I recently passed the Google AdWords exam which basically means this site is allowed to display a fancy Google Logo.
The exam is Google’s way of ensuring clients can trust the advice of the Pay Per Click Marketers that manage their campaigns.
I started studying a couple months ago but then got quite busy, then when I came back to the material it had all been changed and the program had been changed to the “Google AdWords Fundamentals Exam.”
I was a bit worried I’d need to learn everything again, but the word ‘fundamental’ sounded pretty easy so after a quick read over my notes I paid the nominal $50 fee and passed with 90%.
If any internet marketers are reading this post and thinking about taking the test you might find these the below notes helpful (or download here). They’re my personal study notes so don’t expect amazing spelling/grammar, but they should make your life a bit easier. Also as noted above you’ll need to brush up in the AdWords Learning Centre because the exam has changed slightly since these were written.
Click the continue reading link to read my full study guide online.
Google AdWords Professional Study
INTRODUCTION TO ADWORDS
Link Policy
- Display URL must accurately represent Destination URL
- Back Button Must Work Properly
- Page Much Be HTML – No additional Software
- No Pop Ups/Pop Unders
- Affiliates OK – But only one ad per display URL, and affiliate websites must not be mirrors
Editorial Policy
- Must Have proper spelling, grammar and punctuation – exceptions for “foto” etc
- No exclamations in first line, one allowed in second line
- Punctuation can’t be repeated more than twice in a row
- Capitalization – only allowed to capitalize first letter of each word
- No repetition, e.g. “deals, deals, deals”
- No inappropriate/offensive language
- Phrases such as “click here” not allowed because they are not descriptive
- Not allowed to use Google Trademarks e.g. “gmail”
- No superlatives, e.g. “best camera” unless verification from a 3rd party is displayed on site.
- Can’t say “better than company B” unless backed up by authoritative source on website
- Prices must be within 1 to 2 clicks of Landing page, and be accurate. Do not need to include tax
Image Ads
- Image ads must meet all text ad guidelines
- Image, content and purpose of the ad must all be clear
- No mock animated features, e.g. fake search bar, checkboxes etc
- Images must not have white space all around, must not include display URL etc
- Must be family safe
- Animated ads only on content network, no flashing cursor movements, can’t expand etc
Copyright
- Copyright complaint- – must be faxed or mailed. Must provide Google search query used and URL of infringing website. Must also include reasonable contact information, and be signed.
- Counter Claims – provide URLS of material affected plus reasonable contact information and sign it.
Paying for AdWords
- $5 activation fee, no spending requirements
- Control costs through daily budget, bids, and the quality of your account
- Ads rank (number) = CPC + Quality Score (QS determined by relevance of keywords and ad text compares to landing page
- In the above table, A’s CPC is calculated as B’s Quality Rank (not actually shown in AdWords) divided by A’s quality Score. The result is 36c, the minimum CPC Bid A needs to be have A’s ad displayed above B’s in the search results
- Use Traffic Estimator to estimate what position an ad is likely to be displayed in
- You only pay the CPC necessary to have a higher rank number than that of the next lowest ad
GETTING STARTED WITH ADWORDS
Starter Edition and Standard Edition
- Starter Edition = Simplified sign up process, only one campaign and one set of keywords. Also automatic budgeting – only option is to set monthly budget
- Standard Edition = Advanced reporting, advanced targeting and advanced bidding options
- Standard Edition Sign up Process: Language–>geo-location–>write ad–>choose keywords–>budget options
Account Structure
Account Information
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Campaign Campaign
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Ad Group Ad Group
- Accounts are limited to 25 Campaigns and 100 Ad Groups
Campaign Management
- Choose between keyword based campaign or placement based
- Keyword campaigns have option to copy setting from other campaigns
Ad Group Management
- Divided into 3 tabs – Summery, Keywords, and Ad Variations
- Summery contains: Bid, CPC, CPM, Cost, Average Position etc
- Keywords contain: Most info from Summery, but for specific Keywords. Can also add new keywords, delete keywords, edit bids on keywords etc. To see whether a keyword is showing ads and to check your keyword Quality Score.
- Ad Variations contain: All ads created for that Ad Group…may include text ads, image ads, local business ad, mobile text ad or video ad
My Account
- My Account tab contains 4 sections, Billing Preferences, Account Preferences, Billing Summery, and Access
- Billing Summary: Contains invoices for the account.
- Billing Preferences: View and edit your billing information, and change contact information
- Account Preferences: Edit login email, password, display language, select business type, edit Analytics auto linking
- Access: View and control others access levels.
Selecting Keywords
- Keywords tool contains two sections; More Specific keywords and Similar keywords. Similar keywords has two sections ; Expanded Broad Matches uses broadmatch technology to expand the keyword list, and Additional Keywords to Consider are synonyms.
Image Ads
- Site Targeted or Keyword Targeted – appear on the content network (must be opted in)
- Image ads are different to animated ads (which move)
- To create image ad, go to Ad Group–>Ad Variations–>Create Image Ad–>Browse for image file (50kb max)–> Display and Destination URL
- Image ads can be created in ad groups that target keywords, placements, or both
Video Ads
- Only appear on selected sites (e.g. About.com)
- Video ads can be created in ad groups that target keywords, placements, or both. Placement Targeted appear on the sites that you select
- Video Ads must have a still image before the video starts
- First click starts the video, next click goes to the advertisers website
- Choose to bid CPC or CPM (Keyword targeting = CPC, Placement = CPC or CPM)
Local Business Ads
- Ads that are associated with business listings on Google Maps. The ads show on Google Maps with an enhanced map component. Also show in a text format on the search network
- If applicable, ads will have a 5th line with the city and state of your business
- When creating a local business ad, need to enter business name and location. Also need to choose map icon and upload business image
Mobile Ads
- Shorter ads that appear only on mobile phones, have the choice to send users directly to your contact phone
- 12 – 18 characters. Choice of display URL or contact number. If URL, then the website must me properly formatted to display on a mobile phone Display URL max 20 characters
- Option to specify which mobile carriers your ads will show on
SEARCH AND CONTEXTUAL TARGETING
The Google Network
- Google Network = Search + Content
- Search Network = Google.com + Ask + AOL Shopping.com etc
- Content is also called contextual targeting as ads are matched to the content of the page. Determines contextual targeting by looking at content/theme, text and language. Google determines relevance of ambiguous words like “java” and also filters so that ads aren’t don’t show for tragedies or porn. They also look for invalid clicks.
- Need to opt out of content network – Campaign Summary–>Check Campaign, click Edit Settings
Customized Targeting
- For audiences that need to target a specific area, e.g. pizza store
- Customized targeting is the 3rd location targeting option
- Circular area targeting: Enter an address then select radius (or use latitude and longitude, or select point on a map
- Multi-point targeting: Select 3 or more points on a map. Points must not cross
Keyword targeting
- Broad Match: car = buy used car, homes = houses, car repair = repair car
- Phrase Match: exact sequence of your keywords. “Used book” = buy used book
- Exact Match: [used book] = used book
- Negative Match: -free etc
- Embedded match: [Toy Story] + -[Toy Story] = “buy toy story” but not “toy story”
COST AND BILLING
Cost Control
- Daily budget must always exceed CPC bid otherwise ads won’t show
- Standard Delivery shows ads intermittently throughout the day
- Accelerated Delivery will show ads as fast as possible
- Google may over deliver an ad up to 20% more than a specified budget on any given day to make up for days where traffic may be low. Google will credit any amount over the total monthly budget if your costs exceeds your daily budgetX30
- Preferred cost bidding allows you to set an average amount you’d like to pay per click rather than a max CPC
- Can set content bids separately to the search network by going to campaign settings
- Adwords Discounter works all the time (automatically) so that you pay the minimum amount for your ads position
- Smart Pricing reduces the cost of keyword targeted campaigns on the content network. It does this when Google determines that clicks are not converting at a good rate.
Billing Cycle
- Credit Card options: Visa, MasterCard, American Express, JBC and Visa and MasterCard Debit cards
- Billing outside of the US can have option of direct debit, bank transfer and switch/solo in countries where credit cards are not widely used
- Also have prepay and postpay options
- Can’t change payment type after 1 has been selected
- Credit card is charged every 30 days. Credit limit is initially $50 and rises every time the account reaches its credit limit within a 30 day period. Credit limit is raised as follows: $50–>$200–>$350–>$500
Billing Details and Resolution
- Billing Summery page contains invoice information
- Invoice Details page contains more specific information for each invoice, including invalid clicks refunds and promo credits
- Payment Details Page contains shows the details of the payment e.g. date
- Troubleshoot Card Declined: 1st retry card, then verify card information, then look at the credit limit, lastly call credit card company
- Credit Card Security: Advertiser–>Encryption Process–>3rd Party Processor
Payments outside of the US
- Method for prepay is bank transfer
- Bank transfer not available in US
- To set up bank transfer: My account–>Make Payment. Enter bank details (name, bank etc). Need to make sure to provide reference number to the bank. It can take 5 to 10 business days for Google to receive the funds
- Not possible to switch currency
VAT Tax (Value added Tax) …Europe
- Irish don’t need to self assess VAT charges
- Rest of Europe: Google will not charge VAT to your account but you must self assess. If you don’t provide Google with a valid VAT number Google will auto bill the Irish rate
- New advertisers need to provide VAT info during account set up…Edit Billing Preferences
Invoicing Basics
- Invoicing is a second payment option available to advertisers
- Advertisers who meet requirements are able to pay on a monthly basis by credit card cheque or wire transfer, campaigns are not subject to suspension if unpaid, though need to be paid with 15 days
- To apply need to have a spending level of at least $1500/month for 3 months and have an established credit history with AdWords
- Application Process: Submit credit application–>Application Review–>Accept credit terms and confirm details.
- If spending reaches credit limit ads will be slowed or discontinued
TRACKING AD PERFORMANCE
Ad Visibility and Troubleshooting
- If ads are not “Active” they will be either marked as “Active, bid is below first page bid estimate” or “Active, ads show rarely due to low quality score”
Account wide Issues
- Ads may not show if you haven’t verified your email address
- Ads may not show if you haven’t entered billing information correctly, or if credit card has been declined
Campaign Specific Issues
- Ads may not show if the campaign is close to or has reached it’s daily budget
- Ads may not show if daily budget is lower than the recommended daily budget
- Ads may not show to you if geo-targeted, or set language is not in your location or language
- Ads won’t show for “used books” if “used”
Ad Group Issues
- CPC needs to be higher than campaign budget
- Ads in paused or deleted ad groups won’t show
- Ads won’t show if they are disapproved (do not meet guidelines). Click on “reason” to learn why it was disapproved, then edit the ad to resubmit for review
- Ads with sexually explicit content will only appear on Google.com results alongside adult search results
Keyword and Placement Issues
- Disapproved keywords will not show ads
- If a keyword is deleted and then reinstated, it’s past performance will be taken into account
Reports
- Can turn off computer while reports are loading
- Can only save a maximum of 15 reports at any time, creating more than 15 will cause reports to be deleted
- Reports emailed and attached must be less than 2mb
ROI and Conversion Tracking
- ROI = (Revenue-Cost) / Cost( X100)
- ROAS = Return on Ad Spend
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