated. They’ve worked hard to optimize campaigns in a way they know works. Google’s Enhanced Campaigns switch suggests that mobile, tablet and desktop users search in similar ways, and we know this isn’t true. User behaviors and ROI are different for these types of users.

What we think

Sweeping, sudden changes to the way the networks function aren’t new. The Google Enhanced Campaigns update seems disruptive, and it will be—to the industry status quo and to the way PPC managers and platforms run their businesses. Google may backpedal or build additional functionality when they see how many advanced PPC players are frustrated.

In the meantime, we must adapt. Trada suggests you stay ahead of the curve and begin preparing for the change NOW by familiarizing yourself with the details of Enhanced Campaigns. The Google Enhanced Campaigns microsite and webinars are a good place to start.

And finally, we feel compelled to point out that Trada’s Expert Marketplace has a distinct advantage when it comes to embracing this and other big network changes. While bid management platforms are scrambling to overhaul their business models and their products to comply with Enhanced Campaigns, Trada’s expert workforce has been preparing to optimize in the new system since the moment we were told about the change by Google—and they will be ready when we begin rolling out this functionality in a few weeks. A great benefit of a human-powered model is the ability to leverage intuition and expertise to be nimble about strategic evolution.

Trada is ready

When you join Trada, we assign a team of highly specialized experts to perform the strategic buildout, daily optimization and constant curation of your AdWords and Bing campaigns. Their ability to intuitively optimize based on platform changes and conversion data means they’re ready to take on the opportunity Enhanced Campaigns presents.

How are you reacting to the Google Enhanced Campaign changes? How are you preparing? Please share your thoughts in the comments.

The post Google Enhanced Campaigns: You Need to Prepare Now appeared first on Trada.

In the world of paid search, you’ve only got a few seconds to grab someone’s attention before they are bombarded by the next ad. So how do you get your prospective customers to pay attention to your ads?
Too often, advertisers spend time writing the copy and throw in the PPC ad headline at the end. But approximately 80% of people will read a PPC ad headline, but only 20% will read the rest.

Writing powerful PPC ad headline copy is a must if you want to capture your reader’s interest. Here are a few tips and tricks to help you write killer ad headlines that get attention and clicks.

Feature your biggest benefit

A benefit is what your product or service does for your customers. Many times, this benefit is more valuable to them than the money they spend to acquire it. The key is to engage your target audience by letting them know what’s in it for them. A good example of a header that highlights a benefit over a feature is “Presenting the Easiest Way Ever to…”

Grab attention by eliciting an emotional response in your PPC ad headline.

People respond well to the emotions of fear, greed and love. Think of those spontaneous purchases you made because someone told you that it’s perfect for your spouse or how you will regret it if you don’t buy this now. Words such as “warning” and “never again…” are very powerful. Starting a header with “What if you could…” or “Be number #1 at…” appeals to instant gratification.

Use numbers and title casing in your ad headline

Beyond what your headline says, it needs contrast to stand out. A good way to do this is by using title casing in the First Letter of Most Words. Another way is to add a number so you can let your target audience know just how many points to expect (people love lists)! I did exactly this for the title of my post: “6 Secrets To Writing Killer PPC Ad Headlines”.

Throw in words that are trending
What’s everyone talking about on Twitter? Check out the trending topics and incorporate those keywords into your PPC ad headline copy.

Does your header show confidence and sound authoritative?

If you are at a loss for words, find someone else that can say it better and add credibility! Use quotes from influencers (Oprah), reputable sources (scientists), case studies, celebrities or better yet, testimonials from existing clients!

Use quotation marks around your header (when allowed).

Just this one simple trick can boost reading by 25%!

Ask a question.

Starting your header with “How To..”, “Would You….” or “What If…” can immediately captivate an audience and create open loops in their brains. Think of when you ask a question and the anticipation it generates as you wait for the answer. Curiosity is contagious and encourages people to click to find out more.

Once you know how to write catchy PPC ad headlines, you can convey a lot of information, letting your target audience know exactly what to expect while enticing them to click or continue reading.

Have you tried any of these tips? If so, let us know which ones have lifted the response to your advertising campaigns. We would also love to hear other examples of powerful PPC ad headlines that have worked for you.

Wendy Kam Marcy has been working in the online marketing and advertising
industry for 7 years on both the corporate and agency side. She is now
the Marketing Manager for WhatRunsWhere.com. Got a question? Tweet
@wendykammarcy or @whatrunswhere.

The post 7 Secrets for Writing Killer PPC Ad Headlines appeared first on Trada.

Quality score in paid search can be a metric that boggles the mind of advertisers. What goes into the quality score and how does Google attribute a quality score are the top questions on most advertisers’ minds when they see that metric in their Adwords account. This year,the Google Adwords team has offered up some key, updated information that takes a bit of the mystery out of the quality score metric.

In general, the higher your quality score, the lower your cost per click. A high quality score also will allow your ad to rank higher on the page, which increases visibility and can lead to higher click through rates. Google stated that keyword match type will NOT affect quality score or first page bid estimates but will affect ranking and cost per click. Advertisers definitely want to use the most relevant keyword match type, but the same action will not affect the quality score of that particular keyword. Other metrics that will not affect your quality score are using social extensions such as Google + and ad extensions. Again, these are great metrics to increase click through rate and lower cost per click so adding them or not using them will not affect your keyword’s quality score.

When asked, the Google AdWords team stated that the biggest website factors that affect quality score are having a site that is well optimized (be in desktop or mobile), a good user experience and well organized and relevant content on your site. Is your site easy for users to navigate and find the information they are looking for? Regarding content, is the information on your site relevant to the keywords and ad copy? All of these factors can and do influence Google assigning your keywords a quality score. These are the factors that really matter to Google and can create a win win for the advertiser’s paid search campaign.

The post Quality Score for 2013 – What Really Matters to Google appeared first on Trada.

Most companies today are looking to compete for the highest share of Internet consumers for their products and services. One thing that usually causes a conflict with their marketing teams is how much to focus on search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM or Pay Per Click PPC). However, what most companies need to realize is that these two departments need to work together to gain the most exposure for the best price. Here are a few ways that companies SEM and SEO team can work together.

Lend Legitimacy to Your Online Listing

When organic and paid listings show up on the same search engine page, consumers tend to put more faith and trust in the company’s listings. This credibility leads to higher click through rates as well as higher conversions on the company’s site.

Work Together on Keywords

All Internet marketing gurus know that keywords are the name of the game in the search space. When SEO and SEM teams work together on ads and keyword placement on a company’s site, they have the ability to drive more qualified traffic to that site. Higher traffic generally equates to higher conversions. Using keyword reports, marketers can see what keywords drive the highest amount of traffic for pay per click campaigns. If those high traffic keywords are not creating conversions, this gives the SEO team a chance to step up and add those keywords to the site. The SEO team will also want to optimize on long tail keywords while the PPC team will want to focus on head terms and shorter keywords. The results? Better organic rankings and higher conversions due to consumers finding what they are looking for on the site.

Higher Return on Investment

The first thing marketers want to do is get the highest number of conversions for the lowest cost. PPC and SEO can work together to make this happen. When SEO rankings for the site start to drop, increase your PPC budget to drive traffic and awareness to the site. Site re-launch? Increase the PPC budget to help build legitimacy to the site again.  There is a lot of team work that can happen between the PPC team and the SEO team to help drive customers and give the company their highest possible ROI.

The post Get Your PPC and SEO Teams to Work Together appeared first on Trada.

Paid search advertising has become a huge battlefield, and with high competition, it’s hard to stay at the top if you’re not continually optimizing your campaigns.

Have you started to see a slow decline in click-through rate (CTR) or a creeping increase in cost-per-acquisition (CPA)? Your campaign problems might be the result of several different factors, but in the post you’ll learn the secrets to revitalizing your SEM campaign on the decline.

The Quick Fix: Generate a keyword performance report, a placement performance report, and a search query report for the last 60 days. In each report, identify keywords or placements that are generating a high CPA (more than double of your target CPA), several clicks with zero conversions, or a painfully low CTR (.10% for keywords or .01% for placements) and no conversions. Pausing the keywords or placements should have some effect on your CPC and ad position.

Negative Keywords: Look at your search query report. Are there terms in the report that are generating irrelevant clicks? Consider adding these as negative keywords.

Segmentation Therapy: It’s common to see campaigns grouped together for network, device and location targeting. Bidding, ad copy and keyword improvement strategies should be different on each network, so combining the data into a single campaign will make it extremely difficult to optimize. Create separate campaigns for devices, networks (search and display) and locations for optimal results.

Ad Copy Repair: Having more than 5 active ads in a single ad group makes it difficult to collect enough data for your winning ads, which hinders campaign performance with wasted ad impressions that will ultimately lower your CTR and Quality Score. Alternatively, with only one active ad, you’re missing out on the invaluable opportunity to test messaging. 2 to 4 active ads per ad group will add some lift to your campaigns. Just don’t forget to pause a losing ad once you have enough viable data to determine that it is the loser.

Keyword Damage Control: The two most common keyword mistakes that drive up costs? Having too many keywords in a single ad group, and targeting only broad- or phrase-match keywords.

When targeting too many keywords with the same ad copy, you combine too many user intents into ads that could be highly irrelevant. Similarly, with broad match keywords, your ads could appear for very irrelevant search queries. To end the suffering, consider exact-match keywords (if they are able to drive enough volume). For ad groups that have more than 25 keywords, consider creating more smaller ad groups that are targeted around singular concepts.

The Add-Value Bonus: Adding campaign extensions like Sitelink Extensions, Call Extensions, Product Extensions and Location Extensions to your campaigns have shown to increase CTR and conversions. The extensions give searchers more options, and in addition a given ad simply takes up more space on the search engine results page, which can drive up CTR.

In this example, Comcast’s ad with extensions occupies a larger space on the SERP.

If you have any other campaign revival secrets to share, please share them in the comments.

Jana Fung, guest author of this post, is the Marketing Manager of MixRank. She has managed successful demand generation programs for over 5 years. She is optimistic about the growth of online advertising and has a passion for helping online marketers with their campaigns. If you’re a MixRank fan or just want to say hi, she’s interested in connecting with you! Follow her on Twitter @jana_fung

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