Podcast Summary: "How To Start Building Effective Adwords Campaigns"

Podcast: The Digital Marketing Podcast
Hosts: Daniel Rowles & Ciaran Rogers
Date: May 8, 2018

Overview

This episode focuses on practical steps for planning and building effective Google AdWords (now Google Ads) campaigns, especially for marketers with limited budgets or those just getting started. Ciaran and Daniel share their tried-and-tested process, highlight valuable keyword research tools, and discuss campaign structuring, bidding strategies, and key metrics to monitor for success. The tone is practical, conversational, and accessible, aiming to demystify what can often feel overwhelming for beginners.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Start with Customer Understanding, Not AdWords

• (01:11) The groundwork for any successful campaign is understanding your customer: who they are, what personas you’re working with, and what they’re searching for.
• Ciaran emphasizes beginning with a keyword brainstorm, starting simple and relevant, then expanding as needed.

Quote:
"Your very first part of your pay per click campaign is actually taking a step back away from AdWords and understanding...who is your customer, what Personas are you working with and what sort of things are they going to be searching for?"
— Ciaran Rogers, [01:36]

• Avoid ‘upstream’ phrases that drive lots of traffic but aren’t directly related to what you’re selling, especially if your aim is generating leads or sales, not just brand awareness.

2. Effective Keyword Research: Quality Over Quantity

• (04:07) Avoid being too broad or too focused—striking a balance is key.
• Tools discussed:
  • Keywords Everywhere (browser plugin) provides in-context metrics (volume, CPC, competition) directly in your browser for multiple markets.
  • Notoriously named keyword tool (details in show notes due to explicit name).

Quote:
"What I think is particularly clever about Keywords Everywhere...is it tunes into lots of the other keyword places that you might be using...you can just star the ones that you want to keep."
— Ciaran Rogers, [06:11]

• Use spreadsheets for organizing and filtering keywords, focusing on buying intent. Group similar intent keywords into tight “buckets,” laying the foundation for your ad groups.

3. Bucketing and Structuring Your Campaign

• (09:33) Organize keywords into ad groups with similar intent.
  • Aim for ad groups with 3-6 closely related keywords—too many risks diluting relevance; too few becomes unmanageable.
  • Ciaran warns against overly granular structures (e.g., one keyword per ad group), sharing a cautionary tale from Daniel:

Quote:
"We had 250,000 ads running...it was the most horrific thing to manage."
— Daniel Rowles, [09:42]

4. Keyword Match Types & Practical Tools

• (10:03–12:45) Making use of match types:
  • Broad Match (not recommended for beginners)
  • Phrase Match ("keyword")
  • Exact Match ([keyword])
  • Broad Match Modifier (+keyword)
• Use tools like AdWordsWrapper.com to quickly generate combinations of these match types for your ad groups.

Quote:
"It's quite an interesting technique...use broad modified, use phrase match and exact. And we're experimenting with that at the moment."
— Ciaran Rogers, [12:11]

5. Writing Effective, Relevant Ad Copy

• (13:53) With AdWords’ updated format (at the time: 2x30 character headlines, 80 character description), headlines must include targeted keywords.

Quote:
"If you fail to do this, the advert is going to have a low quality score...users...are going to be predisposed to click on ads that have that keyword search within the headline."
— Ciaran Rogers, [14:05]

• Keep headlines static within an ad group to focus on core keywords; finesse other elements elsewhere in the ad.

6. Bidding Wisely: Don’t Rush to the Top

• (15:01–17:19)
  • Don’t default to high bids. Instead, start at Google’s suggested minimum to appear on the first page.
  • Give campaigns 2–3 days to “bake” as Google tests relevance based on click-through rates (CTRs).
  • Only consider raising bids once you have data and Google offers an “above organic results” bid suggestion.

Quote:
"If you bid too high, what Google's going to do...it'll attempt to compare your advert with the very best performers...but [without] quality score, it's just not going to show up...you just can't bid your way in."
— Ciaran Rogers, [15:03]

7. Landing Pages Must Align With Ad Groups

• (17:21–19:47)
  • The “holy trinity”: keyword, ad copy, and landing page should all be tightly relevant for a strong quality score and better costs.
  • Creating custom landing pages for main ad groups is vital; broad, generic pages won’t perform.
  • Old-school SEO basics (title, URL, headings matching the keyword) help boost landing page quality.

Quote:
"If you line these three things up really, really well and keep things nice and...focused, what you find happens is you end up paying a lot less than what the Google API said you would have done in the first place."
— Ciaran Rogers, [18:52]

• With strong targeting, Ciaran reports costs per click 4X lower than competitors ([19:37]), with high CTRs (nearly 4% vs. average 1%).

8. Monitor Key Metrics: Impression Share and More

• (20:26)
  • Quality Score, click-through rate, and most importantly: Impression Share.
  • <30% initially is normal; the goal is to reach 80%+ impression share indicating your ads are being shown as much as possible for relevant searches.

Quote:
"At that stage...you know you've got the bids about right."
— Ciaran Rogers, [21:36]

• Ongoing optimization is required; monitor what works, break out successful keywords into new groups, and iterate for increased focus and efficiency.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "If you're on a budget and you want to compete in a lean way, it's a great way of doing it, just thinking through."
  — Daniel Rowles, [19:55]

• "You can't just set it and forget it, unfortunately, because...your competitors will be reviewing their campaign...when you start getting to the top...they'll start making tweaks and changes."
  — Ciaran Rogers, [21:52]

Timestamps for Key Segments

• [01:11] – Start with customer research, not the AdWords interface.
• [04:07] – Effective (and ineffective) keyword brainstorming practices.
• [06:11] – How to use Keywords Everywhere plugin.
• [09:33] – Grouping and bucketing keywords for ad groups.
• [10:03–12:45] – Keyword match types explained; use of AdWords Wrapper.
• [13:53] – Writing tight, relevant ads for quality score.
• [15:01–17:19] – Setting and adjusting bids wisely.
• [17:21–19:47] – The importance of specific, relevant landing pages.
• [20:26] – Monitoring impression share and other key metrics.
• [21:52] – Ongoing optimization; expanding and refining campaigns.

Final Thoughts

Daniel and Ciaran break down what can be an initially daunting process into clear, actionable steps. Their method emphasizes relevance and focus at every stage, from keyword selection and ad copy through to landing page alignment and metric tracking. With detailed examples, practical tool recommendations, and real campaign insights (including pitfalls from experience), this episode is a must-listen for anyone wanting to build cost-effective AdWords campaigns from the ground up.

For specific links and tools mentioned, the hosts strongly recommend checking the show notes at targetinternet.com/podcast.