The Engagement Process

Coaching, Consulting and Campaign Management

While I have created several campaigns for people who have had no previous experience with internet marketing, most of my clients already have existing AdWords accounts and active campaigns. The steps I describe below are typical, but not without exception.

How I define these processes:

   Coaching - I create the work plan and demonstrate what needs to be done and show you examples of how to do it, but you do most of the work. I review your work and remain available if you have questions or need help. This requires less of my time.

   Consulting - I take you through the process so you understand what I'm doing, how I'm doing it and why. This will take longer and will cost more, but you will be in a much better position to take over the on-going management of your account. Please understand, the reason I am successful at this is because I have deep technical knowledge, lots of experience and a proven process. If you want me to do the best I can to improve your account performance, then you need to use my process.

   Campaign Management - I do most of the work and only communicate with you when necessary, but it is still a collaborative process because you have a much better understanding of your products, your market and your competition. This takes less time than coaching, but not as much of my time as consulting.
 

		Critical juncture – Once I have made a preliminary review of your account, I will make a recommendation as to whether we: Pause your existing campaign because it isn’t a good use of your money, Begin making enhancements to your existing campaign's or Create a new campaign from scratch
		Web analytics & conversion tracking – Web analytics are like an EKG machine for your website. It tells us where the visitors are coming from, what search phrases they used, which pages they visited and a whole lot more. Having accurate and reliable conversion tracking in place can be very helpful in managing and improving campaign performance, but it must be set up and analyzed correctly. I recommend that you install Google Analytics. It isn't the most comprehensive analytics, but it's pretty good and it's free.
		Triage - Assuming your existing campaign has merit, I will look for ways to stop the bleeding of your budget on poor quality traffic. Most novice AdWords advertisers make innocent mistakes with campaign settings, ad group structure, keyword selection, matching options and bidding. Once the triage is complete, we can step back and take a broader look at the situation.
		Let’s talk business - It just makes sense. In order to effectively market your business, there are certain things I need to know. Here is the kind of information we will want to discuss: Your geographic markets Competitors What differentiates you from your competition Products & Services offered Describe your ideal customer Is your website optimized for visitors from search And more...
		Landing pages – This topic is a precursor to the next section, conversion optimization. However, there is a lot that can be done before we are ready to have that discussion. If you have not implemented some basic principles of landing page design, it will be very difficult to achieve even mediocre results with your campaign. We begin the discussion with Google AdWords best practices, but here is a hint. Think of a landing page as your "elevator pitch".

Conversion optimization

When it comes to marketing your business online, your website has one objective, get the visitor to take action! A conversion happens when a website visitor takes that action, but not all actions can be easily measured. For example, tracking a phone call to a specific keyword in your campaign is difficult, although not impossible. Also, focusing on an action that is a big leap for a first-time visitor will make it difficult to collect enough statistically significant data to make an informed decision about what to adjust.

Having measurable actions a visitor can take, such as signing up for a newsletter, downloading a white paper or making a modest purchase, will allow you to collect precise data that can be used to effect positive change in your campaign. So when it comes to having actions your visitor can take, you want the bar to be relatively low, but still be relevant to your sales process. The conversation you have with a visitor actually begins in their head, but really gets important when they arrive at your landing page.
 

		Your overall website - Before we embark on an aggressive plan to optimize your landing pages, it will be prudent to first step back and assess the website in total. Does it have the features, functions and level of quality that is consistent with your online marketing objectives. Your website is a reflection of your product or service. It has a "feeling" that sets the stage for how prospects respond to your offer. See my article titled What is your problem.
		Landing page design - When a visitor from search arrives at your landing page, you have 3-5 seconds to make a connection. If you don't, they will bounce! While there are an infinite number of excellent landing page designs, most share a common architecture. I call it AIDA. AIDA is an acronym for Attention, Interest, Desire, Action. Easy to say, quite another thing to achieve. We will be reviewing all your landing pages to see how well they adhere to this tactic.
		A/B split testing - To think that we could design the optimal landing page design the first time would be naive. The most basic form of landing page optimization is A/B split-testing. This is done by having two versions of the page and splitting the traffic equally to determine which one converts best. Google's Website Optimizer is a great tool and it's free!
		Multi-variate testing - If it is warranted, we have the ability to test many different possible designs simultaneously. It involves dividing the page into several physical sections and then creating multiple variations for each section. A sophisticated tool displays different combinations of each variation and arrives at the one that produces the best conversion rate.