The Top 10 PPC Hacks of All Time - Larry Kim's Presentation for State of Search 2014 in Dallas, TX
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The AdWords ad auction is just another algorithm and any computer algo can be cracked. In this session I’ll review my analysis of $10 Billion in paid search spend and precisely explain how AdWords really works, and how to leverage various idiosyncrasies and system loopholes to generate massive profits using a purely white-hat approach. I’ll also cover a half dozen of the most insanely powerful features that are used by less than 3% of advertisers which have demonstrated ability to increase average returns by +2x each.
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The Top 10 PPC Hacks of All Time - Larry Kim's Presentation for State of Search 2014 in Dallas, TX
- 1. The Top 10 PPC Marketing Hacks of All Time! Larry Kim, Founder/CTO, WordStream Nov. 17, 2014
- 2. About Larry (@larrykim) 1. Founder & CTO of WordStream 2. Commander of the Google AdWords Quality Score Rebellion 3. Had First Kid 6 Months Ago (#ppckid) Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
- 3. Agenda: The Top 5 PPC Hacks of All Time! You are Engaging in PPC Hacks and are a Traitor … Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
- 4. FYI -- Slides Posted Here: • http://bit.ly/stateofsearch2014 Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
- 5. #10. Hacking Quality Score in AdWords
- 6. Understanding the AdWords Auction
- 7. Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
- 8. How Quality Score Impacts Ad Position • AdWords is Like Real Estate: It’s all about Location! Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
- 9. Quality Score Impacts Cost Per Click Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
- 10. Quality Score Impacts Impression Share Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
- 11. Impression Share 2x More Competitive on Mobile Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
- 12. Quality Score Impacts Cost Per Conversion Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
- 13. So.. Get a High Quality Score! Duh, Awesome! Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
- 14. How is Quality Score Calculated?!
- 15. This is The Expected Click Through Rate Curve… Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
- 16. Just Beat Account Avg. Expected Click Through Rate!! Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
- 18. Quick Recap So Far … • Below Avg. CTR = Low QS • Low QS means… – Less prominent ad positions – Very low impression share – Huge CPC penalties (+400% Tax) – High Cost Per Conversion (+64%) Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
- 19. # 9. Hacking Ad CTRs with “Unicorn Ads”
- 20. Google Expects (A Lot) More Of Your Ads Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
- 21. CONFIDENTIAL – DO Forest vs. Trees
- 22. Here’s a Map of the Forrest… Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
- 23. Donkeys vs. Unicorns Percentile Vs. Average CTR Designation Bottom 50% n/a DONKEYS Top 15% 2x Top 5% 3x Top 1% 6x UNICORNS Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
- 24. CONFIDENTIAL – DO Unicorns Ads (6x Avg. CTR - HOW?!)
- 25. CONFIDENTIAL – DO Hunting Unicorn Ads
- 26. Keywords With High Commercial Intent Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
- 27. What About Dynamic Keyword Insertion? (DKI) Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
- 28. DKI Doesn’t Produce as Many Unicorn Ads Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
- 29. What About Ad Extensions? Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
- 30. How To Write “Unicorn Ads”? (Top 1%, 6x Average CTR)
- 31. Most Ads (+90%) Suck. 31Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
- 32. The Hack: Ads That Trigger Emotions Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
- 33. This Ad Gets 6x Above Avg. CTR Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
- 34. Because Everyone Else Sucks Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
- 35. These Emotions Make People Click Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
- 36. Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
- 37. CONFIDENTIAL – DO # 8. Quality Score Sculpting
- 38. Crazy Hack To Increase Quality Scores •Add 10% Branded Terms to Raise Account Average Quality Scores •Delete the Bottom Third of Your PPC Account and Move the Budget to Remarketing Instead Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
- 39. Example Crap Account •Mix of above and below average keywords Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
- 40. Example Crap Account • Notice how the account has no high QS keywords! Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
- 41. Example Awesome Account • Mostly above average CTR keywords, some below avg. Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
- 42. Example Awesome Account • Notice how the account has only high QS keywords! Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
- 43. Example Crap Account • Notice how the account has no high QS keywords! Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
- 44. Example Crap Account • Notice how the account has no high QS keywords! Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
- 45. What’s a Good Quality Score These Days? • Current Average ~5/10 • Previously 7/10 • As average values drift lower, above average QS worth up to 200% more than before! Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
- 46. So What To Do With My Keywords? • If Your Keyword’s Quality Score is… – 1 to 3: Delete Immediately – 4 to 6: Fix / Optimize – 7 to 10: Don’t Mess with Success Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
- 47. CONFIDENTIAL – DO # 7. Remarketing Lists for Search Ads (RLSA) CTR Hack
- 48. Remarketing Lists for Search Ads (RLSA) • Customize Ads To Users Who Previously Visited Your Site • On Average: – Doubles Click Through Rates (Raises Quality Score) – Cuts CPC’s in Half!! Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
- 49. CONFIDENTIAL – DO # 6. Quality Score for Google Display Network = Insanely Low CPC’s
- 50. A 0.1% +/- in CTR yields +/- 20% in CPC! Quality Score Exists on Google Display Network!! Higher CTR = Lower CPC Higher CTR = Lower CPC Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
- 51. The Hack: Make Display Ads With Very High CTR Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
- 52. About Those “Display Ads”… • 67.5% of Display Ads are Plain Text Ads! Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
- 53. CTR of “Display Ads” Based on Ad Format Ad Format on Google Display Network Click Through Rate Text ads that are formatted as Images 0.23% True Image ads 0.31% Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
- 54. Huge Tax on “Text Display Ads” vs. True Image Ads Google Display Network Ad Format CPC (USD) Text $2.31 Custom Image $0.48 Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
- 55. 1. Push Display Ads To Your Offers Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
- 56. Do a Conversion Path Analysis Define audience segments using the pages that most often lead to a conversion event Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
- 57. Conversion Rates vs. Ad Impressions Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch Conversion Rates Double With More Ad Impressions!
- 58. 2. Push Display Ads to Content Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
- 59. ~5% of Blog Content Gets ~50% of Social Shares Promote These Top 5% of Articles!!! Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
- 60. These Emotions Make People Click on Things Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
- 61. The Hack: Make Display Ads Look More Like Content Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
- 62. CONFIDENTIAL – DO # 5. Get 3x More Impressions on Google Display Network
- 63. 14 Display Ad Formats on GDN • Vertical rectangle: 240 x 400 • Mobile leaderboard: 320 x 50 • Banner: 468 x 60 • Leaderboard: 728 x 90 • Square: 250 x 250 • Small square: 200 x 200 • Large rectangle: 336 x 280 • Inline rectangle: 300 x 250 • Skyscraper: 120 x 600 • Wide skyscraper: 160 x 600 • Half-page: 300 x 600 • Etc. Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
- 64. Different Ad Formats Don’t Compete With Each Other Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
- 65. Diversify Your Ad Formats = 3x Impressions Ad Format Share of Impressions Leader board (728 x 90) 25.5% Inline rectangle (300 x 250) 25.1% Banner (468 x 60) 12.0% Wide skyscraper (160 x 600) 10.1% Large Rectangle (336 x 280) 8.6% Mobile leaderboard (320 x 50) 7.4% Half-page (300 x 600) 4.3% Square (250 x 250) 2.8% Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
- 66. CONFIDENTIAL – DO # 4. Crazy Mobile Hack to Triple Conversions
- 67. Mobile is Very Different… OMG a Call Button!! Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
- 68. Call Extensions Change Everything!! Calls to Businesses worth on Average 3x More Than Clicks to Websites!! 4. Captured Lead 2. Calls Business 2. Clicks On Ad Desktop Search Conversion Funnel 3% Avg. Conversion Rate Mobile Conversion Funnel 1. Sees Ad 1. Sees Ad 3. Visits Website Landing Page 3. Lead Captured!! Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
- 69. Forget Mobile Sites and Landing Pages! Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
- 70. CONFIDENTIAL – DO # 3. New Gmail Ads!
- 71. Larry Kim (@larrykim)Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
- 72. Subject Line and Teaser … Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
- 73. Email Ad! Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
- 74. The Hack: Target Your Competitor’s Emails Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
- 75. # 2. New People Based PPC Marketing!
- 76. Facebook “People Advertising” Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
- 77. Twitter, Too! Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
- 78. The Hack: Think of PPC More Like Email Mktg. Email Marketing • Limit Number of Blasts To Reduce Unsubscribes • 0.5-2% Unsubscribes Each Blast • People Need To Opt Into Your List • Tons of Unqualified Emails on the List People Based Marketing • N/A • N/A • N/A • N/A Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
- 80. +1000 New Features Every Year!! Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
- 81. TrueView Ads in YouTube! Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
- 82. +Post Ads for Google+ Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
- 83. My Google+ Story… Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
- 84. Google+ Visibility Before and After! After Before Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
- 85. Summary: The Top 10 AdWords Hacks of All Time! 1. Say No to Low CTR! 2. Unicorn Ads Get +6x Average CTR 3. Delete Crap in Your Account 4. RLSA 2x CTR, 1/2 CPC 5. Quality Score on Google Display Network = Cheap Clicks 6. Hacks to Get More Ad Impressions on GDN 7. Triple Conversion Rate with Mobile 8. Get in People’s Gmail Inboxes! 9. Target Specific People on Facebook and Twitter 10.Always be First Mover! Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
- 86. Flywheel Effect: Paid Don’t Settle For Average – Be a Unicorn Among a Sea of Donkeys!
- 87. Thank You #stateofsearch! Slides: bit.ly/stateofsearch2014 Larry Kim (@larrykim) #stateofsearch
Editor's Notes
- Show how the keyword expansion is easier using a tool. Explain that we’re following the same best practices that Brad Suggested.
- AdWords is just one big computer algorithm and any algorithm can be cracked.
- Quality Score is ‘the algorithm’. It determines ad price, ad position, ad impressions, etc. Advertisers who truly understand how this works would have a decisive advantage over those who do not.
- Talk about how google makes it very hard for PPC spammers, too. Google shut down millions of spammy accounts year. All keywords/ads are graded with a quality score. The higher your quality score, the higher your ad ranking and lower your cost per click.
- For every increase or decrease in quality score, you can expect your impression share to go up or down by around 9% on average.
- Talk about how google makes it very hard for PPC spammers, too. Google shut down millions of spammy accounts year. All keywords/ads are graded with a quality score. The higher your quality score, the higher your ad ranking and lower your cost per click.
- The call extensions make things much better in the following 2 ways: You avoid sending people to a landing page (which is the leakiest part of the funnel and where you lose 97% of them) Commercial intent decays rapidly over time. Even if 3% of people fill out a “contact us” form, if it takes you a day to process their inquiry (say it came in in the evening or on a weekend) then you’ll end up losing half of them anyway – because the moment has passed.
- As a result it’s worth forcing your mobile ads on mobile go straight to a phone number. Yes, I realize this goes against all the articles that you read about having a mobile site and mobile landing page. We’re finding that for the majority of businesses (especially services based companies or companies doing lead generation, or companies whose business involves telesales) that it’s worth skipping all that crap. Test it out and see for yourself.
- So here are a few examples of People based advertising.
- Starting with Gmail Sponsored Promotions – these are ads that are made to look like emails! So sneeky! They show up at the top of a gmail box. The targeting for these things are insanely powerful. You can target based on who they’re getting mail from, etc. Now the program is still in beta, but at one point we even saw the option to target ads to specific emails. We’ve been seeing 11% email open rates which is 4-5 times higher than the generic ads “right side bar” ads that you can target via the Google Display Network. We think that Google will eventually allow for the ability to target based on specific emails, since Facebook and Twitter are already offering that.
- Here’s what the Gmail sponsored promotion looks like when you click on the promoted email. It’s an HTML creative. So overall, is an example of PPC marketing that feels a lot more like email marketing. Infact the whole concept of “people marketing” (targeting ads to specific people) has a lot more in common with email marketing than conventional PPC marketing, with one key difference being you can target specific people who haven’t yet opted into your mailing list. (or even people who have opted out).
- And of course twitter has noticed the people based advertising trend, too. They’re kind of the last mover here so a lot of this stuff isn’t working that great just yet (like it takes 4 hours for them to process a list – yikes) – but you can target whatever you want to promote to specific twitter IDs or emails, too. And of course twitter is super powerful because a lot of influential folks hang out there. To summarize – I think the email marketers and PPC marketers should be collaborating on this new “people marketing” thing since there is a lot of magic that can happen when you target specific people with the right message. It also supplements a lot of the problems associated with email marketing, such as low delieverability rates (due to filters), unsubscribes (it’s harder to unsubscribe from ads), more inventory (since you can only blast your email list a limited number of times per week), etc.
- By my estimations, there are over a thousand new features added in AdWords every year – and that’s just AdWords -- not including other big ad platforms like Bing, Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, etc. There’s a huge, decisive advantage in being the first in your niche to adopt the latest ad formats and targeting capabilities – here are just a few examples of my favorite latest and greatest features.
- Trueview ads in youtube – people spend 6 Billion hours on youtube every month. Your customers are hanging out here. Why isn’t your business here? Of course can get your text ads to appear along side and within youtube videos, but my favorite ad format is the trueview ad format, which plays before a video. You only pay if someone views your video. If they click “skip ad” you pay nothing. Targeting options are insanely powerful – you can target via remarketing (people who visited your site), by youtube channel (eg: have your video show up as a trailer ahead of your competitor’s youtube videos!), by video topic, by keyword, etc.
- Another recent example is the +Post ads for promoting your company Google+ posts as ads throughout the Google Display Network. Now, I’m not saying G+ is the greatest (actually I think it’s kind of crappy) but just as an example of the massive power of first mover advantage..
- I set up a +post ad campaign with a 20$ daily budget to promote the latest Google+ post from my +WordStream company page.
- The impact was profound. Before I was doing the google+ updates and it was not getting much traction. Add a little but of sponsored promotion and the page visibility increased dramatically. From 0 to 30k views / day! How? It’s because nobody uses this feature and there’s a huge advantage to being the first (sadly, nobody uses google+ either, heh).