Google Adword CheckList for Singapore and SouthEast Asia

Hi guys,

Your faithful friend is here again with a new post 🙂

This post is for those who are completely new to Google Adwords and want to try it themselves.

First of all, Great initiative! I salute you. That ‘s why i put together this document, “Google Adwords Check List”

However, I strongly recommend you go through Google Adwords Learning Center briefly first.

Google Adwords Check List v1.0
(This is applicable to keyword-targeted campaign)

1.) Adwords campaign name, ad group name:

Give your campaigns meaningful names. Don’t name the campaigns as campaign 1, or campaign 2 but rather give it a descriptive name.

For example, campaign named “Chandler is great” if your keyword and ad text are about Chandler Nguyen.

Then your 1st ad group can be: “Chandler is kind” with relevant keywords 😀

2) Campaign Geo locations & language:

Each campaign will have its own target locations and language. Hence all the ad groups and keywords in it will target the same geographical audience. So beware of this point when you plan to set up the campaign.

3) Google Content Network:

• Make sure you don’t accidentally enable content network: Content network by default is enable for new set up campaign. For more information on Google Content network, visit the Adwords Learning Center

• Please don’t misinterpret the above as i don’t like to use Content network. In fact, there are campaigns running right now that i use content network exclusively.

• However, in order to use content network effectively you need some tricks. Hence i don’t recommend this for newbie.

4) Adwords Campaign End date:

• You should put an end date for your campaign. Google won’t like it, that’s why by default, new campaigns have no end date. However, you certainly DO NOT want your ads to run forever and cost you tons of money, do you?

5) Daily Budget:

• Daily budget: make sure you don’t put in $10,000.0/day. Put in the value that you are comfortable with or the client budget.

• If the monthly budget is $3,000 then daily budget is $100.00

6) Campaign currency:

• Be ware of the currency in which you pay Google. Is it USD or SGD? Once you set the currency, you can’t change it later and it might be inconvenient where you have to x1.51 everytime you want to know how much your Adwords cost is.

7) Time zone:

• If you are in Singapore, remember to set the time zone to Singapore.
• This will greatly affect your campaign report later, because if you use US time, they are about 12 hours or more behind Singapore and hence your numbers won’t be accurate.

8) Keyword Bidding > Bidding Option:

• You can either choose between:
• maximum CPC: Specify the most you’re willing to pay for clicks or impressions.
• preferred CPC: Specify the average amount you’d like to pay for clicks or impressions, and the system adjusts your bids to try to hit the target.
• Budget Optimizer: Set your 30-day budget, and the Budget Optimizer will manage your bids to get you the most clicks.

I don’t recommend you use Budget Optimizer because you should know for yourself how much each click is worth.
Between Maximum CPC and Preferred CPC, for newbie i think maximum CPC is better to start with since you are not using any automated bid management tool.

9) Ad Scheduling:

• You can choose which day in a week or what hour in a day you want to run your ad.

Again i don’t recommend this function for newbie unless you really know what you are doing.
This function is actually very useful, especially when used with web analytics. It can boost your Return on Investment over the roof.

10) Position Preference:

• This function is available if you set Bidding Option at Max CPC (the default option)
• This basically means you can choose the positions that you want your ads to appear on.
• The positions are not guaranteed though.

For new users, i recommend you don’t use this function.

11) Ad serving:

• You can choose either: Optimize or Rotate which basically means whether you want Google to rotate the ads equally or Google will show the ads with better Click Through Rate and Quality score

I recommend you leave this option as it is until you are more familiar with the system.
Just a hint, more often than not, I set Ad serving to Rotate

12) Conversion tracking and Google Analytics:

• Even though you just start using Adwords, i strongly recommend you use conversion tracking right the way.
• I can’t stress enough the important of measuring the performance of the your ads.
• When you first started, you may not understand the numbers feeding back from Conversion tracking or Google Analytics yet, however as time goes by, you are getting better. By the time you want to start looking at the numbers, you already have some historical data to play around with.

13) Keywords:

• I should put this on the top position of the checklist simply because keyword is one of the most important concepts.
• So far i assume that you are using keyword-targeted campaign, not site-targeted campaign.
• The rule of thumb is you need to have as many keywords as possible but you need to break them down and manage them systematically.
• One obvious mistake you can spot is having keywords that are not related in anyway to each other in one ad group.
• More advance concepts and strategies for keywords are beyond the scope of this topic.

14) Keyword generation tool:

• For Singapore and Southeast Asia, the Google keyword generation tool is the best one i find so far.
• You may want to explore: Word tracker, Keyword Analyzer or Overture keyword tool when you are more familiar with Search Engine Marketing.

15) Creative or ad text:

• No need to say, creative is as important as keyword.
• You should play around with ad text as much as possible.
• Remember the local language ad text if you advertise in Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines or Viet Nam.

That should be all for now guys. Cheerio!