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For the reasons above, you should noindex them, but do make sure that the Google AdWords bot can crawl them - if this is the same bot as the organic bot, then don't noindex. I heard from a reliable source that noindexing will lower your ability to gain a higher Quality Score as google doesn't know what your page is about. If you are using Dynamic Search Ads then you will need to point those to the seo pages on your site, not your ppc pages.

I agree with this.

However, you should not be bidding for 1st position with the highest bids possible. 1st position costs 25% more than 3rd position and doesn't necessarily have an arguable CTR or Conversion rate.

What keyword types are you advertising on? This is going to make a SUBSTANTIAL difference in how much you are spending.

Are your keywords major head terms for "HP Printer" or are they a little more focused like "Refurbished Laserjet Printer" -- as this second one is probably not as broad as the first, the chances are higher that it will cost less.

But the specifics of your account aside, what is it you are ultimately using AdWords for? Are you research or ROI focused? Because if this is going to stick around a little longer than a one time test, we need to discuss your processes to lower costs over the lifetime of the account.

My colleague Kristina Kledzik wrote a really strong post about how to integrate PPC into your online marketing strategy, and one of the major CTAs toward the end was "Don't give up. Try it for at least 6 months" before you can determine that PPC isn't profitable.

The takeaway is that PPC is hard work, and to make the best decisions for your business you're going to need to dedicate a lot of mental space to making sure it runs smoothly. You don't have to spend a lot over your test times, but you do have to be committed to attempting to make keywords work.

I use Spyfu now for competitive research and like all competitive research it's not more than 60% accurate. I used SearchEngineMetrics and they aren't extremely accurate either (for my own clients as well as for their competitors).

Is the client not using Google Analytics? I feel like this would solve all the problems you're having.

If a client is using GA, here's a step by step way you can get the information you're looking for at no cost

1. Navigate to the Search Overview in Traffic Sources.
2. Select the Ecommerce option from the Goal Set nav
3. See the Average Value per Transaction
4. Simultaneously have AdWords up.
5. Customize your column view to show the Conversion Many Per Click options (Cost / Conv, Conv Rate, Conversions, and Total Value if you don't already have it)
6. Multiply GA Average Value by the target Cost (opposite of profit margin).
   This is your middle-of-the-road CPA (cost per acquisition or Cost / Conv target).
7. Compare to each campaign in AdWords.
8. Make the necessary changes in AdWords to work toward this goal. 
   If the average value increases, technically so does your CPA.
9. This gets a whole lot trickier if you are tracking a non-eCommerce goal and the client is lead gen based.

I know that looks like a lot to go through, but it's cheap, faster than it seems, and AdWords is really better than any bid management or campaign management system I've found. I'm still looking for the right one for my clients. Analytics is the best way to go. All of it's already right there.

Hey! This is really common, and something I deal with a lot.

AdWords is First-Touch Attribution based. Meaning that no matter how someone got back to your site, AdWords will still claim the conversion for itself.

So if someone browses through to your site like so:
Paid > Organic > Organic > Paid > Direct
the first paid search click is going to receive the credit for the conversion, in AdWords' eyes.

So yes, your affiliate cookie is being dropped because someone is most possibly coming back to the site through a different channel.

The best way to look at this is to check out the Multi-channel funnels in GA to see if there is a higher percentage of profits being attributed to AdWords at the first-click level.

This would be my first guess, but there are several other pieces that could be broken. I don't think it's broken, but if this theory doesn't work out, I'm happy to troubleshoot other possibilities.

This is definitely a job for Analytics!

Typically you can see how important paid search is to your funnel by looking at the Assisted Conversion Funnel in the Conversions section of Analytics. The closer to 1.0 each channel gets means that it is more important to the completion of that funnel.

Or, here's a quick way I just worked out for you to see how many times PPC touches a converting funnel where Direct is also involved... I don't typically work this out from this direction so my math could be incorrect. You'll want to look to the Multi-Channel Funnel > Top Conversion Paths report, select the conversion metric you are most interested in viewing (we can only see multi-channel paths for conversions with this method), and set the lookback date to 90 days, and choose to list more than 10 instances. I chose all of mine for this experiment.

Download the Top Conversion Paths for your transaction. The sample size I had was 187 different conversion paths. But the client I was viewing also had a "greater than 5 min on site" goal and the number of paths to that was 4113. There are so many ways someone can come to your site, so don't forget to be open minded about the paths that people take!

I filtered this list of 187 paths to just PPC (66) then I used this function {=SUM(LEN(A192:A236)-LEN(SUBSTITUTE(A192:A236,"Direct","")))/LEN("Direct")}* to find all the instances of Direct within those (317). For this particular conversion type, we see 20.8% of conversion funnels that involved PPC and Direct, 16.8% that involved PPC and Direct and Organic. But this could have been a funnel that was as bizarre as: Social > Email > Direct > Organic > PPC > Email > Direct. It will take a lot more granularity & descriptive funnel naming to pick out what instances of these started or ended with NonBrand or Brand searches.

• This function must be entered as an Array, so instead of just hitting ENTER when you submit it to a cell, you must CTRL + SHIFT + ENTER to get it to work, thus the brackets will show in the cell.

The page you linked to needs to be tested with Optimizely, Google Analytics Experiments, or Unbounce against another page that is much cleaner. I didn't even realize there was a form on this page. It's really busy and might not be legible for your audience. If you want a kick ass campaign, your conversion rate is going to make a massive difference on your performance (you'll have a lower CPA no matter what you're spending). You should definitely test this because long form and informational pages sometimes work better.

Typically when you're aiming for newsletter sign ups, you should have a higher conversion point on any keyword that you're looking for. I would say start with vague head terms on exact match. These terms aren't typically profitable and may lead to lower newsletter signup costs.

Ah! Ok, so on the left hand side of the tool, there is a pop up that says something like "My Keyword Ideas". After you minimize that, there will be 3 boxes for selecting your match type. Select Exact from this list and deselect Broad.

It never used to be like this. There have been many many changes and even more to come here soon. So I wouldn't doubt if it moves location or doesn't work appropriately in the future.

Let me know if for some reason that doesn't work for you either.

gI0BNWr

Hey Edmond,

Eric definitely has touched on the first questions I would have asked.

As far as tracking your PPC conversions, you need to have Google Analytics (or your preferred advanced web analytics platform) installed completely, with goals set up to track the number of website leads you receive so  you can double check the attribution modeling. PPC might not be the last touch converter, but might instead be initiating a TON of converting traffic to your site.

If you want to track a lead offline in your CRM, you will need to apply manual tracking to all of your campaigns. Then you will also need to have hidden fields in your form to pull this information from the site and place it in your CRM. Whether dealing with insurance, or dealing with Tshirt orders, it's imperative that manual tracking be ironed out and tracked appropriately. I've worked in a financial field before and manual tagging became our life force. It's amazing and great if you do it right!

Two domains can run in the same account. They cannot run in the same adgroup.

If you never plan on spending more than 15k/mo per domain then I think it's OK to keep them all in the same account. Just be sure to label them differently for each campaign.

If your brands will be bidding on the same keywords, then do not put them in the same account. Because they are two separate brands you can double serve ads, but it's not advisable. There are MANY things that can go wrong if you try to bid on the same terms with two different accounts. I would suggest hiring someone who knows what they're doing to help you set this up & possibly run it for you so you don't end up bidding against yourself and running up your own CPCs.

You will only be able to monetize them if you have ads enabled on your current channel and are targeting the channel with the real estate ads. However, this is not a good strategy. Real Estate may not share the same user base and then your video ads will not have been beneficial.

I think with Google's Keyword Tool you need to choose your match type. If you choose broad or phrase, then it will pick up any and all instances of "presonus 16" but if you choose exact, then it won't.

So I think that Google does compile data on the words typed as well as on the suggestions. But I haven't heard of any data that suggests they are willing to be public about how reliant on the data they are. I know for Google Instant Suggest (or whatever it's called) if you click on the suggestion within a second or two the ads don't count that as an impression, so it may be similar to that kind of thing? Google may see the blue linked suggestion click within a specific time as the actual intended search query.

Google does have a TOS line against doorway pages: sending traffic to Domain1.com, but Domain1.com has no other purpose than to send its traffic based on any action to Domain2.com

Hey, great question about ranking, but let's back up for a minute. I think the content of the piece has more to do with the format than the desired ranking of that format. yes "Content is King" but only valuable & good content....

What is the content? Is it time sensitive? Is it a category? Do you plan on adding new information to this content? Do you want people to engage with it or take an action to benefit your company? What is the CTA?

Assuming you're using it for adwords, it has a direct business relation to your purpose. So I think it should be a static page on the site (or what you're referring to as a landing page) because blog posts typically allow for a wide variety of actions to be taken on the page whereas a strong PPC intended landing page will need to be more specific and directed. There might be a different type of page that works better for organic traffic than PPC traffic, but that should come from several rounds of testing.

Hi Anthony,

I don't think that creating a new account for your client is the best solution. Google sees subdomains a little differently for SEO work, but for AdWords it's just another page.  And I'm fairly sure Google won't favor those who are spending a large amount, because large is a very relative term when it comes to advertising.

I would recommend working with what you have now for the next few months. If there is an abundance of spend, then using that spend to A/B test ads for the best CTR will impact your keywords more than the type of account switching you are referencing.

That being said, make sure your account structure is sound. Separating adgroups by keyword intent then creating new directly-related ad copy will help increase your quality score.

I'm only assuming you are referencing Quality Score when you say the account quality is low. What are you using to determine quality? Are you seeing conversions? How long do visitors stay on the page? What is the overall picture you're looking at? Looking at the quality of traffic you are delivering to the site will help you determine if these keywords are best for you.

For example, bidding on a head term like 'email marketing' will get people interested in what it does. If you plan on promoting content that will lead to a sale, then let your ad reflect that on this term. However, if you are looking for a direct conversion/sale/lead/etc, then 'email marketing' is probably not your best choice of keyword.

In short, analyse the quality of traffic you are receiving and communicate that back to your client so they know that even though the account isn't at Google's limits of perfection, it is benefiting the company and AdWords is working.

Hey Taysir,

Which call tracking service are you using for this? Or did you create one yourself? Ideally, you would be using javascript to change the number dynamically depending on source & medium, which will not interfere with local.

There are a lot of great answers here to your issue, all of these guys are very knowledgeable and correct across the board.  Just chiming in to hopefully make it more cohesive and direct - but what you're asking for has a complex answer

Yes, it is possible to track a specific lead's information. 
No, you cannot track the specific keyword that the user typed in (due to Google's latest privacy ruling). but you can track the listed keyword in the AdWords interface.

It is possible to use this with some of your favorite tools (like Convertable, Hubspot, SalesForce, etc), or if you have a working knowledge of URL parsing, you can set up your own hidden fields to accept different URL parameters.

However, just be sure you know how your chosen software works with attribution. All of these methods have their own attribution modeling. Most of them will only pull the information if it was a direct sale on that page in one session. If the user leaves the page, sometimes they won't parse the parameters.

You will have to use a bid management software like Marin to be able to see keyword level attribution through the whole path.

This is a very interesting payment structure. Here's why I am not a fan::

• Lowering your CPC means your ads won't appear higher on the page and you will potentially not capture as much converting traffic, and that's the ultimate goal of AdWords so this seems pointless to me.
• Setting a max CPC is limiting for keywords that will perform better if you give them a higher CPC. If you have to give them keyword specific CPC information, you might as well be managing the account by yourself!
• They can jerk you around quite a bit, as you're already weary about it.

If you want to continue the conversation with them, I would ask for case studies featuring spend and conversion numbers.

I work at Distilled and we do PPC management in the UK. For comparison, we charge a flat rate for accounts below £10,000. I think there are quite a few agencies that run this way, and it will be more consistent to judge the effectiveness of your agency, not necessarily the effectiveness of how to bid.

Seeing as your initial question was "what are other reputable agencies" and I don't have a definitive answer for you, give me a day or so to look into a few that I think would be a good fit.

Hello, I haven't used Bing's tracking tools because I have found them to be unreliable. However, it looks like your code containing flex.msn.com will work with UET. Here are a few different resources that may help you find and Install the new code. However, they do recommend that you delete all the old tags off your site and create new goals that will produce the UET code.

There's a video here that walks through the process pretty seamlessly.

This page speaks directly to your question for migration - and is where it says specifically that you will need to delete all of your old codes and conversion types within BingAds.

If you're having trouble creating the goal and having the correct code appear, I would give BingAds a call. They really do try to be as helpful as they can. It's been a while since they implemented UET so they should have the bugs worked out in their approach to helping you Hope these links help!

Hey Alec!

First & Foremost - GORGEOUS site. I haven't seen a psychic readings sight that puts so much emphasis on the human connection (through these amazing photographs you have). I love bouncing around between free psychic reading sites. I'm your worst customer haha  While I love the design, I feel like it's information is lacking. You could take some time to really provide some value prop on the first page instead of just talking about how it's free and asking people to click words that are no where on that page. I would recommend testing different images of your home page carousel first. My first impression would be to place them as: 3,4,1,2 but of course you should test to find the optimal order. Being met with a conversation about quality and legitimacy for psychic readings (at least from my very American perspective) would be something that I would already have on my mind while I was browsing different sites.

So, to directly answer your cost allocation question: I think that where you put your money is entirely dependant upon what your budget and targets will allow for this year. If you invest in getting more people to the site for organic & referral traffic, then you should also be prepared financially for your business to not take off for a few months. This is a much less costly way to obtain traffic, but it will definitely cost you time. I don't know what your goals are. If you decide to invest into a few keywords with lots of traffic and some competition, then you will need to make sure that you are converting a good portion of the traffic that you are paying for - and then the conversation leads into user tracking and such as Ray-pp & ameliavargo were discussing. No matter what direction you go or how much traffic you receive, your conversion funnel is going to determine how fast you make a profit.

I agree with Ray-pp that you should consider Account Creation as a mini goal - use these people to start email marketing (FREE!) to so that you can lure back people who were already interested. Also, you can use this list to target people with facebook ads later (there's an upload email addresses feature! ). After you work these people over and start making more Real Conversions from your email marketing, then you can start to feel more comfortable about investing back into PPC.