So, to begin . . . why would you advertise on AdWords?
Advertising with AdWords gives you an edge that your competitors may not have. This doesn’t have to apply just to Google AdWords, there are other options like Bing Ads and social media advertising. These platforms are another way to quickly and directly reach your audience.
Our pro tips for a successful, and educational campaign . . .
First things first, decide where your goals are:
To run a successful campaign online, you will need to have a strong plan of where you want your users to go and what you want them to do on your website. Do you want them to sign up to newsletters, follow you on social media or get in contact? These are all forms of conversions and you need to decide which interactions qualify as a conversion, and how much are you willing to pay for this conversion.
Decided how much you would like to pay for a conversion/ lead:
Deciding on how much you want to pay for your conversions is key to defining your budgets in AdWords and how you will manage your campaigns going forward. Being strict and not letting budgets get out of control is key to a successful campaign.
Build landing pages:
To get the most out of your clicks, create enticing landing pages with clear call to actions and end goals. Good landing pages not only contribute to a positive user journey, but also attribute to your quality score in AdWords. Ensure landing pages are relevant and make the user’s journey as smooth and fruitful as possible.
Legitimise your claims:
You should be able to legitimise why the user should make a conversion, using the following will give the user a reason to convert:
- What unique benefits are on offer?
- Useful information and articles to download
- Testimonials are key!
- Videos, student stories – real evidence of good experiences
Small budget? Use long tail keywords:
Generic terms are going to be high in traffic but also very high in cost because there will be competition for them. If you get creative with long tail keywords, these will bring in smaller search volumes but also higher quality traffic, more likely to make a conversion because the user is further down their ‘journey’ and closer to knowing what they want.
Long tail keyword examples:
- Art and Design Bachelors in Surrey
- Universities with great nightlife
- University cities with direct connections to London
Although there will be smaller volumes of search for terms like these, visitors are far more likely to convert as they are searching more specifically and have a better idea of what they need. All you need to do is provide a killer landing page, and voila!
Check your negative keywords:
Aside from match types (broad, phrase and exact), another keyword type is ‘negative keywords’. These are keywords which have resulted in your ad appearing in a particular search when it isn’t relevant to the user. Mark them as negative keywords in AdWords to prevent poor quality clicks on your ads.
e.g. ‘Jobs in South London’ instead of ‘Universities in South London’.
Use these keywords to modify your campaign. This prevents budget spend in the wrong direction.
Manage your account well:
Once your ads are up and running, keep an eye out for ads that are costing you money (this is where it comes in handy to know how much you would like to pay for a conversion). Manage your account well and make changes if keywords and ads aren’t converting but are costing money.
Make use of tools that are available too, in AdWords you can run split tests, experiments and more to find out what kinds of keywords and text resonate better with your audience.
Measure with Google Analytics:
Keep measuring with Google Analytics – the other half of your tool. Track impressions, clicks and conversions without these you will never have a proper idea of the effect of your ads. To measure conversions, goals need to be set up in Analytics and then imported as a conversion in AdWords to get accurate data.