All posts in Search Engine Marketing

A Google Adwords Certified Company is basically a company which contains a few certified individuals and has a much higher total spend in the MCC, here’s the requirements from Google:

- Have a billing and mailing address in one of these countries
- Employ at least two individuals who are qualified individuals (see above) – note that they need to be qualified with the same MCC.
- ave a minimum spend defined by the country you’re in (see here for a list) – in the US and the UK the required spend over a 90 period for the MCC is $100,000.

The major hurdle to becoming a qualified company is the spend in the MCC which is a lot bigger than for qualified individuals. Not only must you have this spend but you need to keep that level of spend over any 90-day period which can be tricky as clients come and go, especially if you’re running seasonal campaigns.

The benefits are very similar to above, you get an updated badge like this:

Click here to read about being a Certified Google Adwords Individual.

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According to the Google advice the following is all you need to do in order to become a Google Adwords Certified Individual:

- Accept the rules of use. These basically say things like “don’t be evil” but in a few more words.
- Manage at least one Adwords account in an MCC (my client center) for 90 days.
- Have a total spend of at least $1000 (or equivalent local currency) in your MCC during the 90 day period.
- Pass the exam.

For most people, the exam is the main focus of the certification. It costs $50 each time you take the exam and I think you can take it as much as you like. Everyone at Distilled who’s taken the exam has passed first time and this shouldn’t pose much of a problem so long as you’re familiar with Adwords and have studied the lessons. It’s worth noting that you should take a look at the lessons even if you’re familiar with Adwords since they can cover things such as invoicing as well as questions about the whole spectrum of ads – from search ads to content network and banner ads. Make sure you’re familiar with the whole system, not just the stuff you use every day.

The format for the exam is 100 questions in 90 mins and you need at least 75% to pass.

The benefits of being an adwords certified individual is that you get a funky badge like this:

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Google is currently rolling out a new interface for Adwords, which is going to make campaign management easier. Currently management over campaigns isn’t too bad, but there’s definitely room for improvement and I can see it already!

Take a peak..

Quite a big change hey?

Running Adwords campaigns is becoming more and more popular with online marketers – being able to advertise in a very direct manner leads to a larger number of convertions than traditional wide-spread advertising does.

Knowing whether your Adwords campaigns are running successfully, we’re able to setup conversion tracking.

Before I explain how to do this, let’s define what a conversion is. A conversion is when a user clicks your Adwords adverts, follows a path of actions and completes a task. For example, if you are trying to get users to complete a form on your website, a conversion would then take the following user journey:

Click Adwords advert -> navigation to form -> fill out form -> submit form.

Right, let’s look at setting up tracking.

1. Log into your Google Adwords account
2. Click on “Conversion Tracking” under Campaign Management
3. Click on “Create a new action”
4. Complete the form

Notes:

- You do not need to add a revenue value for the action
- Customizing the tracking indicator is not critical, I often select the “none” option.

Once you have completed the form, submit it and you’ll be given the tracking code. This tracking code needs to be placed right before the </body> tag in the HTML. For explanation sakes, using the example above about filling out a form, you would place this code on your thankyou.html page.

That’s it, you’ve now setup Conversion Tracking ~ well done! :)

Tip:

When running adwords campaigns, avoid using general terms, rather target your keywords very accurately.

Example

Let’s assume we have a store which sells computer monitors, would would naturally think of using “monitors”, “computer monitors”, “PC Monitor”.. now, as much as these are keywords, they are highly untargeted and might lead to a large number of clicks, but very few sales. What we rather want to do is use keywords such as “Buy computer monitor” or “where to buy computer monitors” – What you are doing here is specifically targeting people who are probably interested in purchasing a monitor, rather than people who might just be looking for random information about computer monitors and aren’t interested in purchasing one.

Here’s an example of one of my campaigns, which has been running since April 1st 2009..

Good luck experimenting and I hope you see those conversions increase quickly!

Yup, the title is 100% accurate.

MyBroadBand in association with Google are giving away free Adwords vouchers and all you have to do is visit the forum and leave a comment saying that you’d like a free voucher.

Each person will receive R400 worth of Adwords to do with how ever they please.

Absolutely awesome, free stuff rocks, especially when it can be used to make more!