Week 12- MKTG 349- Officially AdWords Certified

I took the additional Search Advertising exam that was needed to become certified. It took a couple tries to pass, but I did it! Similar to the main AdWords Fundamentals test, the Search Advertising test had 100 questions and needed an 80% to pass.

My test score

The Google Partners AdWords certification expires in 1 year. If I want to keep the certification, I must study for the tests and take them again. The reason for this is because technology is forever evolving, and we must be up to date on the latest trends to manage our campaigns online. 

In addition, adding the AdWords certification to your resume can boost your chances of landing and interview, or even a job!

Week 11- MKTG 349- CPC Bidding

CPC bidding means cost-per-click. It's primarily used when you want to drive potential customers to your website. It is best to maximize your CPC so you only pay when someone clicks on your ad. You can set the bid (Manual bidding), or just select "max. CPC" when editing your Google AdWords campaign. By selecting "Automatic bidding," Google can set a bid for you based on your total budget.

The goal is to get as many clicks as possible. Based on your overall quality score, your ad rank can surpass other competitors and lower the amount you actually have to pay. This is known as your Actual CPC. The image below is a great visual representation of how the components intertwine with each other.

Maximum bids don't necessarily mean that your ad rank will increase. Depending on your company and budget, you can control your bidding for individual keywords and Display Network target settings. The only bad thing about Manual bidding is the time and maintenance it takes.

Week 10- MKTG 349- Nature Conservancy Campaign

As a different approach on Google AdWords, I decided to create a campaign promoting The Nature Conservancy. I decided to create an entirely new campaign (my first one was Bailey's Facebook page) because it is an completely different category of what the first one was. I also felt that that growing concerns about climate change and carbon emissions have increased the search rate on Google to help solve these issues.

I set the campaign type to be a Search Network only with all features, targeting locations all over the globe. The bidding strategy is to maximize clicks with a budget of $5.00 per day.

Campaign Ad

So far, I included 14 keywords to help boost my quality score compared to other competitors. Most keywords are simple and straight forward, but others have more specific short sentences asking how to help conserve resources. Based on the performance of each keyword, I will keep track of which ones to keep and which ones to discard or add to negative keywords. Once I can determine that, my Actual CPC should be lower than my Maximum bid on the campaign.

Keywords for The Nature Conservatory Campaign

Week 9- MKTG 349- Passing the AdWords Fundamentals Exam

It took a lot of time and effort to prepare for the exam. After the third attempt, I passed on October 24th, 2016 with an 85%! An 80% is needed to pass the exam.

The Fundamentals exam isn't the only test you need to pass the get certified. One more specific category (Search, Display, Video, Shopping, or Mobile) is required to officially add it to your resume. In this case, I will now be preparing for only passing the Search Advertising category in order to get my certificate. You can find these categories located directly under the AdWords Fundamentals exam when you click on the AdWords tab in your Google Partners account.

Week 8- MKTG 349- Finding the Right Keywords for You

Adding keywords into your AdWords Campaign might seem pretty easy, but it actually takes some time and evaluation of what your website provides and what your target audience might search. You can include multiple broad keywords, but it is best to also include as many specific phrases that you can think of for your campaign Who knows, there might be a lot of people that actually type it into the search bar. There's only one way to find out!

The goal of keywords is to attract individuals that might like to visit your website and purchase your item or service, but they just don't know it yet. For example, if you own an online shopping site that sells automatic watches, you would provide keywords such as, "automatic watches" or "automatic watches for men and women." These keywords would have a higher level of traffic of individuals searching for this type of product. If you are selling something more specific and unique, such as automatic wooden watches, you might want to try phrases more specific like; "automatic watches made out of cherry wood" or "oak wood watches that are automatic." These phrases might not get a lot of volume, but you would never know unless you tried, right? There might be hundreds of thousands of people looking for a different kind of watch for them or as a gift. Another good phrase to add might be, "unique automatic watches for sale." 

Tense wooden watches website after searching, "automatic wooden watches"

All together, the more specific the keyword phrase is, the higher the chances someone might click on your site right away, because the phrase is specific to you and your unique product. AdWords makes creating keywords and phrases easy to create and maintain under the Keyword Planner tab of your Tools bar.

Week 7- MKTG 349- Campaign Strategies

An wonderful feature that Google AdWords provides is their Help tab. This tab is located in your settings icon on the top right-hand side of your screen. The bell icon, located directly to the right of the settings icon, suggests helpful tips when preparing and examining your campaigns.

AdWords offers multiple convenient ways for users to contact support with any questions. If you'd like to talk with someone over the phone, an 800 number is provided along with the times to call for help. If not, you can click on the Help tab to bring you to a different menu. This menu is shown below.

You can contact support by Email, Phone, or chatting through online messaging. Searching subjects in the search bar above is another alternative to finding answers to any questions. Video calls were not available at the time I was looking for help, so I decided to set up a live chat. Once clicking on the option, I was brought to a message box asking me to select a category I needed help with. I selected Ad Performance in the category box and was able to type out a question. Within seconds, Catherine from Google Support messaged me and I was able to quickly resolve my issue.

Google AdWords Help features are a great perk to the website and are available 24/7!

Week 6- MKTG 349- Callout Extensions

Call Extensions are another useful tool provided by Google AdWords to encourage consumers to click on your ad. It's purpose is to display benefits or services unique to your business. The key to successful call extensions is to keep them "short and sweet." This way, businesses boost their quality scores while lowering costs at the same time!

Here is an example of a shoe company ad including callout extensions.

Inside the blue outline are the call extensions. It is best to provide at least two and no more than six. You can find out how to create callout extensions on your Google AdWords Campaign by clicking on this link. 

Week 5- MKTG 349- Keywords Planner

To efficiently manage your keywords and negative keywords, click on the Tools tab when logged into your Google Adwords account.

This menu can help you determine keyword trends, CPC prices, and create your own keyword combinations. It even gives the opportunity to target consumers based on location and language.

This keyword tool helped me forecast which keywords I should keep or delete. Since my campaign is to advertise my dog Bailey to shiba lovers, I decided to type in "shiba inu dog" to see how much CPC that would reel in over the next week.

As shown in the screenshot above, we see the amount of clicks, impressions made, and the anticipated cost for the keyword during a seven day run time. This information is useful because I am able to determine how much the keyword might be worth to my Campaign and daily budget.

Week 4- MKTG 349- AdWords Campaign: Keywords

I decided to create an AdWords Campaign for a Facebook page I made last year. The Facebook page is dedicated to my pet dog, Bailey. In order to correctly run the campaign, I created multiple keywords to link my ad to.

I have chosen about 15 broad keywords. The campaign is currently paused, but once I provide my billing information and resume it, the CPC and amount of clicks will turn into numbers. This data will provide us with how well my chosen keywords are doing. By analyzing the data, I can determine if I need to delete or even create negative keywords in order to increase the amount of clicks during the campaign. This will improve my ads relevance to my specific keywords. Overall, monitoring the performance of the keywords will determine how my budget is being utilized to get the most "bang for my buck."

Week 3- MKTG 349- AdWords Fundamentals Exam: Attempt #1

After studying the content needed to pass the Google AdWords exam, I got a 67% out of a possible 100%. An 80% is needed to pass for the AdWords certification. 

I wish I could go back and review the questions that I missed because it seemed some of the questions had more than one right answer. I plan on going back to review the materials provided through the Google Partners website. Hopefully next time I take the exam I will get a passing grade. We'll just have to wait another week to find out!

Week 2- MKTG 349- AdWords Campaign

In order to create an AdWords Campaign, you first must go to the AdWords website and sign in under your Google gmail account. Once logged in, you are able to view all information under any past Campaigns created. At this time, we don't have any. So lets make one! By clicking on the Campaigns tab towards the top of your screen, you have a variety of Campaign types to select from. Since we are beginners here, we'll keep it easy and choose the "Search Network Only" option including all features.

Considering how to utilize your budget and timeline are the most important parts of your campaign. In our case, it's a good idea to set up a small budget with a low amount paid per day (lets stick with $5). Also, setting up a one or two day timeline would keep you from forgetting to turn the campaign off so you don't end up spending a fortune!

Next, you are able to create your URL, headlines, and description. AdWords even lets you preview how the ad will look on a consumers desktop and mobile device. Creating certain keywords related to your ad will improve your chances of consumers clicking on it. In addition, AdWords provides an "Estimate search traffic" button for every keyword you try. So go ahead. Take a chance and try out how successful your first AdWords Campaign could be! 

Week 1- MKTG 349- Google AdWords Introduction

AdWords is a key tool used to create ads. It's effective because it keeps track of your return on investment, or also known as ROI. Google keeps track of the key words used in the search bar of their search engine so the most relevant ads will display on your screen.

You can become AdWords certified by creating a Google Partners account. The wonderful perk about it is that it's completely free too! I was able to quickly create an account hooked up through my Gmail. Once logged in, you can navigate by using the menu bar on the left-hand side on your screen. By clicking on the AdWords tab under Certifications, you can see what the exam entails.

In order to get the AdWords Certification, you only need to take the core AdWords Fundamentals exam and the Search Advertising exam (despite the four other options listed with Search Advertising).

Both exams take roughly two hours each to answer 100 questions. An 80% is needed for a passing score, and you can take it as many times as you need. If you hover your mouse over the exams, details about them appear and you are able to click on a link that is labeled "Exam Details." Once there, you are able to either take the exam or study the core materials.

I never knew Google Partners ever existed or that they offered this type of accreditation's for free before. AdWords is said to be well known and a great certification to add to any resume. It also has the ability to impress employers when you're on the job hunt. I haven't studied the material or have taken the AdWords test just yet, but I plan on trying it out very soon. Who knows, maybe I can get a perfect score after a few tries!