The AdWords ad auction is just another algorithm and any computer algo can be cracked. In this session I’ll review my analysis of $10 Billion in paid search spend and precisely explain how AdWords really works, and how to leverage various idiosyncrasies and system loopholes to generate massive profits using a purely white-hat approach. I’ll also cover a half dozen of the most insanely powerful features that are used by less than 3% of advertisers which have demonstrated ability to increase average returns by +2x each.
The Top 10 PPC Hacks of All Time - Larry Kim's Presentation for State of Search 2014 in Dallas, TX
1. The Top 10 PPC
Marketing Hacks of All
Time!
Larry Kim,
Founder/CTO, WordStream
Nov. 17, 2014
2. About Larry (@larrykim)
1. Founder & CTO of
WordStream
2. Commander of the
Google AdWords
Quality Score
Rebellion
3. Had First Kid 6
Months Ago
(#ppckid)
Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
3. Agenda: The Top 5 PPC Hacks of All Time!
You are Engaging in PPC
Hacks and are a Traitor …
Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
4. FYI -- Slides Posted Here:
• http://bit.ly/stateofsearch2014
Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
15. This is The Expected Click Through Rate Curve…
Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
16. Just Beat Account Avg. Expected Click Through Rate!!
Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
17.
18. Quick Recap So Far …
• Below Avg. CTR = Low
QS
• Low QS means…
– Less prominent ad
positions
– Very low impression
share
– Huge CPC penalties
(+400% Tax)
– High Cost Per
Conversion (+64%)
Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
22. Here’s a Map of the Forrest…
Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
23. Donkeys vs. Unicorns
Percentile Vs. Average CTR Designation
Bottom 50% n/a DONKEYS
Top 15% 2x
Top 5% 3x
Top 1% 6x UNICORNS
Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
38. Crazy Hack To Increase Quality Scores
•Add 10% Branded
Terms to Raise
Account Average
Quality Scores
•Delete the Bottom
Third of Your PPC
Account and Move
the Budget to
Remarketing Instead
Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
40. Example Crap Account
• Notice how the account has no high QS keywords!
Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
41. Example Awesome Account
• Mostly above average CTR keywords, some below avg.
Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
42. Example Awesome Account
• Notice how the account has only high QS keywords!
Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
43. Example Crap Account
• Notice how the account has no high QS keywords!
Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
44. Example Crap Account
• Notice how the account has no high QS keywords!
Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
45. What’s a Good Quality Score These Days?
• Current Average
~5/10
• Previously 7/10
• As average values
drift lower, above
average QS worth
up to 200% more
than before!
Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
46. So What To Do With My Keywords?
• If Your Keyword’s
Quality Score is…
– 1 to 3: Delete
Immediately
– 4 to 6: Fix / Optimize
– 7 to 10: Don’t Mess
with Success
Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
48. Remarketing Lists for Search Ads (RLSA)
• Customize Ads To Users
Who Previously Visited Your
Site
• On Average:
– Doubles Click Through
Rates (Raises Quality
Score)
– Cuts CPC’s in Half!!
Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
49. CONFIDENTIAL – DO
# 6.
Quality Score for
Google Display
Network = Insanely
Low CPC’s
50. A 0.1% +/- in CTR yields +/- 20% in CPC!
Quality Score Exists on Google Display Network!!
Higher
CTR =
Lower
CPC
Higher
CTR =
Lower
CPC
Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
51. The Hack: Make Display Ads With Very High CTR
Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
52. About Those “Display Ads”…
• 67.5% of Display Ads are Plain Text Ads!
Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
53. CTR of “Display Ads” Based on Ad Format
Ad Format on
Google Display
Network
Click
Through
Rate
Text ads that are
formatted as
Images
0.23%
True Image ads 0.31%
Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
54. Huge Tax on “Text Display Ads” vs. True Image Ads
Google Display
Network Ad
Format
CPC (USD)
Text $2.31
Custom Image $0.48
Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
55. 1. Push Display Ads To Your Offers
Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
56. Do a Conversion Path Analysis
Define audience
segments using
the pages that
most often lead
to a conversion
event
Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
57. Conversion Rates vs. Ad Impressions
Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
Conversion Rates Double With More Ad Impressions!
58. 2. Push Display Ads to Content
Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
59. ~5% of Blog Content Gets ~50% of Social Shares
Promote These
Top 5% of Articles!!!
Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
60. These Emotions Make People Click on Things
Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
61. The Hack: Make Display Ads Look More Like Content
Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
63. 14 Display Ad Formats on GDN
• Vertical rectangle: 240 x 400
• Mobile leaderboard: 320 x 50
• Banner: 468 x 60
• Leaderboard: 728 x 90
• Square: 250 x 250
• Small square: 200 x 200
• Large rectangle: 336 x 280
• Inline rectangle: 300 x 250
• Skyscraper: 120 x 600
• Wide skyscraper: 160 x 600
• Half-page: 300 x 600
• Etc.
Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
64. Different Ad Formats Don’t Compete With Each Other
Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
65. Diversify Your Ad Formats = 3x Impressions
Ad Format Share of
Impressions
Leader board (728 x 90) 25.5%
Inline rectangle (300 x 250) 25.1%
Banner (468 x 60) 12.0%
Wide skyscraper (160 x 600) 10.1%
Large Rectangle (336 x 280) 8.6%
Mobile leaderboard (320 x 50) 7.4%
Half-page (300 x 600) 4.3%
Square (250 x 250) 2.8%
Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
67. Mobile is Very Different…
OMG a Call
Button!!
Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
68. Call Extensions Change Everything!!
Calls to Businesses worth on Average 3x More
Than Clicks to Websites!!
4. Captured
Lead
2. Calls
Business
2. Clicks On Ad
Desktop Search Conversion Funnel
3% Avg.
Conversion
Rate
Mobile Conversion Funnel
1. Sees Ad 1. Sees Ad
3. Visits Website
Landing Page
3. Lead
Captured!!
Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
78. The Hack: Think of PPC More Like Email Mktg.
Email Marketing
• Limit Number of Blasts To
Reduce Unsubscribes
• 0.5-2% Unsubscribes Each
Blast
• People Need To Opt Into
Your List
• Tons of Unqualified Emails
on the List
People Based Marketing
• N/A
• N/A
• N/A
• N/A
Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
85. Summary: The Top 10 AdWords Hacks of All Time!
1. Say No to Low
CTR!
2. Unicorn Ads Get
+6x Average CTR
3. Delete Crap in
Your Account
4. RLSA 2x CTR,
1/2 CPC
5. Quality Score on
Google Display
Network = Cheap
Clicks
6. Hacks to Get More
Ad Impressions on
GDN
7. Triple Conversion
Rate with Mobile
8. Get in People’s Gmail
Inboxes!
9. Target Specific
People on Facebook
and Twitter
10.Always be First
Mover!
Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
Show how the keyword expansion is easier using a tool. Explain that we’re following the same best practices that Brad Suggested.
AdWords is just one big computer algorithm and any algorithm can be cracked.
Quality Score is ‘the algorithm’. It determines ad price, ad position, ad impressions, etc. Advertisers who truly understand how this works would have a decisive advantage over those who do not.
Talk about how google makes it very hard for PPC spammers, too. Google shut down millions of spammy accounts year. All keywords/ads are graded with a quality score. The higher your quality score, the higher your ad ranking and lower your cost per click.
For every increase or decrease in quality score, you can expect your impression share to go up or down by around 9% on average.
Talk about how google makes it very hard for PPC spammers, too. Google shut down millions of spammy accounts year. All keywords/ads are graded with a quality score. The higher your quality score, the higher your ad ranking and lower your cost per click.
The call extensions make things much better in the following 2 ways:
You avoid sending people to a landing page (which is the leakiest part of the funnel and where you lose 97% of them)
Commercial intent decays rapidly over time. Even if 3% of people fill out a “contact us” form, if it takes you a day to process their inquiry (say it came in in the evening or on a weekend) then you’ll end up losing half of them anyway – because the moment has passed.
As a result it’s worth forcing your mobile ads on mobile go straight to a phone number. Yes, I realize this goes against all the articles that you read about having a mobile site and mobile landing page. We’re finding that for the majority of businesses (especially services based companies or companies doing lead generation, or companies whose business involves telesales) that it’s worth skipping all that crap. Test it out and see for yourself.
So here are a few examples of People based advertising.
Starting with Gmail Sponsored Promotions – these are ads that are made to look like emails! So sneeky! They show up at the top of a gmail box.
The targeting for these things are insanely powerful. You can target based on who they’re getting mail from, etc. Now the program is still in beta, but at one point we even saw the option to target ads to specific emails. We’ve been seeing 11% email open rates which is 4-5 times higher than the generic ads “right side bar” ads that you can target via the Google Display Network. We think that Google will eventually allow for the ability to target based on specific emails, since Facebook and Twitter are already offering that.
Here’s what the Gmail sponsored promotion looks like when you click on the promoted email. It’s an HTML creative.
So overall, is an example of PPC marketing that feels a lot more like email marketing.
Infact the whole concept of “people marketing” (targeting ads to specific people) has a lot more in common with email marketing than conventional PPC marketing, with one key difference being you can target specific people who haven’t yet opted into your mailing list. (or even people who have opted out).
And of course twitter has noticed the people based advertising trend, too. They’re kind of the last mover here so a lot of this stuff isn’t working that great just yet (like it takes 4 hours for them to process a list – yikes) – but you can target whatever you want to promote to specific twitter IDs or emails, too. And of course twitter is super powerful because a lot of influential folks hang out there. To summarize – I think the email marketers and PPC marketers should be collaborating on this new “people marketing” thing since there is a lot of magic that can happen when you target specific people with the right message. It also supplements a lot of the problems associated with email marketing, such as low delieverability rates (due to filters), unsubscribes (it’s harder to unsubscribe from ads), more inventory (since you can only blast your email list a limited number of times per week), etc.
By my estimations, there are over a thousand new features added in AdWords every year – and that’s just AdWords -- not including other big ad platforms like Bing, Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, etc. There’s a huge, decisive advantage in being the first in your niche to adopt the latest ad formats and targeting capabilities – here are just a few examples of my favorite latest and greatest features.
Trueview ads in youtube – people spend 6 Billion hours on youtube every month. Your customers are hanging out here. Why isn’t your business here? Of course can get your text ads to appear along side and within youtube videos, but my favorite ad format is the trueview ad format, which plays before a video. You only pay if someone views your video. If they click “skip ad” you pay nothing. Targeting options are insanely powerful – you can target via remarketing (people who visited your site), by youtube channel (eg: have your video show up as a trailer ahead of your competitor’s youtube videos!), by video topic, by keyword, etc.
Another recent example is the +Post ads for promoting your company Google+ posts as ads throughout the Google Display Network.
Now, I’m not saying G+ is the greatest (actually I think it’s kind of crappy) but just as an example of the massive power of first mover advantage..
I set up a +post ad campaign with a 20$ daily budget to promote the latest Google+ post from my +WordStream company page.
The impact was profound. Before I was doing the google+ updates and it was not getting much traction. Add a little but of sponsored promotion and the page visibility increased dramatically. From 0 to 30k views / day! How? It’s because nobody uses this feature and there’s a huge advantage to being the first (sadly, nobody uses google+ either, heh).