Quote:
Originally Posted by AndyB
thanks for the comments...we dont sell single parts for example a cpu and a hard drive we only sell complete systems so would you suggest I set the competitive keywords to an exact match and lower my bid then add more longtail keywords exaxt match based around them which should be cheaper and give better conversions?
thanks again!
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Yes and no. Get as absolutely specific as possible for a phrase that you are certain will be someone looking to buy, not research. This
tool, put out by Microsoft, will give you something that can help you narrow down which phrase you should start with. Use the query selection and look for a commercial intention as high as possible, ideally between .90 and 1. Note that it also comes up with non-commerical intention results as well, so read carefully. Start testing with one high percentage phrase and work at it until you make it reasonably and repeatably profitable. A good approach would be to use this tool in conjunction with Google's Keyword Tracker (set to exact match) and choose phrases that have both high traffic volume AND commercial intent.
As far as your bid, it's your money, but if I were doing it, I would probably try the opposite; I would set it as high as I could afford when looking at what my product margin can handle. The reasoning is this: When you bid higher, depending on the quality of your landing page and your bounce factor, your ad will generally move higher on the page. Ads at the top of the page will tend to convert better (provided your landing page delivers what your ad promises) simply because they get more eyeballs. Cheaper bids don't always equal better conversions.
I would start by choosing your most profitable campaign and running tests ads against it to see if you can't improve your conversion rate (note that this is different than your CTR, it's about what makes you money). Also test changes to your landing page because if your CTR is high but your conversion rate is poor, it means either that your ad is overpromising or your landing page is too general or underpromising. Everything: the ad title, ad text, landing page title, and landing page content should have your specific keyword phrase in it so that the visitor has consistency and will convert better and so your quality score goes up.
As an added, but important tip, make sure that for now you're only serving ads to the search engine results pages and not on other content providers. The SERPs are the easiest to test and therefore the easiest to optimize.
Now, I have several disclaimers here. I've not actually tried this myself yet, so realize that this is largely unqualified advice and take it for what it's worth. Spend only what you can afford and be cautious. I recently took a course and so that's where a lot of this info is coming from, but it seems to make sense to me and will be the approach I use when I go about it. Also, and this is important, only test one variable at a time and don't try to go crazy with hundreds of phrases all at once. Do one at a time until you get the method down and work at them until they are profitable. Be methodical.
