Benefits Of A Paid Search AuditHosted by Hanapin Marketing

& Sam Owen07.25.12

Overview

• Benefits• Knowing When To Audit• Account Review Best Practices• Advanced Assessment Areas• Discoveries & Fixes

Benefits – Your Account

• Increase Conversions / ROI • Improve Quality Score• Cut Wasteful Spend• Revise Account Strategies

Benefits – You & Your Team

• Reinforce analytical skills• Create short- & long-term action plans• Helpful in agency settings – win business by showing them

mistakes you’ve identified that you could fix• In house – produce reports to show to higher-ups• Get a second opinion if you can!

When Should You Audit?

• First priority = any accounts which are in trouble– Defining trouble: How green are you?

• Green account = projected within 5% of goal or beating goal• Yellow account = projected within 15% of goal• Red account = projected worse than 15% of goal

• Know your priorities!– Potential for growth

• To stay sharp or to have fun

Top Audit Errors

• Timeframe too small• Being disrespectful• Not having a clear picture of goals• Looking only at AdWords

Let’s Audit!

Settings

• Bidding options – CPC/CPA/Auto/Enhanced CPC?– Strategy?

• Optimized for ROI or ROAS?

– Day Parting / Bid Adjustments?

• Delivery – To search partner or not to search partner, that is the question!

• Device Type– Keep mobile and desktop separate – Does the account have a good multi-screen strategy?

• Ad rotation• Ad scheduling

– All days or just weekends? – Bid increases for lunchtimes?– Dimensions tab

Settings (cont…)

• Search/Display separate• Display separated out by targeting type– ICM– Topic– Keyword– Placements

• Geo-Targeting & Language• Start dates!

Campaigns

• Are budgets allocated logically?– Divert the majority of your budget (75%+) to your

stronger campaigns, and use the rest on experiments & discovery

• Campaigns organized?– Make sense why that campaign is separate from

another?– Naming structure coherent across account?

Match Types

• Do you have an intelligible keyword match strategy?– Majority of keywords exact and phrase– Broad match keywords used more sparingly• Too much = no control, too little = no experimenting• Run search query reports, spin out new keywords, add

negatives.

• One way to judge is…

Lin-Rodnitzky Ratio

• Formula devised by David Rodnitzky and Will Lin to measure the efficiency of any PPC campaign

• L/R Ratio = CPA of all search queries• CPA of all queries with 1+ conversion

• Under 1.5 = Account is too conservative or brand heavy• Over 2.0 = Account is too aggressive• The sweet spot = 1.51 to 1.99

Quality Score

• AdCenter historic QS report

• Monthly QS download– Month on month change

• Explain rise in CPCs / drop in traffic?• Hover over the keyword speech bubble:

KPI Threshold

• How many campaigns / ad groups / keywords are hitting goals? How many aren’t?– Staying within CPA?– Spending too much?– Not getting enough leads?

• Your KPIs set the tone of your audit!

Ad Groups

• Number of keywords per ad group?– Ideally 10-20, but try to stay under 100– Too many?• Break out further

– Too few?• Keyword research + expansion• Too granular? Hundreds of ad groups can be just as

unmanageable as hundreds of keywords.

Keywords

• Run a search query report– Negative matching– Spin off popular queries

• Google Keyword Tool– New opportunities

• Bids– Set too high? Too low?– Impression Share

Ads

• Correct grammar, punctuation, spelling• Factually correct

– Replace out of date ads– Look out for expired offers

• Running ad tests– Time to conclude / start new tests?– Try testing out different landing pages – straight to cart vs. information

page.• Rotation settings• Ad Preview Tool

– Look at competitors ads• Be different from those ranking above you & copy good ads ranking below you!

Extensions

• Sitelinks• Location extensions– Google places

• Call extensions– Remember to check ROAS or CPA!

• Social• Product• Mobile App

Display Network

• Check out your automatic placements– Exclude poor performers– Add strong performers to managed placements

and bid them up• Image ad issues!– Wrong sizes, spelling mistakes, image quality?– Moving gifs or just static?

Remarketing

• Do you have it running?• Mix of text and image ads• Target different users differently– Set up different audiences for different site

abandonment stages

Cross Channel Comparison

• AdWords vs AdCenter– Keyword / campaign numbers– Upload AdWords campaigns into AdCenter

Desktop– Be vigilant!• Older ads left running etc.

Competitors!

• Bidding strategy• Shape of marketplace• AdWords Auction Insights• Keyword research – Spyfu, iSpionage

Analytics and all that jazz…

Reports to Run• Conversions – is there a

large discrepancy with AdWords goals?

• Bounce rate• Time on site• Pages visited• Site search• Multi channel funnels

Things to Keep in Mind• Goal of landing pages?

Immediate conversions or more interaction?

• Compare paid traffic to organic

• Is tracking in place properly?

AdCenter Auditing

• It’s not AdWords!– Audit separately– Different KWs will perform differently = different

bid strategy– Split out search partner only campaigns

Conversion Rate Auditing

• CRO is the Yin to PPC’s Yang(see image)• Does the page look clean & informative?• Is it obvious where to click to buy or sign up?• Usability testing– Do a test conversion!– Set up multi channel funnels to see where people are

bailing

Present Findings

• Internal / External• What did you find?– Red flags– Optimization ideas– Expansion opportunities

• Be positive w/ clients– What can you do to make things great– Don’t trash current efforts

Recap

• Take time to audit• Go through an account logically and in order of importance• Look at all aspects of your account, from AdWords to

Analytics to landing pages.

Q&A

August WebinarTop PPC Myths Busted!Wednesday, August 23

Thank YouFurther Reading:• http://www.ppchero.com/nurturing-ppc-accounts/• http://www.ppchero.com/the-ppc-audit-rewards-for-a-critical-eye/• http://www.aimclearblog.com/2012/06/06/57-amazing-ways-to-

audit-ppc-campaigns-like-a-pro-straight-from-smx-advanced/