by Ed Rivis, www.leavehteminthedust.com
Some people have lost a tonne of money by incorrectly configuring their Cost per Click, Daily Budget, and myriad of other Google Adwords account settings.
Something as innocuous as a decimal point accidentally typed in the wrong position has cost some advertisers dearly because like the majority they didn’t think to check their account regularly.
Check your Google Adwords account as often as possible. Most business owners I know delegate this task – but even so just a few minutes a day and even the most stressed business owner can monitor their account.
When you’re logged in you can quickly see how much money your current advertising is costing. If it’s more than you’re happy with then it can all be paused at a single click, from which point nobody can see your adverts until you choose to start them running again.
If you fail to check your account daily, if you leave it too long then you may get a nasty shock when you do eventually return to check expenditure! Don’t make that mistake.
What should you check?
1) CPC: How much you pay Google every time someone clicks any of your adverts.
I recommend you check that daily or as often as possible to make sure that (a) it’s been entered correctly – no costly typos and that (b) it’s set at an optimum in terms of positioning your adverts.
2) CTR: How many times your adverts are being clicked.
Click fraud is a nasty hazard if you use Google Adwords.
Basically it means other people – but not your prospective customers or clients – deliberately click your Adwords adverts in an attempt to ratchet your charges.
By monitoring your account regularly you get to see that type of activity sooner rather than later and do something about it.
3) The average position of your text adverts in relation to your competitors.
If your adverts are displaying too high (in say the top 3 positions on the first page of Google) then your almost certainly paying too much per click. (See point 1 above.)
Position numbers around 6 to 8 (ideally 7) has been shown in most cases to be optimum.
By appearing lower down the page you get a much better return on your Google Adwords spend. Less traffic, but more sales per visitor to your site resulting in a much better profit margin.
There are more things to check but those are important metrics to keep an eye on to start with. Google Adwords comes with a report centre where you can automatically schedule to have the above information emailed to you.
Why not create a daily report emailed to you or your delegated staff member so it’s not forgotten?
If your web site needs a fresh injection of heavy traffic (more people who visit) then Google Adwords is a fantastic and cost effective method… but keep a very close eye on it or you could lose your shirt!
Ed Rivis recorded more than 4 hours of live ‘on-screen screen footage’ in his Google Adwords online advertising home-study course. It shows exactly how to create, enhance and optimise ‘killer’ Google Adwords marketing campaigns.
Visit: http://www.GoogleAdWordsVoyeur.com
