Having the basic keywords list and the AdWords™ account, there are still some things you must do to put up a successful, money-making Google AdWords™ campaign.

You need to separate the good, productive keywords from the bad ones. You need to arrange them into families/related keywords. Only afterwards can you proceed with the ad creation part.

This short article highlights the pitfalls of campaign planning and tells you how to avoid them. You can find an extensive tutorial about this topic in the first section of Perry Marshall's “Definitive Guide to Google AdWords”.

The Common Pitfalls in Grouping Keywords

1. Keyword selection

   In your business field, you're tempted to think like an insider. Key phrases that may look like common sense to you may be unknown to most of your potential customers. You need to find out which keywords from your list really have the potential to return the money you invest.

   Keyword suggestion tools like Overture's Inventory and WordTracker (our favorite) have several features that can help you in the keyword selection process:

   • Keyword popularity tool — how many times a phrase was searched, i.e. within the last 30 days
   • Estimate popularity tool — how many times a phrase will be searched over the next 30 days
   • Competition search tool — see how many people bid on the same keywords as you

   You'll see that the high competition keywords are also the most expensive. If you want your ad to appear in the top three positions for those keywords, there are good chances you'll find yourself into a bidding war — a most unwanted position for an AdWords™ beginner. Better leave them aside.

   Unspecific terms — usually one word phrases, like “shoes” or “computers” — are not good performers. Though many people search for “shoes” the term doesn't have a specific target. The user could mean “jogging shoes” or “red leather Prada shoes with a diamond buckle”. The best thing to do is eliminate these terms from your list and look for the ones that are more specific.

   Highly focused keywords are the most likely to become productive. If you sell “gift boxes”, you should build a group around this keyword. “Gift boxes” may not be well performing, but “present wrapping” may be.

   Very low popularity keywords are phrases that people hardly ever search for. They're unlikely to become productive in your campaign.

   The bottom line is to find those balanced keywords — not too low popularity, not too expensive — that are also highly targeted for your business. From these, focus on the ones with higher popularity.

   If you plan to manage thousands of keywords, you'll want some of the actions automated:

   • adding a new word to more keywords
   • generating keyword combinations
   • eliminate spaces and adding .com to more phrases
   • sort keywords by length of text

   Use better performing tools such as Keyword Monster or AdWords Wrapper for this purpose.

2. Picking the destination URL

   The destination URL is the landing page; the actual address you want the targeted traffic to be sent.

   Pick up a different URL for each product you want to sell. Use keywords in your URL. I.e. http://www.mybusiness.com/presentwrapping/ is more relevant than http://www.mybusiness.com/myproducts/.

3. Using keyword match

   Keyword matching is an AdWords™ tool that helps you control the distribution of your ad. That is — who will see it.

   There are three ways you can use keyword match:

   • “Phrase Match”

     The “phrase match” keywords are placed between quotation marks. To continue our example, “gift wrapping” will display your ad when both gift & wrapping are included in the search phrase, in that order. I.e. cheap gift wrapping will display your ad, but wrapping a gift won't.

   • [Exact Match]

     The keywords that use this option are placed between brackets. [Gift wrapping] will only show your ad when somebody searches gift wrapping.

   • Broad match & -negative keywords

     Broad match shows your ad anytime someone searches for a phrase that includes your words, in any order. If you broad-match gift wrapping, it will show your ad when somebody searches for wrapping a gift, gift wrapping at home and many others that don't fall into your target.

     AdWords™ beginners are often advised not to use the broad match option. But you can use it in combination with negative keywords.

     By -negative keywords you define terms that, when included in the search phrase, don't allow your ad to be displayed. -Home or -free could be two of your negatives. When somebody searches for gift wrapping at home or free gift wrapping your ad won't be displayed.

The Common Pitfalls in Thinking Your Campaign Structure

1. How many campaigns?

   Working with one campaign for all your keywords is not efficient. First of all, all keywords will be displayed on the same page. If you work with several hundred keywords, it will be hard to track them. Secondly, some keywords may not fit that specific campaign. They may perform better in their own campaign, with different settings (language, region, etc.)

2. How many ad groups?

   Within the same campaign, you'll want to have more ad groups for two reasons:

   • to test more ads
   • to test more bids.

   An ad group can link to several ads at the same time. Thus, you can link keywords to different ads, to see how they perform.

Ok, now that we've designed the campaigns right, let's write some ads.