A mentoring client just asked for some guidelines on using Google Image Ads – here’s some of what I had to say – it might help you get your first Image Ad Campaign up & running…
How to use Google Image Ads
Setup a new campaign, set to ‘content network only’, use CPC bidding.
Create a number of AdGroups, each with 2-10 keywords (use the “wonder wheel” for help choosing relevant keywords)
You don’t need to set “placements”, you can let Google find the best sites on which to show your ads (to start with – see below)
You absolutely must utilize conversion tracking, or forget the whole thing
Choose a ‘conversion goal’ that will allow you to get at least 5 conversions a day – this means that you can graduate to utilizing Conversion Optimizer as soon as possible, a great tool! So for example if you’re selling products & only making 1 sale a day, choose an earlier step in the process (eg, adding a product to the shopping cart) as the conversion. You need data & the faster you can get it, the quicker you’ll be profitable
Conversion optimizer rocks! One reason you want to get lots of conversion data is to start using this tool as quickly as possible
Run placement reports regularly (at least weekly). For ‘Content Network’ campaigns, exclude ‘bad’ placements just like you’d add negative keywords. You might also want to bid a little more on sites that generate cost effective conversions to get even more traffic from them
ONLY create 300×250 ads to start with. Create a number of different ones (different images, different copy etc) & test test test. Only when you have a decent amount of data, should you choose the best ad & create the other sizes.
This gets you 2 big benefits:
1. it’s cheaper to only create 1 size – which means you can try a wider range of tests
2. you get better much faster
Other thoughts:
If starting out with standard image ads (ie not animated), create your images to be 300×239 pixels (google adds an 11 pixel footer & you don’t want google resizing your images!)
Match the image in the ad to the landing page where possible (yep that means multiple landing pages if you want to test different image ads – use Google Website Optimizer to easily see which page converts best)
Depending on your market, start with ~$1.10 bids (so many people start at $1 & you want to just beat the majority without spending a fortune). See how many impressions you get & adjust accordingly
You may want to exclude certain categories of placement, eg death, tragedy etc
Have lots of AdGroups on ‘tangents’ to your main topic, eg what other topics are people looking at that are interested in your product… think about their demographics & psychographics
‘Peel & stick’ winning placements into a new campaign (& consider running this as a CPM campaign)
remember to add these sites as negatives in the original campaign!
Finally, when you think you’re done testing, test some more!
If that all sounds like too much work – fill in the form below & request a sneak peek of our upcoming module from the AdWords Bootcamp on Using Google Image Ads in Your AdWords Account.
