Google AdWords for Advertising & Marketing

How AdWords Advertising Works & Benefits of an AdWords Account

Sep 20, 2008

Learn how to use Google's AdWords advertising tool to generate website traffic and improve an e-commerce business.

Ever wonder about those little one or two-sentence advertisements that are present on thousands of websites on the internet? They're often powered by Google AdWords.

AdWords is a marketing tool that focuses on keywords for advertising websites for businesses, organizations and individuals.

How Does an Advertiser Create an AdWords Campaign?

Creating an AdWords advertisement or marketing campaign is fairly straightforward, though it can take some trial and error to determine which keywords and specific advertisements are the most cost effective.

The process begins by creating an AdSense account, which allows for the creation of an AdWords login name and password. Once this is complete, AdWords advertisements can be created.

AdWords management is simple. AdWords customers can log into their AdSense account, and once successfully logged in, the customer can control his/her various AdWords campaigns from a control panel.

Following a series of prompts, advertisers can create an AdWords campaign, which is comprised of one or more ads. AdWords users can select the ad wording and the keywords that will serve as "triggers" to make the advertisement appear. AdWords ads appear on Google search result pages and on thousands of affiliate websites that contain content that's related to the specific keywords that the advertiser has selected. When clicked, these ads will direct web surfers to the advertiser's website.

How Much Does Google AdWords Cost?

AdWords bids are determined solely by the customer, so AdWords can be used to accommodate virtually any company or organization's advertisement budget.

Once the AdWords customer has created an AdSense account, created a new AdWords campaign and selected keywords that will essentially "trigger" the AdWords advertisements to appear, the next step involves selecting the cost per click (CPC) bid for each keyword. Another term for CPC is price per click or PPC. Click bid values can range from just .5 cents to bids of several dollars per click.

AdWords account holders can also impose daily advertising budgets, which will enables advertisers to closely control costs. Once the daily advertising budget has been reached, the campaign ceases for the day.

Keys and Tricks to Using Google AdWords

It is important to remain competitive with other advertisers who are utilizing the same AdWords keywords, because CPC value does, in part, determine where the AdWords advertisements will appear. A competitively priced keyword may appear on the first or second page of Google search results, while a less competitive keyword may appear on the tenth or eleventh page of Google search results.

In short, competitiveness of a keyword's CPC bid will be a factor in determining how many people view a particular AdWords advertisement. To get an idea of what other competitors are bidding for a particular keyword, Google has the AdWords Keyword Tool.

The AdWords Keyword Tool has several functions, including offering keyword suggestions, keyword search volume, keyword competition, along with providing information on the average CPC bid for each keyword - a great method to ensure that one's AdWords bids are in the correct ballpark.

AdSense also offers keyword tracking, and other statistics, including how many clicks a particular AdWords ad has received and how many times the advertisement has been triggered to appear (also known as "impressions"). This information can be used to craft a better AdWords marketing campaign, since users are provided with information on the efficacy of each AdWord ad.

Things to Keep in Mind when Running AdWords Advertisements

There are also a few disadvantages to using AdWords as a marketing and advertisement tool. Firstly, there is no guarantee that visitors will stay and explore a website for any meaningful length of time. AdWords can generate traffic to a website, but it's up to the website designers to keep the visitors on the site once they've arrived.

And like any endeavor, there is a learning curve when it comes to developing effective AdWords campaigns. Some campaigns and strategies are more effective than others and it can take time and money to determine the most effective keywords, AdWords ads and strategies. But fortunately AdWords' tools are useful and when used correctly, they can help guide advertisers to running a successful AdWords advertisement campaign.