Adjusting AdWords

This week our group is focusing on making adjustment to our AdWords campaigns. By looking into details of the data, we have made the following adjustments:

Our first adjustment was adding new keywords to each campaign. Based on the opportunities tips from Google, we added several new keywords to each campaign in order to get a better performance. After we double checked and made sure all the keywords that Google suggested us to add to the campaigns were relevant and adhered to our campaign goals, we added those new keywords to our keyword list in order to get our ads in front of more potential customers. In addition, we intend to compare the data after one week to check whether these keywords are working effectively.

We also adjusted our "low search volume" keywords. The keyword with “low search volume” status implies that the keyword isn’t eligible to show our ads because few people search for it on Google. There are many reasons why this happens, such as the keyword is too specific, obscure, or misspelled significantly. In our case, we think it happens because the keyword we put in is too specific. Therefore, we made some change to these keywords and made them more relevant to customers’ searches.

Additionally, we raised the budget for a well-performing campaign. We raised the daily budget for our third ad, CHEST Pulmonary Medicine Board Review, from $1.60 per day to $4.50 per day. We predicate that this adjustment will generate 22 more clicks and 26,000 more impressions per week for our Pulmonary Medicine Board Review campaign. If things go well, we intend to increase the budget again next week to make sure we our ads can be shown to our target customers.

Google AdWords: The good, the bad, and a few surprises

This past week, we set up our Google AdWords campaigns, and for our blog, we’re breaking down the good, the bad, the under performing and the surprises we’ve encountered while working in AdWords for the Google Online Marketing Challenge.

The good

Our ads are receiving clicks! Of course we knew we would get some, but there is always an element of fear when engaging in paid search. What if your keywords are horrible? What if no one cares?  Fortunately, we have seen some action.

We’re seeing some decent click through rates on our very specific ads when compared to the more general search terms.  However, we’d like to see our click through rates improve, so we have some tweaking to do.

The bad

Some of our negative keywords are suppressing our keywords from search. With an organizational name like CHEST, we’re of course, doing battle with some seedy ventures, so we’re trying to avoid getting those results. However, we’re learning it is a fine line and need to adjust and course correct as we go along, so we don’t miss valuable traffic!

Moreover, Google Adwords does not allow listing the keyword that contain pharmacy-related content.  Therefore, we cannot list the keywords contain “medicine”, such as “pulmonary medicine board” and “American Board of Pediatrics Pediatric Pulmonary Medicine”.  Our solution is to remove the sensitive words, so the keywords became “Pulmonary board” and “American Board of Pediatrics Pediatric Pulmonary”

Surprises

One of our ads is performing well, and we have been prompted by AdWords to up our budget for that campaign in order to not miss out on clicks. As a group we are now deciding how to handle this information.

Perhaps the biggest surprise is the need for flexibility, or testing, just as we’ve learned in our Internet and Interactive Marketing course.

AdWords Campaign Strategy

This week, our group started to work on our GOMC strategy. Our client is the American College of Chest Physicians (CHEST), publisher of the CHESTJournal, which is the global leader in advancing best patient outcomes through innovative chest medicine education, clinical research, and team-based care. The organization provides educational, leadership, and networking opportunities to its membership.

The AdWords account will consist of five campaigns targeted nationally in order to expand the organization’s customer base and reach the niche market looking for board review courses in the areas of pediatric pulmonology, pulmonology, and critical care. In order to have a very concentrated campaign, ads will solely run on Google’s Search Network. 5 campaigns are planned according to different product, and will direct users to different webpages. 

The 5 products are:

1. CHEST Pediatric Pulmonary Board Review

2. CHEST Critical Care Medicine Board Review

3. CHEST Pulmonary Medicine Board Review

4. CHEST ABIM Critical Care Medicine and Pulmonary Disease SEP Models

5. CHEST Board Review Courses 2014 

Also, we set the negative keywords to narrow down our search area and exclude some customers that we aren’t interested in reaching. The bidding strategy will be based on obtaining an average position of 2.5 by bidding $0.15 to $0.20 higher than the first page bid estimate. The Traffic Estimator will be used to evaluate projected cost-per-click (CPC) and amount of clicks for new keywords. Keywords that generate high impressions, with corresponding click-through rates (CTRs) lower than .90% will be dropped. To optimize the Return on Ad Spend, all campaigns will start with a smaller budget in the beginning, and will be increased each week.

We’re excited to launch the campaigns and assist the organization in meeting their strategic goals, and learn more about AdWords. And, of course, win the 2014 Google Online Marketing Challenge!