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If you haven’t yet read part 1 of this 2 part article you can find it Here!
So…here we are again. Nice hat, and Thanks for dressing for the occasion. Last time we were together I was speaking to you about “Misconceptions about PPC”. We discussed four different myths to get us started, and here in Part Deux, we are going to try and go through another four. So, let’s get started!
Myth number 5 – “I’m going to need to turn my Campaigns off at night in order to save money because nobody search during the evening hours.” – This is false, but with some caveats. In truth the answer to this question really depends mostly on what type of business you run. To keep things simple, I’ll go through a few examples.
For instance, if you offer a service and are only open certain hours of the day. This is an example of where you may only want to run your AdWords Ads during your business hours. That said, there is always the realistic chance that people are researching your service after business hours with the intent of calling you the next business day. So, do you really want to shut yourself down after your business hours? This is something you will have to weigh out for yourself. In most of my experiences over the past 14 years, businesses will generally not want to show their ads after business hours. However, if you consider strategically bidding down your keywords during you’re after hours schedule you could find yourself paying significantly less for some quality leads.
Another example would be if you owned an online store. With an online store, there are no after-hours. Because of this, it doesn’t make much sense to not show your ads during the evening hours or even the very early morning hours. You’ll need to keep in mind the multiple Time Zones that you are servicing to when contemplating this, as 12 am on the East Coast is 9 pm on the West Coast. 9 pm still generally offers a good amount of traffic for most online stores. The can be some hours in the early morning that you historically won’t see much traffic of any quality, but this is something that you will need to test first. Then next would be to consider day-parting and bidding down for the early morning hours to spend less, and still keep your Brand Awareness.
Lastly, I’ll mention online businesses. An online business is kind of a mix of the previous two where it isn’t an eCommerce store, and it doesn’t sell services out of a brick and mortar store either. Instead, it would sell things like software or SaaS (Software As A Service) products. Again, the idea that there is any hour of the day that someone might not be looking for your product is far-fetched. So, whereas with online stores, you are selling products that you can show your ads for all hours of the day, and with brick and mortar service websites you may only want to show your ads during business hours. With an online business site you will want to show your ads at all hours of the day, but with time-sensitive bid adjustments based on your initial testing.
Myth Number 6 – “Running Ads On The Google Display Network (Display Network) Is Something That Every Account Should Be Doing.” – This is False, but with the understanding that we aren’t referring to Remarketing traffic on the Google Display Network. Because Remarketing is something that I feel every account should be utilizing, but simply running ads for the Display Network isn’t something that works for every vertical or industry… so tread lightly. The Display Network can find you a lot of additional traffic, but in most cases, the quality of that traffic leaves much to be desired. To make matters worse, if it isn’t monitored properly it can result in eating up a large portion of your budget especially if you are running a “Search Network with Display Select” campaign.
Myth Number 7 – “Running Ads On The Google Display Network (Display Network) Is Something That No Account Should Be Doing.” – Again, this is False. But not because you should be running Remarketing campaigns on the Google Display Network for every account you work with, but because if used in the proper way the Display Network has many settings and adjustments that can be used to custom fit your audience for your industry. When I was talking about being careful in my previous “myth”, this is what I was referring to. There are many ways for you to narrow down the overall traffic that you want to share your ads within the Display Network. Here is a list:
- Keyword(s)
- Placements (website(s))
- Topic Targeting
- Affinity Audiences
- Interest(s)
- Remarketing Audiences
- Demographics
…used well, these targeting tools can help minimize the overall damage that an unmonitored Display Network can cause. If you feel that the Display Network might be right for you; Don’t be scared to try it. Adjust the settings as you feel necessary, and work with it. Just remember to always keep a close eye on that campaign to make sure things don’t get out of hand.
Myth number 8 – “If I Were To Open A Brand New AdWords Account, Then All Of My Quality Scores Are Going To Get Better” – If you find that your Quality Scores are starting to suffer after implementing a number of changes through your daily work; You may be tempted to want to close your account and start over with a new account thinking that your Quality Scores will reset and return to where they started from. Your logic is incorrect here. Officially, if you were to open a new AdWords Account with the same setup as your previous AdWords Account your keywords would technically reset. So, for a brief time, yes, your keywords would supposedly get better, or return to their initial state. That said, once they are reviewed they will instantly return to the poor state that they were in previously. So, to go through all the work of setting up a new account and linking all of your tools like Google Tag Manager and Google Analytics, will all be in vain.
The true answer here would be to keep your current AdWords account and continue to work towards getting better Quality Scores. The main problem here isn’t the fact that you have bad Quality Scores, it’s most likely the time you perceive that it will take to improve them. The proper way to do this is one at a time and one adjustment at a time. When you make multiple adjustments at the same time, it then becomes unclear as to which change lead to the final result… good or bad. Remember the old adage “Slow but Steady Wins The Race”. Most people are in such a rush to get their accounts in tip-top shape but are too impatient to monitor the results of independent changes to help us understand what the problem was in the first place. This is how we learn. By testing adjustments and changes. There is no magic bean to make everything work right away, and I really am displeased when companies sell PPC as the “quick” and “easy” answer to getting great results. Yes, PPC can get you to the top of the search results quickly if you don’t mind spending the money. However, most people/companies have a set budget that they need to adhere to which is why I preach… “Slow but Steady Wins The Race.”
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With fourteen years of Internet Marketing experience, Ed Cehi joined That Company as a PPC Account Manager in 2008 after previously working at another high-profile Florida Web Design and Marketing Agency located in Ocala, Florida for the six years previous. He started his career in Internet Marketing as a Web Designer after graduating from The International Academy of Design and Technology in Orlando Florida with his degree in Web Design. He soon moved on to Search Engine Optimization and then graduated into Paid Advertising following that. Ed is now the Director of SEM at Th@t Company located in Leesburg Florida, just outside of Orlando. You can find him online in multiple social mediums such as Twitter (@edsaxman) and LinkedIn.
