Following on from Kate's advice on how to manage your PPC campaign during the "downturn", I'm going to add another secret weapon to your marketing armoury to help you squeeze even better ROI out of your adCenter Search Ad activity.
Arguably one of the most important criteria for a search ad is to be as targeted as possible. According to a study by Advertising.com, inserting the exact keyword into a paid listing improves CTR by 38% on average.
There are two main ways of making this happen:
Keyword Insertion
Admittedly the easiest way to include the search term is through {keyword} insertion. This function allows you to drop the term from the search box straight into your ad. Although this is really convenient, there are disadvantages which can seriously impact your CTR. For example, the keyword might run over the character limit or it could contain poor spelling or incorrect grammar which will result in your ad looking messy and unprofessional. This will reflect badly on your website and brand.
Dynamic Text Insertion
But worry not, help is at hand. Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it’s Dynamic Text Insertion. This adCenter function utilises the placeholders {param1}, {param2} and {param3} and can help to transform your account. Unlike {keyword} insertion, Dynamic Text Insertion is versatile whilst remaining scalable and simple.
How does it work?
Dynamic Text works in a very similar way to {keyword} insertion but instead of instructing adCenter to pull keyword data you can direct it to pull data from a pre-determined source which you have created.
- If submitting keywords via a spreadsheet – Dynamic Text should be placed in the ‘Dynamic Text {param2}’ column
- If submitting keywords via Microsoft adCenter click into the relevant ‘campaign’ and ‘ad group’ and then once you’ve reached the ‘keywords’ tab, click on the ‘edit keywords’ button.
- Alter {param1}, {param2} and {param3} as appropriate. The ‘Bulk Edit’ function can be used by ticking next to the keyword parameters you wish to edit and then clicking ‘Bulk Edit’.
- {param1} is typically used for destination URLs as it offers more characters with which to ensure the link is as detailed as possible. {param2} and {param3} can be used to include as much of the keyword and other engaging information (e.g. price points) as possible. The bulk editing function makes it really easy to update your dynamic text when required.
Why should you use it?
adCenter’s dynamic superhero can rescue your campaign. In the example campaign in the diagram above, the keywords are all very similar (‘cheap hotel paris’, ‘family accomm paris’ and ‘room single paris’) so would naturally be collected in a ‘Paris’ ad group. However, there are nuances between each keyword that indicate very different user intent – one searcher’s focus is cost while another’s is family. You can reach all of these different users by using dynamic text insertion to tailor your ad to them personally.
So let adCenter’s dynamic keyword insertion save your day by implementing it now!
Thanks for reading,
Libby