by Andre Sanchez

Many people do not know how to use Google Adwords to make money, even those who have been involved in internet marketing for a long period of time.  They do not seem able to understand how to use the concept of advertising their website individual page by individual page, rather than using a global advertising strategy.

After all, ‘global’ is the in word at the moment, isn’t it?  Not where advertising online goes it isn’t!  Online you have to be succinct, direct and offer no ambiguity or choice.  If somebody wants to buy a slim Dyson DC 18, they don’t want led to a page offering a DC 15. The way to ensure that your prospects are led to the correct page for them is to be very specific in your adverts and destination URLs, and if you offer 10 variations of a product, offer a different advert specific to each of them, and a different destination URL where appropriate.

However, even if you do all that and take all the other advice given to you, how do you know when you have done your best?  At what point can you sit back convinced that you have done all that you could to reduce your PPC costs and maximized not only your CTR but also your CR?  In fact, what are these and how can they help?

The CTR is the ‘click through rate’, or percentage of visitors to the page on which your advert appears actually click on it. The CR is the ‘conversion rate’ or percentage of visitors to your website that buy something.  Thus, if your CTR is 4% and your CR is 10% then you will get 4 sales from each 1000 people that visit the page on which your advert is displayed.  It will also cost you 100 clicks for these 4 sales, information that can be used for you to set a maximum PPC that you can afford to pay.

It is this type of analysis that will make a difference to whether you make money or not.  If you don’t analyze your site statistics, then how can you possibly budget your advertising?  However, it is not budgeting that this is about, it is about testing.  You must measure your CTR figures to determine the effects of any changes you make to your advert.  Your Conversion Rate can give you information on the effects of any website changes you make, but it is the Click Through Rate that you must keep tabs on for advert changes.

Measure your CTR over a period of time before you start.  You can use the CTR information provided by Google for each advert campaign.  Then make a change to your advert.  This should be only one single change, like switching from capitalizing only the first word in your description to all the words.  Then run that for the same time, and analyze the CTR.  Now keep the best, and then make another change and again keep the best.  If you want, Google will allow you test three different versions of an advert simultaneously, and will eventually show the better performing version more often than the others.

If you continue to make these simple changes (even adding a period or full stop at the end of each line can make a difference), you must eventually come up with the best possible performing advert for your website and product.  Now start again with another product, because even if the site might be the same, different products can have a different optimum advert.

You can also play about with your display URL, since some visitors are attracted by the name of a website, and might prefer to see a directory in the URL on the basis that they don’t want taken just to a home page that will be unlikely to have any more content than a product list or even just a corporate welcome.  These are usually flash and take ages to load, despised by many surfers.  Try using the URL of the actual page on your site that offers the product (if not too long), rather than just your home page URL, and analyze the effect of that.  

The most successful Adwords marketers know how to use Google Adwords to make money by repeatedly analyzing and testing their adverts until they are performing as well as they possibly could.  Do not expect miracles, since much depends on the product, but your advert at least should not be what is letting you down.

How to Use Google Adwords to Make Money was originally published  at http://www.affiliatemarketinglife.com