How to have an Adwords Party

First things first… I suggest using the new Import your Analytics Goals into Adwords.

If you are not tracking Conversions, you are really shooting in the dark, so make sure you set it up.

photo by: @dens

In a “phase I” Adwords campaign, I typically setup an Adwords Party:

Setup conversions for as many “soft conversions” as you can…

• view of key pages, ie. viewed contact us page
• deeper pages, not accessible from the main page

Of coarse you will still setup the usual “real conversions”: list signup thank you page, lead generation form submissions, sales thank you, ect.

What do you accomplish by setting up these “soft conversions”?  Again, in Phase I, we are still “sculpting” our account, so we may not have a good handle on our website business model, we are still shaping things.  At this stage, its great to see which keywords engage our visitor.  That is the crux of the Adwords Party.  These page views show interest, or engagement, without having to commit to a sale or form submission. 

You’ll have so many conversions…

• you’ll feel a sense of elation (false perhaps)
• you will be able to optimize keywords based on this engagement

In Phase II of your Adwords account development, you will most likely need to remove these soft conversion page views, returning to the more traditional “real conversions”. 

When you arrive at that point, pop the cork and have another Adwords party. Life is too short.

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Adwords Freelancer Client Relations?

We aren’t ragging on our clients, don’t get me wrong; in fact, most of our clients sincerely appreciate our expert service, are happy to pay their invoices, and on time.

Truthfully though, in this business its not uncommon for PPC managers to yank their clients chain, just the opposite of this vid.

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Adwords Low Search Volume Keywords

With the new Adwords Beta release, we can finally see if our keywords are deemed “low search  volume”, as the cause for not triggering ads…

https://adwords.google.com/support/aw/bin/answer.py?answer=118604

Unfortunately this is ONLY available on the beta web interface…

Low search volume data is NOT currently available in Reports and NOT available in Adwords Editor.  I’m sure this will change soon, as they are aware of this, and it has been escalated.

While in Beta, in the keyword tab…

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True Confessions of a “Twitterholic”

Twitter Holic Beginnings

It began around the new year, of 2009.  I prided myself on getting into the “next big thing” . 

Did you know… about 60% of Twitterers drop out within their first month, and I see why. It’s really confusing … followers, following, Retweets, DM’s, microblogging…

I had fits of engagement, then apathy. But these past 60 days, I became totally obsessed – I was a Twitterholic!

Signs of a Twitterholic

I got obsessed with my number of followers, you know…. I hit 2,000 that was a milestone. I should have just been satisfied with that accomplishment and focused on quality not quantity… remember that, before you too get sucked into the mirage of “popularity”…

After I saw this funny "Trouble with Twitter” video, I realized my folly, and decided to correct my foolish ways.

 

Twitterholics Risk Becoming Spammers

I realized I was in danger of getting my twitter account suspended… that my twitter home would become an “owl’s whoo whoo”… a nightmare about to happen!

I

I read up on the Twitter Rules… I had become a twitter spammer, I was a twitter whore…

If you have followed a large amount of users in a short amount of time

If you have followed and unfollowed people in a short time period, particularly by automated means

If you have a small number of followers compared to the amount of people you are following

If your updates consist mainly of links, and not personal updates

If a large number of people are blocking you

The number of spam complaints that have been filed against you

 

My Twitter Holic Resolution

When I took a close look at some of my “followers”, I saw the ugly truth: the majority were twitter holics just like me, nobody was really following anyone!  Also, many of the profiles were fake or uninhabited. It was a scary place to go, so I made up my mind…

1. I am “cleaning up” my account
2. The few people I will follow, I will truly follow and engage.
3. That’s it really.  I’ll continue to use some of the great tools I’ve grown to love…

I know that my follower numbers will plummet, that can’t be helped. I declare I am a human.

 

Recommended Twitter Tools

http://www.twitter.com

http://tweetdeck.com/beta/

http://tr.im/

http://friendorfollow.com/

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