Please give me your feedback on my Google Adwords campaign.

[Gordon Akman]

My business has always been focused on B2B sales i.e. companies contract me to find staff for them to fill specific positions. This can be a sometimes difficult and time consuming process so being a small business I tend to work with a relatively small group of Clients. Having a solid portfolio of reasonably reliable Clients has meant I have not had to advertise my business much. In fact, the best way for me to get new clients when required is to cold call businesses until I get a few positions to work on.

Due to the current employment market I have seen strong demand for Candidate services i.e. Resume Writing, Interview Coaching, Career Counseling etc and have decided to grow my business in this area. Now that I have decided to grow my B2C sales I understand I will have a need to develop successful advertising strategies. So to the reason for my thread - Google Adwords.

I have decided to learn about Google Adwords by starting my first campaign with a budget of $20 per day advertising Resume Writing Services and Interview Coaching Services.

I have set up one campaign comprising 4 Ad Groups. Two Ad Groups for each Service I am advertising.

The first Ad Group Ad is:

Professional Resumes
Experienced Resume Writers
Professional Service from only $59
www.negotiumgroup.com.au

The destination page for the Ad is a specific page on my website that details the services.

The Keywords are:

professional resume writers
professional resume writing
professional resume writing service
professional resume services
professional resume help
professional resumes

The Negative Keywords for my entire campaign are:

free
example
examples
sample
samples

The second:

Resume Writers
Expert Resume Service
Resume Writing from only $59
www.negotiumgroup.com.au

Keywords:

resume writing service
resume writers
resume writer
resume writing services
resume writer service
help with resume

Third:

Interview Coach
Professional Interview Coaching
Expert Interview Preparation $99
www.negotiumgroup.com.au

Keywords:

Interview Preparation
Interview Coach
Interview Coaching
Professional Interview Course
Professional Interview Training
Professional Interview Coach
Professional Interview Coaching

Fourth:

Job Interview Coaching
Expert Help with Job Interviews
One-on-One Interview Coaching $99
www.negotiumgroup.com.au

Keywords:

Job Interview Help
Job Interview Preparation
Job Interview Training
Job Interview Skills
Job Interview Coaching
Job Interview Course
Job Interview Coach

If anyone has any feedback it would be appreciated as this is the first time I have used Google Adwords.

[vstacy]

My first question is:

Have you done a Google Search on these terms so you can see what other people have for their Google Adwords campaigns ?


Also, are you targeting a specific location because so far by your keywords it would mean you would even get inquiries for your services from people in the USA ... do you want to be international or stick with australia?


Further, why not have an offer as your catch ? Target "Resume Writing Help" - those seeking to have assistance with their resume writing. Have you in your adwords .. and then have a link to your page with a newsletter subscription link "Subscribe today + receive your free HOW TO blah blah blah" sort of thing ?


I also personally wouldn't add the price in your adwords campaign. You want people to visit your site so give them at least one reason to do so unless that is what most people in your adwords categories are doing?


Just my 5c.

[Gordon Akman]

Thanks for the reply, vstacy.

Yes I have been searching many related keywords and seeing what triggers my competitor's ads and what their ads look like. I have then been clicking their ads and taking a thorough look at their websites, services, pricing etc.

I have targeted Australia in my campaign and so far all my leads have come from Australia. Although I tried using Google Network and selected several Australian employment related sites. The next day I had a look and it had automatically started advertising my site on sites in India and the US etc so I immediately changed my campaign back to 'search' only. If you know how to use the Google Network properly please give me any tips.

You are right I should try and get people to subscribe to my site and offer a newsletter etc. I have not done this previously because I haven't been prepared to put the time in.

I chose to put the price in because I only want people who are prepared to pay to click my ads. Some other ads have the price in but most do not. My competitors generally charge significantly more - like between $150-$300 for a resume and $200-$300 for 1 hr coaching. I'm hoping people will click on the ads of a few different providers before making a choice and my pricing competitiveness will be a motivating factor.

[Jay-T]

What's Up,

Just wanna zoom in on 1 thing that I feel could be blocking you
off from lots of leads via your ppc campaign.

Your ad copy.

"Professional Resumes
Experienced Resume Writers
Professional Service from only $59
www.negotiumgroup.com.au"

The problem here is that your ad is..."safe".

I think it was Jay Abraham that said: sometimes all you need to do to sell a horse is write an ad that says "horse for sale"...But I think "emotional edgy" is way more effective.

You've only got a handful of words to work with and you're putting money on
the line here so don't take risks by playing it safe.

The secret to great ads and sales is addressing and acknowledging the other persons "pains and desires".

The first thing I noticed about your ad is that you're talking about one person...Yourself.

Take the spotlight off you for a second and shine it on your prospect.

Who do they think is more important in this deal? You OR them? No brainer.

If someone is punching in "professional resume services" or "resume help" (which was entered quite a few times in google by searchers) what kind of situation do you think they currently facing?

When a person is "actively" searching for a solution, they're out of their comfort zone (I.E. they're in PAIN) - which means they want a solution that'll safely place them back into their comfort zone so they can get on with life which at this point is probably on hold for them...

Knowing that a person is out of their comfort zone is useful if you want to sell them something.

Find out what the pain is by getting into a one-on-one convo with your old and new clients and dig into their fears and find out what's keeping them up at night?

Take that pain and slap it into your top line, then...

Find out what result they ultimately want - not just "I want a job" - what would getting "that job" allow them to do? How would improve in their life?

Take that meaningful result and slap that onto the next line.

After talking with them you'll find common pains and desires that's unique to your market and when you can show them that you "get" their situation and what they're trying to accomplish AND you know exactly how to get them there then your market will see you as the only logical choice.

Hope this helps bud ; )

[Aidan]

Good post from Willa about appealing to the emotions and sure enough, your area is an emotive one. One of the oldest advertising tactics is to focus on the end benefits to the user rather than features of a product (or service).

Would also suggest try getting a Call to Action into your ads. I know you've only got a title line and 70 characters to play with, though you can use the URL line a little also.

So maybe see if you can combine those ideas... Appeal to their emotions and call them to take action.

[FionaFell]

Sure you can write resumes, but can that resume get the applicant the job/the income/the lifestyle they desire?

Answer that; in the ad content and you will get more click throughs wanting to do 'whatever it takes' to 'get the job of their dreams'

Sell them the benefits of their new job.

[Chris Bates]

I'll target the more technical side :P

First, capitalise your URL: www.NegotiumGroup.com.au make it much more readable.

Second, landings pages! You mention that you deep link to the services on your page already. Make sure that landing page is specific to your ad group, otherwise you'll get a bad keyword relevance. If your ad title is "Professional Resumes" then have that in a h1 tag at the top of the page.

Lastly, your first and second ad groups are very similar.

You could phrase match, i.e. "resume writers" and "resume writing", and you'll have save yourself a lot of work.

Those two phrase match keywords will land you:
professional/affordable/smart/clean/etc "resume writers" services/product/help/solutions/advice/consulting/etc

There's nothing in AG 1 and 2 that you couldn't just have in the one AG. Then just make both your ad copy's, and Google will rotate them for you. Delete the non-performing one, run another A:B test, etc etc.

Also I too turn off content network, I don't like the fact you really don't have control over it. I'm sure it would work in broader advertising, but when we're targeting particular geographical markets it seems to be counter productive.

[Aidan]

Ha ha, sometimes we give too much away...

Gordon (and other readers) between the various inputs you see here is a fairly complete service that many companies charge handsomely for!

While nobody has given their complete service away individually, add them all up and you just about have a complete consultation!

That will be $300 please - I'll divvy it out LOL

[Chris Bates]

Hahaha I reckon Aidan, but then that's what we're here for!

I give advice here freely, because I've received a lot of advice in return.

[Gordon Akman]

I really appreciate all the feedback. Your $300 is in the mail... lol

I'm going to try some of the ideas you guys have mentioned. I'll keep posting my campaign details here for open discussion.