Google AdWords Tips

Here are some general tips on managing your own Google ad campaign.

This is the most important tip of all for anyone starting out with Google AdWords. Decide what your daily AdWords budget should be and set that as an upper limit for your ad campaign. When you create a new ad campaign, you will initially be buying many clicks from people who are not serious clients. Setting an upper daily spending limit ensures that you do not get an unexpectedly large bill for this unwanted web traffic.
Use a web tool such as Wordtracker to find out which keywords your clients are really searching for. If you are not bidding on the right keywords, your ad campaign will never gain traction. Use Google's own keyword suggestion tool with caution. The keywords that Google regards as popular are by definition the most expensive to bid on. It's OK to use them, but consider other sources of keywords too.
Always have two ads per set of keywords. Closely monitor which ad gets the most clicks. When you have enough clicks to decide which ad is performing better (that's at least 30-40 clicks), retire the weaker ad and write a new one to compete with the winner. The new ad should be a variant of either the winner or the loser, with just one element changed. For example, it could have a different title, or slightly different wording in the description.
Bid on many sets of keywords within your ad campaign. This will keep your AdWords bill down and ensure that your ad is displayed higher up the page than would otherwise be the case. For example, you are a motorcycle mechanic in Phoenix and you decide to bid $0.15 on the search: "motorcycle mechanic Phoenix". Your client searches for "Japanese motorcycle mechanic Phoenix". Your ad is displayed below that of your competitor who bid $0.20 for that search. However, if you also bid on "Japanese motorcycle mechanic Phoenix", you could reduce your bid to (say) $0.10 and yet appear above your competitor because Google will see your ad as more relevant. Thus, bidding on more search terms within the same ad campaign costs you less money, not more.
For each key phrase that you identify as being worth bidding on, add three entries to your AdWords campaign. For example:

phoenix motorcycle mechanic

"phoenix motorcycle mechanic"

[phoenix motorcycle mechanic]
The first entry is a broad matched search, meaning that you wish to bid on all searches containing the words "phoenix", "motorcycle" and "mechanic" in any order and regardless of which other words might also be in the search terms. The second entry is an exact matched search and will match only if the user searched for those three words (and no others) in that exact order. The third entry is a phrase matched search and will match only when precisely those three terms are in the search, but they can be in any order.

If one of your phrase matched or (better still) exact matched searches matches a user's search terms, Google will regard your campaign entry as more relevant than that of your competitor. You will therefore appear higher up the list of ads, and for less money than would otherwise have been the case.
Track your site visitors through to the point where they purchase your product (or request a meeting, or add themselves to your mailing list, or whatever the main goal of your web site is). If you have the budget for it, a web analytics tool such as Omniture works well. But much can be achieved with Google's free analytics and custom tracking that you can add to your site. Whichever approach you take, remember that your goal is to buy customers, not merely clicks. For example: you have two ads running. The first generates 1000 clicks while the second generates only 500. However, they each generate 50 sales. The second ad is the better one because you can achieve the same number of sales by purchasing less clicks.
Write compelling ad copy that concisely conveys the unique selling proposition of your business. If you had just a few seconds to tell someone what your business does in a way that sets it apart from your competitors, what would you say? If you can think of several possible answers, Google AdWords is a great environment to find out which one people find more appealing. Write ads using each of your ideas and let them compete with each other within your ad campaign. Use the technique described in Item 3 above to measure success and hone your ad copy.
Use negative keywords to eliminate traffic that you do NOT want. For example, if you do not want to attract visitors who are looking for a free service, consider adding the keyword -free to your campaign. You do not want to pay to attract visitors who are not qualified to become your customers.