Field Guide to Digital Event Marketing: AdWords for Advanced Users

  • By Amy Mrazek | Thursday, May 22nd, 2014
Google Adwords

Ready to go further with your AdWords account?

Let’s start right where we left off in the last installment of our Field Guide to Digital Event Marketing series: the Google AdWords Overview. Now we’ll start really digging in to some of AdWords’ more advanced features.

Advanced Targeting
AdWords provides several options to target your ads for higher efficiency. Some of the most relevant for your industry may include the following:

Geo-targeting. This option allows you to purchase keywords that target specific locations (for example, within a 100-mile radius from your venue).

Day parting. Save money by limiting your ads so that they only display during certain hours or particular days of a week. Try to select times when customers are more likely to search for events.

Device. Determine whether to show more ads on mobile or desktop devices. If you’re targeting a younger demographic, for example, you may consider focusing more of your ads toward mobile devices.

To learn more about these options and others, visit AdWords’ guide to targeting your ads.

Quality Score
We’ve established that Google Adwords’ quality score metric is a fundamental piece of how the system works. The quality score is Google’s way of balancing the interests of both the advertiser and the end user of the search engine.

Each keyword is assigned a score on a scale of 1-10, and you should always aim to keep a score of 6 or higher on the majority of your keywords.. Your quality score is based on an analysis of several factors: the keyword; the landing page where the ad is directed; relevance of the ad copy itself to the keyword and copy on the landing page; your historical account data and the structure of the account; the ad’s click-through rate; and more.

So what can this mean for your AdWords account? A higher score costs you less for a better position, while helping you land a bigger piece of impressions from all searches.

Metrics & Reporting
Selling more tickets is probably your ultimate goal from using AdWords, but you’ll never grow if you don’t make sense of the data that AdWords gives back to you. Define your goals from the start of the campaign, and you’ll be able to optimize throughout.

Here are the most important metrics you’ll want to understand:

  • Impressions. The number of searches for which the ad was displayed.
  • Clicks. The number of instances when the ad was clicked.
  • CTR. The ratio of clicks vs. impressions.
  • Cost. The total cost for all clicks.
  • Converted Clicks. The total number of conversions made from the ad.
  • Avg. Pos. The average position of the ad on the search results page.

To learn more about reporting, visit AdWords’ guide to finding and running reports.

Keep an eye on our blog for more AdWords advice!

Missed the other posts in the series?

I. Finding New Customers and Helping Them Find You

II. Intro to AdWords and Writing Your First Ad

III. AdWords for Advanced Users

IV. Choosing the Best Keywords for Your Event

V. AdWords on a Budget

VI. Essential AdWords Ad Tips

VII. What Is Event Remarketing?