DEV Community: Kevin Urrutia

Google Ads Tutorial: all you need to know!

Kevin Urrutia — Wed, 26 Feb 2020 03:19:15 +0000

Learn to do proper Google Ads campaigns

A proper Google Ads campaign has many factors and moving parts involved. With that being said, it’s not exactly rocket science and all it takes is a little commitment and determination to bring them to an exceptional level. You really don't need to be an expert on the subject to create inventive and effective advertisements. If you’re at all worried about the ins and outs that go into making your campaigns, do not fret. We’re here to give you a brief Google Ads campaign tutorial and make it so you’re ready to create your own. By the end of this, we hope that you’ve learned a thing or two about Google Ads and it doesn’t seem like such a treacherous endeavor.

Getting Started

Before diving too in-depth on this marketing tutorial, it’s good to give a background on them. If you’re at all confused about the difference between Google Ads and Google Adwords, they are actually the same. Google changed the name of the platform from Google Adwords to the current Google Ads. As you may have guessed, you do have to create an account to get this started.

Step 1: Configure your keywords

Keywords are the backbone of your advertising campaign. They will ultimately decide whether or not you get traffic and conversions for your business.

So what are they? And why do they hold such importance?

Well, as the name may reveal, they are the words tied to the product you sell at your business. These keywords are diverse in nature, but many are highly sought for more common business types. If you run a business that sells something such as hats, a keyword for this business could simply be “hat”. However, that would be much too broad of a keyword and would need to be improved upon. If you sell different hat varieties, such as a “regular ball cap” or even a “sombrero”, a keyword might instead be “red baseball hat” or “colorful sombrero”. Once you make a more specific keyword, then you’ll be able to drive more meaningful traffic to your site.

Step 2: Choose your campaign type

There are a few different variations of what a Google Ads campaign can be. These campaigns could be a Search Network, Display Network, Shopping, Video, or App. Although these are all intrinsically different, they all have the same purpose. That purpose is to increase your sales, leads, web traffic, and more. To put it plainly, these campaigns are here to help your business in terms of its marketing strategy.

A good place to start if you’re a beginner is with a Search Network campaign. These are the campaigns tied directly to your keywords. They come into play when a potential buyer makes a Google search for a product that falls into your keyword database. If this occurs, your product will be at the top of the page in the form of an advertisement. It’s also important to keep in mind that you will not be charged for this ad unless it is clicked on by the person.

After choosing your campaign, you will also want to name it. A name relevant to your business or its product is best for this. To reiterate, each of these campaign varieties has its own qualities and uses.

Step 3: Decide on your advertising location

While it does make some sense to have your ads run anywhere and everywhere possible, it’s not the most economically sound thing to do.

It’s best to figure out where your audience resides and put the focus onto that geographical location. As it doesn’t come as a surprise, one of the largest markets for online goods is the United States. Having your ads run in that country is most likely a safe place, however, many paying customers could reside in Europe or Asian countries.

One of the most effective things to do with your advertisements is to be very fluid with them. For this section, it means realizing where your advertising is effective and where it is not. If you find that they are doing well in India, but not as much in say Canada, then emphasis should be then put on your Indian customers. A little research into consumer behavior based on your particular product can go a long way when it comes to this.

Step 4: Set up your daily budget and run those ads

How much should you spend on Google Ads?

The last thing you have to do before you’re ready to run your ads is to set up your daily budget. There’s no one precise way to handle your budget, it usually depends on the type of business that you are running.

If you’re running a smaller and cost-conscious business, then obviously a smaller budget would be the better route and vice versa. You’ll also find that Google may recommend a budget to you after you’ve begun to run your ads, finding what might be most efficient for your business.

You may also notice that you spend more than your daily budget on certain days. This happens because Google decides to spend more on days with higher search traffic to improve your performance and increase your ROI. After it’s all said and done, you won’t spend the equivalent of your daily budget after a certain period of time. All in all, Google is on your side in this endeavor. After your budget is set, your ads are ready to run and help your store get where you want it to be.

Okay, my ads are running, what now?

At this point in time, it’s a mix of waiting patiently and constantly trying to update and improve those very ads. For one, you’ll have the opportunity to audit your Google Ads to really get an inside look at their performance. One factor of this is being able to see which campaigns have a much higher spend with a lower quality score. When discovering something such as this, you’ll be able to diagnose the problem much easier. Along with this, you will be able to see how well each of your keywords is performing quantitatively. If you find that some of your keywords are underperforming, then you can work towards replacing or improving them. Sometimes, however, the best thing to do for your campaigns is to leave them be and see how well they stand the test of time.

Final Thoughts

Hopefully, by now you have a background and understanding of Google Ads and this online ads tutorial was able to help in that. As you know, Google is one of the most prominent websites in people’s lives. Due to this, advertising your business directly through the platform may be one of the easiest/useful methods you can do. It’s also important to keep in mind that there are companies out there to help you with your advertising campaigns. One, in particular, is Clever ecommerce. This application helps you with all the facets of your ad campaigns, letting you focus on other components of your business.

Either way, we hope you were able to gain some knowledge on the basics of Google Ads and are ready to implement them to bring your business to a higher echelon!

This article is written by Matt Sanders, who worked for Clever Ecommerce in an internship position and has since helped as a freelancer. He's currently studying Marketing and Sociology at Ohio State University and is graduating in December of this year. He's an avid moviegoer, so if you ever need a recommendation he's your guy. Matt also loves trying new food/restaurants, and enjoys fine wine and beer!

PPC Hacks: 7 Effective Strategies to Save Money on PPC Ads

Kevin Urrutia — Thu, 22 Aug 2019 04:01:33 +0000

With your PPC campaigns, it all comes down to making more with less. Even seasoned advertisers are always looking for innovative ways to optimize their campaigns to help them save more money.

If you have a business, saving money on PPC can determine your success (or failure).

So if you are reading this post, you have come to the right place. We have gathered all the money-saving PPC tips in a single post. Applying it to your strategy can even help your ad budget go further.

1. Write a good ad copy

One of the best ways to save money on PPC ads is to create a better ad copy. That’s because an excellent ad copy boosts your CTR, which in turn improves your Quality Score.

If you are a PPC agency in New York, for example, you need to focus on Quality Score in order to run a cost-effective campaign.

Creating an enticing, descriptive copy for your PPC ads will make a significant difference; you can hire a professional content provider.

Moreover, your headline is important. There are times that people will read your headlines first before deciding to click your link or not. Ideally, it should include your target keywords and call-to-action, promos (like a special sale) and other elements.

When you fail to deliver a clear and concise message with your ads, your ad copy would not gain any traction.

2. Pick the right ad network

Choosing the right ad network is something that you should focus on especially if you want your ad spend to be reasonable.

Here’s the thing, various ad networks have different levels of inventory. Meaning, there are ad networks that have “less ad space” so the competition tends to be higher, elevating its price.

There are also networks, like LinkedIn, that do not have cheap ad spaces, mostly because they are catering to the B2B market, a group of people that could generally afford higher ad costs.

So if you are just starting out, there are two ideal networks that you can begin with: AdWords and Facebook ad Adwords.

Note that AdWords can be costly for newbies. Meanwhile, Facebook is generally the cheaper alternative. The good thing about Facebook is that has a lot of users, and your target audience is most likely in that network.

3. Look for new keywords to target

When it all comes down to saving money, what other advertisers will do is to decrease their spend or reduce their bids.

But one of the most effective ways to save money on PPC is to find new keywords to target. Looking for new keywords and targeting long-tail keywords can have a significant effect on your click-through rates, raising your quality score, at the same time reducing costs.

4. Add Negative Keywords

There will be times that your ads will be triggered by terms that have your keywords but are not so relevant to the nature of your business.

Let’s say, you are selling camping tents online, and you picked “camping” as your broad keyword. Then, your ad might be shown to people that are looking for camping destinations.

There is not a guarantee that they will be interested in camping tents, specifically. So, some of your ads will be ineffective as you try to entice them with your offer.

Placing negative keywords will help solve this problem, ensuring that every dollar you are spending is helping you attract qualified leads. These negative keywords will tell AdWords to not show your ads to people who perform searches using particular words.

5. Schedule your ads

Perhaps you prefer only showing your ads on particular days. For instance, only during business hours so that you can better handle customers.

In fact, a lot of people are not aware of the fact that AdWord campaigns can be set to show only on “specific days and hours.”

So, let’s say you studied your sales history and you found out that most of your conversions are taking place within 1-3 PM in the normal workweek. You can set a bid adjustment so that you can boost your bid for a specific time.

Also, this will ensure that you are not running your ads on weekends if you know that the workdays are giving you better results, and your budget is only limited.

Take a closer look at your conversion history and know the peak hours for your ads. Otherwise, you are just flushing money down the drain.

6. Refine match types

A single PPC setting can burn even the biggest ad budgets. Keyword match types that are too broad will be hard for your wallet, so you must check appropriately these ad types first.

Note that some search terms are more competitive, and therefore more expensive than some. There are also times where you cannot avoid utilizing particular match types for other search terms.

So, you always need to make sure that you are not wasting cash on irrelevant match types.

7. Optimize your funnel

You can also save more money on your PPC ads by optimizing your funnel. Meaning that you should take the necessary steps to create more revenue, but from the same ad spend.

Let’s say you are earning $100 from a $50 ad spend. When you optimize your funnel, you can double that to $200 with the same ad spend.

So, it is something that you need to take note of if you want to make your ad spend more efficient, and way to save more money in the long run.

Over to You

So there you have it. These PPC tips and strategies will help take your business to the next level. You can utilize this to improve your business’ paid ad campaigns, and you can also use them for search ads, paid ads, Facebook ads, and so on.

What’s great about it is that these ads are easy to implement, and you can easily apply them in your own PPC strategy.

How to Use and Setup AdWords Call Tracking for Your PPC Campaign

Kevin Urrutia — Fri, 28 Jun 2019 06:59:00 +0000

So, you're spending your cash and resources on your Google AdWords campaign. But is it worth the cost? Should you invest more in your PPC campaign, or is it time to cut your losses?

How do you know that it's working?

To measure your ROI, you have to first look at your conversions. What particular actions do users take after seeing your ad? How many people sign up for your newsletter, click the link to your website, buy from you, or pick up the phone to call you?

Well, whatever your goals may be, it has to be measurable.

Call Tracking with Google Adwords

For you to measure if your campaign is successful or not, you need to utilize the free AdWords conversion tracking tool. It lets you analyze what prospects do once they see your ad.

Maybe you've heard about conversion tracking. You've also probably spent hours in the past analyzing your click-through rate (CTR.)

But do you know that you can track phone calls as well?

According to Voy Media, a top PPC company, "If you're not using Google call tracking yet, then you could be seriously missing out on your conversions. When you integrate phone calls in your conversion rates, you'll know that you're not getting the ROI that you're expecting to get, or that your PPC campaign is more successful than you initially thought."

In other words, if you want an accurate measurement of your AdWords campaign, then you need to study your web traffic as well as your calls.

In your Google AdWords account, set the Call Extension Tab to set up the call tracking in AdWords.

Hit Campaigns → the Campaign or Ad group that you want to place a call tracking → Ad extensions.

After clicking on Ad extensions, you can now change the view.

In Google AdWords, set up a toll-free number by clicking Call Extensions.

Then, click Extension → Choose your Campaign → and hit done.

After pressing done, a box will show with a couple of words,+ a new phone number.

Now, it's possible for you to change the settings for your phone number. Moreover, GoogleAdwords gives forwarding numbers. These are numbers that forwarded on your business line.

Note that these numbers are free. However, when users click on an ad or press a single number from a mobile, you'll be charged accordingly.

Once you're satisfied with the changes, you can now hit save.

What is a Google Forwarding Number?

In its most basic form, it's a free Google number that shows up on your site the moment a user clicks on your ad. This number will replace your business phone number for users who clicked on your ad. While the numbers may not be the same for everyone, these calls will be tracked.

Take note that these are for selected countries (US, UK, Australia, France, Germany, Spain, and Sweden.)

How do I Properly Set up This Tracking?

It is called conversion tracking by Google, and it provides an extensive guide to set it up.

Everything's pretty straightforward. All you need to do is to log on your Google AdWords account, place a label on the specific conversions that you want to track and set a snippet code to your site.

You have the option of adding the code by yourself, or better yet, hire a developer to help you out.

How do I Add a Call Only Ad in Google Adwords?

In Google AdWord's campaign setting, press the ad add box. After, you need to click the Call-only Ad setting tab.

Afterward, you have to fill in the information just like an average Google AdWords ad. The advantage of this is that only focused on accepting phone calls from Google AdWords.

Sync Your Google Analytics and AdWords Together

To make your call tracking run smoothly, sync your Google Analytics account with AdWords.

Make sure that this is done correctly so that you don't ruin your Google Analytics dashboard reports.

If you don't link these two properly, Google Analytics will fail to report paid search visits, and your data will be grouped in organic visits instead.

Once you've successfully linked your AdWords with Google Analytics (and vice versa), then you're all set.

However, if they're still not linked yet, follow these tips:
Syncing in Google Adwords
On top of your Google AdWords account, click Settings.

Then press Google Analytics to link your Analytics and AdWords accounts together. Make sure that they have the same email addresses to access on your Google Analytics profile.

After clicking Google Analytics, you'll also have access to a list of profiles that you can connect. Just press the name of the profile, and hit save.

You'll see if you're already connected once Selected Views listed on your right.

Syncing in Google Analytics

Go on the Admin console of you want to sync in Google Analytics. Under Property, press AdWords Linking.

Always make sure that your email in your AdWords account is the same. That way, the entire process is much more comfortable and streamlined. Also, see to it that your AdWords account links to your profile.

Once everything is set, click Done.

Over to You

Google call tracking is crucial for local businesses like restaurants, cafes, flower shops, repairs shops, salons, bakeries, or anyone who takes a large portion of their sales through phone calls.

Even businesses that rely less on phone sales should also consider AdWord's free call tracking tool. Once you effectively track and analyze your phone conversations, you'll have a better sense of your PPC performance, overall. You can also boost the number of calls you get from your business, which will ultimately improve your bottom line.

When you're armed with the necessary data, you'll quickly know much money you need to set aside for your AdWords campaign. You'll also have a better idea of whether or not you should entirely rethink your approach. That will put you later on to the road where there are higher profitability and growth in the long run.

WordPress Plugins and Tools Must-Have for Business Websites

Kevin Urrutia — Mon, 18 Mar 2019 03:32:54 +0000

WordPress can be a powerful tool for businesses. If you're using it as a platform for your website, there are thousands of plug-ins and tools available on the market.

However, having so many options to choose from can be quite overwhelming, making you stop searching before you even begin.

In this post, we'll discuss the top WordPress plug-ins and tools that will help you make the most of your site:

1. WPForms

WPForms is designed to allow you to make forms that you can place anywhere on your website. It helps you make order forms, payment forms, create forms, etc.

The best part is that's beginner-friendly, so if you're starting out, you can make the most out of this tool. It also comes with a bundle of pre-designed form templates, allowing you to build professional forms easily.

Moreover, most of the forms you create in it have drag and drop features, making it easy to put together custom forms with minimal effort. However, we would suggest that you opt for an online scheduling plugin instead if your goal is to drive consultations or bookings. Once you collected email addresses, get an email marketing software to send campaigns and build email automations.

2. WP Security Ninja

Most small website owners don't use security plug-ins with the belief that only big-website owners are targets of malicious attacks. But no matter how small your site is, if you’re not taking safety precautions, you're an easy target for hackers.

Security Ninja is a top-rated product with plenty of preventive action, to ensure that your site is secured, rather than waiting for those attacks to happen. The plug-in searches for potential problems, vulnerabilities, and versions of the old software.

Now let's take a closer look at its top features:

Checks for the most common behaviors that could lead to getting hacked.
WP core and external software tests.
Brute forces your website to prepare it for any incoming attacks.
50+ checks to look for issues in your install.

3. Tidy Repo

There are numerous plug-ins are available on WordPress that it's challenging to know which are the ones that work perfectly and recommended by a lot of users.

If only you can build a list of reliable plug-ins that you can use, right? Well, Tidy Repo is built exactly for that.

It functions to help you do extensive research so that you can find the right plug-ins that work perfectly for your site. For example, the plug-in that it recommends will be backed by a full report.

4. WP Reset

If you want to do a redesign to your WordPress site, then resetting is the best way to do it. WP Reset functions to clear out blog posts, users, store products, portfolio items, and all the things that you've added to your WordPress installation. It also clears out your comments, media files, ratings, taxonomies, etc.

You also don't have to worry since it doesn't erase your installed themes and plug-ins. Instead, it merely deactivates them. It usually works well in test environments where you need to start over continually.

5. Coming Soon and Under Construction Page

If you're still creating your website, then you should build your WordPress coming soon page.

Even if you're still in the process of developing your site, you might be getting transactions from prospects at that time. Moreover, it serves as a teaser for your website, making visitors look forward to your finished site.

Meanwhile, if you're working or redesign, then you need to create an under construction page for WordPress. That way, you're telling your visitors that you're site is being fixed, and they have something to wait for.

6. Yoast SEO

We all know that SEO is crucial for the growth of your business. If your site ranks better on search engines, you'll gain more traffic and more sales.

Yoast SEO is one of the most-used plug-ins on WordPress. The WordPress plugin developers behind this tool ensure that Yoast SEO can help optimize your website for search engines. Aside from that, it also helps you add focus keywords, meta descriptions, and meta tags. In other words, it optimizes your site as a whole.

The plug-in uses a traffic light system that helps you know if your SEO is right before you publish a blog post, article, or guide you've been working on.

7. G Suite

G Suite is made up of a variety of applications from Google. These include Google Docs, Google Sheets, Google Slides, Gmail, and more. You can easily access apps under it, and it's relatively easy to use, too.

It also lets you sync your business domain email address to your Gmail, making it convenient to handle online emails.

8. MonsterInsights

MonsterInsights is considered one of the best Google Analytics plug-ins to date. It allows you to connect your site with Google Analytics, helping you learn more about your web visitors and what they're doing. This plug-in can be optimized to improve earnings.

9. Sucuri

Another security plug-in that you can use in your WordPress site to protect it from threat is Sucuri. With the rise of malicious attacks online, security has been one of the most crucial concerns of online business owners.

The web application firewall of this plug-in gives the best layer for protection to your website. It monitors and protects your site from malware threats, brute force attacks, DDoS, and more.

10. MemberPress

A complete WordPress membership plugin, MemberPress has a variety of features that you need to build a robust membership site. It allows you to restrict specific posts, pages, custom post types, or any other existing types from your web visitors.

Moreover, it lets you create multiple levels of memberships only in a matter of seconds. Aside from that, its advanced content lock options let you quickly unlock the content anywhere.

Wrapping It Up

So, there you have it. While the list of plug-ins that are available on WordPress are practically endless, these tools and plug-ins are designed to help you grow your WordPress site in the long run. So why not give them a try and see the difference that it makes?

The Non-Developers Guide to Facebook Pixel for Better Campaign Tracking and Analytics

Kevin Urrutia — Thu, 15 Nov 2018 06:43:36 +0000

Facebook advertising is one of the most utilized marketing strategies nowadays. For you to maximize the benefits that Facebook advertising can give you, you should learn to use Facebook Pixel.
This guide can give you a better understanding of what Facebook Pixel is, and how you can use it, even as a non-developer, to have better tracking and analytics of your Facebook campaigns.

What is Facebook Pixel?

Facebook Pixel is an analysis tool that you can install on your website to help you measure the effectivity of your advertising campaigns on Facebook. Facebook Pixel equips you with the ability to track the actions of your site’s visitors who were led to your site by clicking on your Facebook ads.

Facebook Pixel has two older versions. One is conversion tracking pixel, and the other is custom audience pixel. The current version combines these two versions into just one nifty analytics tool that can do both.

What actions can Facebook Pixel track?

As mentioned above, Facebook Pixel allows you to track what actions your site visitors take – at least those who got into your site through your Facebook ads. The following are the nine things that Facebook Pixel allows you to track:

which pages they view
what searches were done on your site
what items were added to the cart
what items were added to the wishlist
when they check out their carts
when they key in their payment information
when they complete a purchase
when they become a lead by signing up for a free trial
when they complete a registration form

With the knowledge of which among these are done by your site’s visitors, then you can better understand your potential customers, primarily as to their behavior in and towards your site, allowing you to come up with advertising that can best achieve your desired results.

How to create a Facebook Pixel and add it to your website

Knowing what Facebook Pixel can do for you, you should understand how useful it can be in helping you determine whether your Facebook advertising is giving you the results you are expecting from them.

For you to be able to enjoy that benefit and to turn that understanding into actionable points, you should start making use of Facebook Pixel now. Here are the steps needed to setup Facebook Pixel:

Step 1: Create your Pixel
The first thing that you should do is to create a pixel. Go to Facebook, then into the Facebook Ads Manager, when you click the burger icon, you will be able to see Pixels. Click on it. After that, you will be able to name your pixel. After having accepted the terms, you will be ready to go to the next step.

Note: Each ad account can only have one pixel so when you set up your pixel (especially when naming it), you keep that in mind.

Step 2: Add the Pixel code to your website
After being able to set up your pixel, you will have a code for your pixel which you should incorporate to your site’s code. There are different ways that you can do this, but regardless of the method available to you, you should copy the code and paste it into your website. In doing this, make sure that you paste the code in the header of your site (in between the
"< head >" and "</ head >" tags).

You will need to do this step in all of your pages. Their action-based codes that you should put into the appropriate website element such us buttons, so make sure you do that as well.

After you have finished, you may proceed to the next step.

Step 3: Confirm your Facebook Pixel is working
After you have added the pixel to your website, you are done setting it up. It is advisable, however, that you test it first before you rely on the accuracy of your Facebook pixel.

Google Chrome has an extension called Facebook Pixel Helper. Download it and install. Once that is done, head to a page with Facebook Pixel. There is a "</>" icon which will turn blue if it detects a pixel. It also can detect how many pixels there are on a page. Additionally, it can tell you if a pixel is not working correctly so that you may address any error.

Tracking and Analytics is essential

Facebook Pixel is just one of the many analytics tools that you can use to measure the effectiveness of your campaigns. As MajesticLab.com puts it, you need innovative and creative ways to attract more fans and followers to your social pages

Spending your effort and resources to do this enables you to come up with even better campaigns that can deliver the results that you want out of these campaigns.
But with the understanding that Facebook advertising is one of the most common marketing strategies that you would use, make sure that you make use of Facebook Pixel today.

About the Author
Kevin Urrutia is the founder of Voy Media, a Facebook Advertising Agency based in New York. He aids businesses in effectively improving sales and conversion through the effective utilization of Facebook advertising. Voy Media is an expert in determining the best approach, coming up with a unique solution for each client.