Your Question Answered: Why is it that I have 500 keywords and only 5 of them are getting clicks?

If you are faced with this question, you should consider how your campaign is structured. In most cases, it means you have too many keywords sitting in one ad group.

For those who are unfamiliar with how an SEM campaign is structured, there are some basics to know. I will cover this at a very high level.  First, each search engine you run traffic in will require you set up an account.  The account is the highest level, overarching component.  Within your account you are able to set up campaigns.  The campaign level is responsible for setting daily budgets, as well as campaign targeting settings (example: selecting demographics and geographics, etc).   Within a campaign you can set up Ad Groups.  Ad groups are responsible for housing the keywords you are bidding on, and determining of the overall budget, how much you are willing to allocate to this keyword ad group. It is also at this level that you set the bids you are willing to spend on individual keywords.

If you have 100 keywords in one ad group competing for the same budget, it goes without saying only the most popular keywords will consume that budget. These keywords they will be clicked on more often than the niche keywords simply due to broad keywords having higher search volumes. 

So what is the solution?  First, find out what keywords are getting the most clicks and put them in their own campaigns.  These keywords need to have a budget controls set so they don’t exhaust your entire budget. Why should you worry about this?  In most circumstances, keywords that are getting the most clicks are broad keywords.  Broad keywords probably aren’t converting as high, but they are very important in the early stages of the sales cycle to be found for. Thus, when a searcher learns about your brand while they conduct their initial product search investigation.  By nature, these keywords are certainly getting you traffic, but as a default they are eating up your budget.

The remaining keywords you have are probably more niche in nature, which means they have a tendency to convert higher.  Niche keywords usually means a searcher is now at the buying stage, and looking for exact product specifications.  These keywords are going to have lower search volumes, but they are also valuable since it’s an indication someone is ready to buy. These keywords should be pooled into their own relevant ad groups and given their own budget, so when a searcher does come, you have much greater probability to have your ad displayed.

For the longest time, it seemed there had been more articles published about the benefits and strengths of mobile marketing from a promotional perspective, than articles showing the number of advertisers actually marketing in the channel and respectively, consumers using mobile devices.  However, in spite of the economic recession, there has been a pretty drastic upswing in the number of consumers buying and employing mobile technology. I have been paying close attention to the hype vs. the consumer usage, and I believe mobile marketing is finally coming to a point where data can be used to support a very compelling case for it.

Comscore recently released a study which indicates consumer use of mobile devices to get the latest news and information via the web doubled between January 2008 and January 2009. Even more interesting in reading the Comscore article, the most widely used websites on mobile devices were social networks and blog sites.  (Very interesting.. seems like I stumbled upon my next blog topic…)

I have to say it’s refreshing to hear that even in a shrinking economic market, there has been positive growth in both the purchase of mobile phones, and marketer’s willing to advertise in the channel.  Market indications are also showing this growth should continue over the next 5 years at a steady rate.  In 2008 estimated mobile ad revenues were 648 million, and are anticipated to growth to 3.3 billion annually by 2013, as reported by E-Marketer. 

Marketers that are looking for channels to advertise in should add mobile marketing to their mix.  Consumers are spending more and more time online via these devices. Also, search engines and 3rd party vendors are creating easier ways for you to create mobile ready ads. One word of caution in getting started, it is important to do your homework first. In order to have presence in the mobile world, you need to be sure your web pages and advertisements are mobile device compatible. Each mobile device employs different types of technology which means a webpage that works for an I-Phone may not work for a Blackberry or a Samsung.  This may be one of the biggest obstacles, but well worth the learning curve!

Testing your ad copy is a very important component of any online advertising campaign.  What you feel is a good message about your products and brand isn’t always as well received by your potential customers.  In order to make sure your ad copy message is enticing to your customers, it is important to develop different messages for your audience and then test them over time to find out which are best.

I’d like to give some examples regarding the ad copy messaging you may want to evaluate. One ad might offer a free brochure, another offers free samples, while yet another offers free shipping. An effective marketing campaign should incorporate some kind of testing process to determine what message is most appealing to your searchers.  This leads to higher click through rates, and higher conversion rates, which of course is the goal for any website. 

One dilemma I am consistently up against is making sure that while conducting these tests, we are giving enough time to allow users to view the ads, and click on them (or not click on them).  Depending on the number of visitors a website gets on a daily basis, the ad copy testing time period varies.  The more visitors a website gets, the shorter the testing cycle.  A website that gets 10,000 clicks daily should have a good idea of how searchers are reacting to the ads in one week.  On the other hand, a website that receives 3,000 clicks daily should consider a longer testing period of perhaps 3 weeks, in order to get enough visits and make a determination of how searchers are reacting to the advertisement’s offer. 

I encourage all advertisers to test, and test often.  But be sure that you don’t get too excited and end the ad copy test before you know conclusively which messages are performing better than others. Remember, testing ad copy takes patience and persistence.