How to build the best keyword list

Selecting the right keyword list for your campaign can help you show your ads to the customers you want as they search for specific terms or visit certain websites. Your keywords should match the terms your potential customers would use to find your products or services.

Google surprised AdWords users in May this year with their announcement that AdWords ad rotation would automatically stop and favour only the ad with highest CTR, after the ads were active for 30 days.

Google’s ad rotation settings will switch from ‘rotate’ to favor the ad with highest CTR, unless you take action.  If you don’t want to opt out, and you want to restore even rotation on your ads after the 90 day period, it is not a huge problem.

Location and Language Targeting?

In this blog post we’ll be touching on the basics of Language & Location targeting, with its benefits and how to set it up for your business.

Location Targeting

With AdWords, you can target your ads to customers in specific geographic locations, or customers who have selected your targeted language as their interface language. This can help ensure that your ads are reaching the customers you want, and in turn increase your ROI (Return on Investment).
So for example, if you live in South Africa and want to target your ads to people in Cape Town, or people in both Cape Town and Johannesburg, you can do that with location targeting.

Language Targeting

It’s very important to communicate with your customers in the language they speak, otherwise it will be very difficult to get your message across to the right audience.
With the language targeting feature, your ads can appear on websites and in Google products that are written in the languages that your campaign target.

Google targets language by the customer’s interface language, which you can edit in your browser.

How AdWords Detects Languages

Every Google domain has a default language. For example, Google.com defaults to English, Google.co.za defaults to English, Google.fr defaults to French etc. You can change your default language in the Preferences link in the Google homepage. This means that a South African who moves to France can change the default language to English, Afrikaans, Xhosa etc. When you change your default language, you will then see ads targeting that language.

Set up language targeting

1. Sign in to your AdWords account
2. Click the Campaigns tab
3. Click the name of the campaign that you wish to edit to open your campaign settings
4. Click the Settings tab
5. Next to Languages, click Edit
6. Select your target language(s)
7. Click Save

Ad extensions create more reasons to click your ad:

Ad extensions are a type of ad format that show extra information (“extending” from your text ads) about your business. Some can be added manually and others are automated.

Improved visibility: Ad extensions tend to improve your ad’s visibility. They often appear above the search results, rather than along the sidebar. If two competing ads have the same bid and quality, the ad with greater expected impact from extensions will generally appear in a higher ad position than the other.

Better return on investment: Extensions can help improve the clickthrough rate (CTR) of your ads. More clicks means more customer traffic.

How ad extensions work:

AdWords shows one or more extensions with your ad when it calculates that the extension (or combination of extensions) will improve your campaign performance, and when your Ad Rank is high enough for it to appear. Adding an extension won’t guarantee that it will show with your ad, but you can keep track of when your extensions are appearing on the Ad extensions tab. Learn why extensions might not show with your ad.

Automated extensions: AdWords creates and displays the automated extensions formats (seller ratings, consumer ratings, social extensions, and previous visits) when it predicts that they’ll improve your ad’s performance. No setup is required, so the option to create automated extensions doesn't appear in the drop-down menu of the Ad extensions tab.

Different Types of Ad Extensions:

 Sitelinks
•    Location
•    Call
•    Social

Difference between final url and destination url

what is enhanced cpc?

Enhanced CPC is a new feature available to those who use Google AdWords conversion tracking on max CPC campaigns. It's designed to increase campaign ROI

                                                           (OR)
Enhanced cost-per-click (ECPC) is a bidding feature that raises your bid for clicks that seem more likely to lead to a sale or conversion on your website. That helps you get more value from your ad budget.

AdWords Application Programming Interface (API)?

AdWords Application Programming Interface (API)

The Google AdWords Application Programming Interface (API) is designed for developers representing large, tech-savvy advertisers and third parties. This includes agencies, search engine marketers (SEMs), and other online marketing professionals who manage multiple client accounts or large campaigns.

The Google AdWords API lets developers build applications that interact directly with the Google AdWords server. With these applications, advertisers and third parties can more efficiently and creatively manage their large or complex AdWords accounts and campaigns.

How you can use the API

Because implementing the AdWords API takes technical know-how and programming skills, best results can be achieved by advertisers who employ software developers.

The API is flexible and functional -- you can use it to build an application that meets your needs. Using the API, you can:

Automatically generate keywords, ad text, landing pages, and custom reports.

Integrate AdWords data with your inventory system to manage campaigns based on stock.

Develop additional tools and applications to help you manage accounts.

And you can even develop in the language of your choice. The AdWords API SOAP interface is supported by all popular programming languages, including Java, PHP, Python, .NET, Perl, and Ruby.

Getting started with the API

Signing up is easy. All you need is an active AdWords account. Once you've registered as a developer, you can access the AdWords API Center to manage your token and budget settings. Your developer token is a unique combination of letters, numbers, and characters that identifies your AdWords API activity. It's your key to talking to the AdWords server and your clients' AdWords accounts.