Congratulations! You and Monetize It! have unearthed some fantastic opportunities at AdWords. Now you are ready to begin advertising. Roll up your sleeves and let's get rolling!

The basics of Google AdWords are easy to master. AdWords also offers great flexibility, which means that it can become as complex as you care to make it. We'll try to K-I-S-S here and outline the best 80-20 practices.

If you are an AdWords novice, the process may sound confusing at times. That's why your absolute best strategy is to create a single campaign with a single Ad group. Experiment with it. Then when you feel confident, branch out.

This information will be sufficient if you are planning modest campaigns. However, if you want to spend some serious money on your Google campaigns, invest in Andrew Goodman's "Winning Results With Google AdWords." (See the Resources HQ for more details.) If this all sounds new to you, STOP. Get up to speed by first reviewing the MI!'s introduction.

Let's begin by quickly reviewing the "fundamentals" of Google AdWords...

Success Begins With Knowledge

Monetize It! does the heavy lifting for you by identifying the most lucrative advertising opportunities at both Yahoo! and Google. But for true success, two key elements come into play. You must know your Return On Investment (ROI) and your Maximum Bid. Of course, one affects the other!

1) Know Your ROI

Initially, you will use your site's Conversion Rate (CR) as an ROI benchmark (i.e., how well you are able to generate income from your free SE traffic). This data will give you a general idea as to how well your Advertising Campaign should do.

Campaign CRs can vary substantially from your site's CR, depending on the keywords you target, and how the Titles and Descriptions of your Ads are written. Obviously, if your Paid Campaigns are not converting visitors at the same rate as your site is doing with its free traffic, there is definitely room for improvement!

Bottom line?

Reduce the chances of taking a loss by knowing your ROI.

(For a quick refresher on how to determine your ROI, please click here.)

2) Determine Your Maximum Bid

Very few small businesses have deep pockets. Set aside a certain amount of your operating budget for Paid Campaigns.

Once you've determined your max bid for a keyword, stick with it. Do not raise your bid to the level of your competitors if you cannot afford to do so. The name of this game is to put money back in your pocket.

Keep in mind that PPC Campaigns may not be right for your business, or at least, not at this stage of its development. However, if your research has found plenty of "nickel bargains" at Google, you may wish to venture a small experiment of $50, and see if it pays off.

On the other hand, if your ROI is low (or you do not yet have enough data to determine it), and you do not turn up any nickel bargains in the course of your research, don't bother with any experimentation. Create more high-quality content for now.

Here is your best strategy for maximum return on your Advertising Campaign...

• Use Google's keyword targeting tools effectively. You only want highly targeted searchers viewing your Ads (I'll show you how a little later).
• Divide your keywords into as many individual Campaigns and AdGroups as required. If your keywords are not relevant to the Ad they are displayed for (i.e., they do not maintain a high Quality Score), Google will require a higher CPC (Cost Per Click) to display them.

An ad's position is based on its Ad Rank, which is determined by your keyword or Ad Group's maximum cost-per-click (CPC) times the matched keyword's Quality Score. For the top positions above Google search results, however, Google uses your ad's actual CPC to determine its position. Ad Rank is the ad ranking system. Once an ad is in the AdWords system, it competes against other ads to appear on relevant pages in the Search Engine Results Pages and in the AdSense network. It's through this real-time dynamic auction system that ads are ranked. Those ads with the highest Ad Rank at any given moment are displayed, highest on top. How is Ad Rank determined? Bid price (the price advertisers are willing to pay for each click per thousand impressions) is an obvious factor. But Google also calculates an advertiser Quality Score to make sure the best performing ads appear. Quality Score takes into account factors such as an ad's relevancy and click-through rate (CTR) (i.e. how likely users are to click on a given ad) because a higher CTR sometimes outweighs the benefits of a higher bid price. Want details? OK, let Google take it from here -- click for details. Google has also added "user experience" and the content of the landing page into the Quality Score mix. Google now examines landing pages (LPs) to ensure that they provide a good user experience. LPs that have any of the following are considered low quality and, as a result, the associated ads could see their CPC double, triple or increase even higher. Excessive advertising, or nothing but advertising. Advertising something similar or the same as other sites. This includes feeds from affiliate companies. Using squeeze pages, where the visitor must hand over their e-mail address or other information before they can receive a "free" product. Using one-page sales letter sites as LPs. Creating AdSense sites, whose sole purpose is to have a visitor click on an ad. Google's plan appears to be to make it so expensive to use these techniques that the people using them stop using AdWords as an advertising medium. If your landing page does not provide quality content to the person clicking on your ad, your ad costs will go up substantially. Keep it read. Keep the C T P M process in mind when you create the content for your landing pages. Your quality content and your great user experience will help ensure lower costs for your ads. For more information, see these posts from... Affiliate Classroom http://www.affiliateclassroom.com/Google_Change/Surviving_Google.html Search Engine Watch http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=3622950

A higher CTR (Click Through Rate) and more targeted Ads lead to a less expensive CPC for you. It's all about getting the RIGHT message to the RIGHT sub-market to the RIGHT location... it makes a huge difference to your Return on Investment (ROI).

It really doesn't matter whether you're a "high-ROI" player (i.e., a business person to whom the value of a new customer is very high, and who can therefore afford to pay a much higher CPC), or you merely want to scoop up low-cost, well-performing bargains...

There are no short cuts!

Skimp here and you will pay more for your keywords than necessary. After all, if your nickel keywords end up costing you a dime due to poor performances, they are no longer true bargains, are they?

Keyword Division For Campaigns and AdGroups

No matter how you group your keywords in MI!, they must be imported into Google as sets of keywords that can be tied logically to an AdGroup and its associated Title and Description.

Think of an AdGroup as a subset of a Campaign. Google's hierarchical map shows this well...

Suppose, for example, the owner of anguilla-beaches.com decides to use Monetize It! to build a low-cost PPC Campaign to identify nickel bargains and drive cheap, targeted traffic to her site.

Let's say she finds 10 bargains... 5 of those are related to the keyword "Anguilla Villas," and 5 are related to "Anguilla Boat Rentals."

Her next move would be to export these keywords separately, and import them into their own individual AdGroups. That way, the "Anguilla Villas" keywords would be associated with an Ad that focuses on "Anguilla Villas," and "Anguilla Boat Rentals" keywords would be associated with its own Ad. This division would lead to a high Quality Score and lower CPC.

Here's how it would break down...

Campaign name: Anguilla Leisure

AdGroup #1: Anguilla Villas
The Ad's Title and Description would contain and focus upon this keyword. All keywords associated with this AdGroup would be related to Anguilla Villas -- and there would be enough of them to maintain a high Quality Score.

AdGroup #2: Anguilla Boat Rentals
The Ad's Title and Description would contain and focus upon this keyword. All keywords associated with this AdGroup would be related to Anguilla Boat Rentals-- and there would be enough of them to maintain a high Quality Score.

With Google AdWords, you cannot set individual bids for keywords within an AdGroup. In other words, the maximum bid you set for any AdGroup applies to all the keywords within that AdGroup. Keep this rule in mind as you work through the grouping process. If you place low-cost keywords in an AdGroup along with high-cost keywords, the higher CPC applies to all keywords. And there goes the bargains! If a Campaign contains keywords that vary greatly in price, group your keywords according to theme and cost for best performance and value. (More on this later.)

Exporting Data From MI! To Google

The process is identical for whatever kind of Campaign you are creating. For this demonstration, we will use two groups of $0.05 keywords. Ready? Let's go!

Step 1: Create a New Adwords Campaign

i) Open a new browser window, and log into your Google account...

https://adwords.google.com/select/Login

On the Campaign Summary page, click "Create New AdWords Campaign"..

ii) On the following page, name your Campaign with a descriptive Title that captures the essence of its AdGroups.

You can have as many AdGroups associated with a Campaign as you like. Your best strategy is to make your Title a little more general, rather than a little more specific. For example, do not name your Campaign "Anguilla boat rentals". Name it "Anguilla Leisure", and then create AdGroups as specific sub-categories of this topic.

Now, name the first AdGroup to be associated with this Campaign.

iii) Next, select your audience by language.

Unless it makes sense to do otherwise, choose English only.

iv) Target your customers by location. Choose whatever option makes the most sense for your business. For those of you with an online presence, "Global" or "National" is probably the best option. As usual, however, make the choice that is most suitable for your business.

v) Click "Continue." On the next page, you'll be able to choose countries where you wish to advertise. Again, choose whatever is most applicable to your business. If you sell goods or provide a service, do not choose countries where you are unable to ship. For most businesses, Canada, the U.S., the U.K., and Australia are probably the best choices. (Unfortunately, click fraud is likely to rise when you advertise outside of these countries.)

Click "Continue."
 

Step 2: Set Up Your First Ad

Think IMPACT.

When you create an Ad, it's all about the headline and body copy. Don't be trite, boring, typical. People will scan quickly past these Ads.

Do searches on the keywords that you are targeting. Read the Ads. Then create one that stands out... really stands out.

If you find yourself saying "good enough" when creating an Ad, it's not. Push it to be better, brighter, sharper.

It's a challenge to get creative within the parameters that Google provides for their Ads. Your title is limited to 25 characters, and each of your two lines of text is limited to 35 characters. You don't have much space to convey your message so you have to make it snap!

Always make sure that you provide the #1 benefit for the Ad's target group.

As you create your Ad in the text boxes...

... you'll see a "real-time preview" forming in the "Example" box.

Experiment until you like your Ad.

Whenever possible, place your most important keyword into your Title. This is critical. Why?

Because when a keyword entered by a surfer matches one on your Ads, it is displayed in bold. This will draw the searcher's eyes to the Ad, and lead to a greater Click Through Rate (CTR). That's your goal, right?

POWER USER TIP: Google's Dynamic Keyword Insertion feature automatically displays the keyword entered by the searcher into the Title field of your Ad. (The keyword must be included in the list of words associated with that Ad.) Since that keyword also appears in bold, this will improve the performance of the Ad. Right click on this link and choose "Save Target As" to download the PDF help file that covers Dynamic Keyword Insertion. Review page 24 for relevant information.

Of course, your description should contain one or more of your most important keywords, or a variation, as well.

Pay special attention to the display and destination URLs...

The display URL should "point" to the root domain of your site. The destination URL should link to the most relevant page of that site.

Always send your visitor directly to the page that contains the most relevant information for this AdGroup and its associated keywords. Do not send visitors to your home page, hoping that they will find the most relevant page on their own, or that your site's breadth and diversity will duly impress them. This will only frustrate people, and lead to wasted clicks for you.

It's also a very good idea to replace the destination URL with a tracking URL. You can use SBI!'s own Tracker Library to set up unique tracking links for each AdGroup.

Google offers several tracking options too, allowing you to track leads, sales, or simply visits to an individual page. You can learn about Google's various tracking options here...

http://www.google.com/adwords/learningcenter/

Once your Ad is created (take your time!), click "Continue"...

SPECIAL NOTE Keep in mind that once your Ad goes live and you start to accumulate some data, you should come back and revisit its performance. When you log into your account, you'll see data displayed for each active Campaign. Just select the Campaign you want to monitor. Here's an example... At this point, you have two options... 1) You can tweak your Ads to improve your CTRs... without overselling your product. OR... 2) You can create new Ads for this AdGroup, which allows you to effectively "split test" your Ad, and track the results of one Ad vs. another. This is your smartest option. Best of all, it's easy to do. Log into your account, and from the Campaign Summary page, select the Campaign you want... Next choose the AdGroup you wish to measure performance for... Now click the link at the top of the page to create a New "Text Ad." Do not set up an "Image Ad." Now, simply create a new variation of this Ad. Once you've done this, you'll be able to check the performance of each Ad from the relevant AdGroup. You can create as many Ads as you like but only create one or two versions of an Ad. Otherwise, it will take forever to obtain enough data to assess the performance of each one. IMPORTANT TIP: In order to keep Google from optimizing your Ad display, you'll need to make a small adjustment to your Campaign settings. Select the Campaign that contains the AdGroups for which you are running multiple Ads... Next, click the "Edit Campaign Settings" link... On the following page, make sure the checkbox is NOT selected for #4, "Automatically optimize Ad serving for my Ads." This ensures that Google displays all of your Ads equally, which allows you to accumulate data as to their overall performance. Now, whenever you log into any AdGroup to review its performance, you will also be able to verify the performance of each Ad associated with that AdGroup. When you have enough data, you may wish to delete the "non-performers." If you are running multiple Campaigns, you will need to verify this setting in each one.

Step 3: Import Your Selected Keywords into AdWords

Do you remember how "Anguilla Boat Rentals" was a nickel bargain? Here's what comes next...

i)Minimize the Google Adwords screen.

ii) Return to Monetize It!.

iii) Select the Google nickel bargain keywords related to the "Anguilla Boat Rentals". (See the PPC-Buying Help if you need help using MI!, or selecting keywords for export.)

iv) Export the keywords to the desktop (remember to check "Export Keywords Only").

v) Open the CSV file in your Word Processor.

vi) Select all the keywords.

vii) Copy all the keywords.

viii) Paste those keywords directly into the field on the Google Adwords page as shown below...

If double-clicking your CSV file automatically opens MS Excel and/or the keywords in your file are not wrapped in quotes, you may need to open your Word Processor (i.e., MS Word, WordPad, BBEdit,...) and then open the CSV file from there. Another option, for Windows-users, is to right-click on the file and choose "Open with..." and then "Choose Program". When you select your Word Processor, be sure to check the "Always use the selected program to open this kind of file" checkbox. Then, you'll be able to double-click these files in the future. For Mac OS X, click on the file, then choose "Get Info" from the menu or use Command-I. Click on the small triangle to the left of "Open With." Select the program to use to open the file. Click on the "Change All" button. Then you'll be able to double-click these files in the future.

You'll notice all your keywords are exported from Monetize It! in quotes. This is important. The way you enter your keywords into AdWords (i.e., the syntax you use) affects the way the keywords are displayed according to searches. We export all keywords in quotations by default (called "phrase matching") because for most businesses, it provides the most benefit (i.e., the greatest combination of search volume and targeted searches).

Because phrase matching is not always the best for every keyword and every business, let's talk about Google's four keyword options...

Option #1)
Broad matches: Any time you enter a keyword into an AdWords Campaign without any syntax (i.e., no question marks or square brackets) it is considered a "broad match". In other words, if you add the word baseball into your keyword list, your Ad will be displayed for any search query that includes the word baseball -- "baseball cards", "baseball jerseys", "how do I obtain a major league baseball contract", "peewee baseball league" -- and so on.

Because your Ad will be untargeted for the majority of searches, it's unlikely you'll be able to sustain a decent CTR. So you'll need to bid a higher CPC to raise your Ad Rank. Even if you did, you would only succeed in obtaining lots of expensive, untargeted visitors that would not convert.

Broad matches are also subject to "expanded matching", which is much like Yahoo!'s service, displaying your keywords for searches that are "close enough" to your selected keywords. While this may drive more traffic and could prove to be beneficial, it may also negatively effect the ROI of your Campaign.

Bottom line?

Broad matching is really only a viable option for very specific single word keywords, and works well for fairly esoteric multiple keyword phrases. Otherwise, avoid this option.

Option #2)
Phrase matches: These are much more effective than broad matching. To use phrase matching, enter your keywords exactly as they are exported from Monetize It!.

Suppose you import a word in quotations -- i.e., "baseball cards". Now your Ad will display when the term "baseball cards" is typed into Google's search box, and also when other words are added before and after the term.

So "baseball cards" will also display your Ad for "buy baseball cards online", "collectible baseball cards", "sell baseball cards Yankees", and any other combination of keywords that contains the phrase "baseball cards" in that order. Now your targeting becomes more effective, and maintaining a decent CTR becomes easier, which means that you can afford to bid a lower CPC.

Conclusion? Much better. Phrase matching delivers a nice combination of semi-targeted visitors and high search volume.

Option #3)
Exact matches: This is the most precise keyword matching option of all. To use exact matching, enter your keywords in square brackets -- i.e., [new york yankee baseball cards]. In this case, your Ad will only display if someone types the exact phrase "new York Yankee baseball cards" (with or without the quotes) into Google.

Exact matching delivers highly relevant results at the expense of traffic volume. Because keywords entered in square brackets result in a much more targeted audience, it's easier to elevate your CTR, and therefore pay less money for a top position. For that reason, exact matching is best used as a cost saver in a highly competitive and expensive market.

Option #4)
Negative matches: Use the "-" minus sign to exclude a word from your search phrase ( i.e., -yankees "baseball cards" prevents your Ad from showing for the term "Yankees baseball cards".) If you're selling a product, common negative words to use may be "cheap," "budget", and so on... unless you do provide cheap or budget priced products or services. Anguilla-beaches.com owner, for instance, may want to use the negative match word "cheap" like this...

"anguilla villas" -cheap

This will show her Ad for all keyword phrases that include the search term "anguilla villas" but do not include the word "cheap" (i.e., a search for "cheap anguilla villas" would not display her Ad).

If you want to change the default "phrase match" option for any keyword you import into AdWords, simply make the appropriate changes (i.e., remove quotes, add square brackets, etc.) in the keyword box before proceeding. In the example below, I've changed the keyword, "Anguilla boat charters" from phrase match to exact match by removing the quotations and replacing them with square brackets...

That's all there is to it!

Click "Continue."
 

Step 4: Set Your Maximum Cost Per Click (CPC)

On this page, Google will make a recommendation for your maximum CPC, as well as determine what sort of budget you will require to maintain such a CPC, and the number of clicks you will receive in a day.

Ignore Google's recommendation and enter your own maximum CPC...

This Campaign is called "Anguilla Leisure," and the first AdGroup is "Anguilla Boat Rentals." If you wish, you could now create the other AdGroup for the nickel bargains available for the "Anguilla Villas" theme. This would comprise the second of an unlimited number of AdGroups you could create for this Campaign.

If you do not have another AdGroup ready to go yet, don't worry about it -- you can add new AdGroups at any time.

When you are finished creating Ads for this Campaign, click "Continue"...

 

Step 5: Set Your Daily Budget:

On this page, Google will make a recommendation for your daily budget, based on keyword demand and your selected target options. You do not want Google to set your daily budget.

Instead, enter your own daily budget into the field shown...

It's usually a good strategy to set your daily budget a little higher than your comfort level. Why? When Google determines your daily advertising cost, it is generally a fairly rough estimate (Google usually overestimates your daily cost substantially). Since Google never knows exactly how many searches for your keyword will occur on any given day, it has to balance your daily spend limit with that fluctuating demand. This will often result in fewer clicks being delivered than expected. Setting a low daily budget is helpful if your keywords are incredibly popular and generate a ton of searches. However, for those of us doing careful keyword research, setting a spend limit too low will limit the number of clicks Google will deliver. Changing your daily spend limit is easy to do, so don't be afraid to experiment. If you're apprehensive, start low, and raise it as you see the results Google delivers.

Step 6: Review and Save

Double check that all parameters of this Campaign and this initial AdGroup are OK. If so, click Save and Continue.
 

Success!

You have just created your first Campaign and AdGroup in AdWords! Your listings should already be live! If you return to the Campaign Summary page, you'll see your new Campaign listed there...

Where do you go from here?

Good question...

1) Create new AdGroups for the Campaign you just created. Here's how...

From the Campaign Summary page, select the appropriate Campaign...

On the following page, click "Create New AdGroup"...

... and on the next page, name your new AdGroup, and then follow along with the process outlined above, starting at Step #2.

Keep in mind that Campaign settings apply to all of the AdGroups within a specific Campaign. In other words, the options you choose for Step 1 above apply to all AdGroups in the "Anguilla Leisure" Campaign. If you wanted a new AdGroup to be associated with regional advertising as opposed to global, you would either need to... change the Anguilla Leisure Campaign settings to regional (in this case, all related AdGroups would be subject to regional advertising) or... create a new Campaign with new settings (i.e., Anguilla Leisure-Regional) and associate new AdGroups with it. That way the appropriate Campaign rules apply to the appropriate AdGroups.

2) Create as many new Campaigns and associated AdGroups as needed. The process is simple. On the Campaign Summary page, click the "Create New AdWords Campaign" link...

... and follow the process outlined above.
 

AdWords Strategies For Monetize It!

Although there are numerous ways to use Monetize It! for PPC-Buying, the basics of how you import your keywords and set up your relevant Campaigns and AdGroups remain constant. Here's an overview of three strategies...
 

Strategy #1) Google Bargains

The above demonstration covers this type of PPC Campaign, so I won't delve into the process too much here...

• Group your keywords in Monetize It!.
• Follow the process starting at Step #1 above to set up a new Campaign (or as many as you need).
• Export your keywords from MI!, in small, logical groups of themed keywords.
• Import those keywords into the appropriate AdGroups in Google AdWords.

Easy as pie!

If you need more information on the mechanics of isolating Google bargains, see the PPC-Buying section of these Help pages.
 

Strategy #2) "Buy Low", "Sell High"

The PPC-Buying Help illustrates how to use Monetize It! to identify low cost keywords that you can use to direct visitors to pages where you display high priced Ads (either delivered by AdSense, Yahoo!'s out-of-beta competitive service, or your own sourced advertising).

You may find those low cost keywords at either Yahoo! or Google. In other words, you may find words you can buy cheaply at Yahoo! that you send to pages where you display high-priced Adsense Ads (in that case, you'd set up your "buy low" sell high" Campaign in Yahoo!, not in AdWords).

Or, you may find low-cost words you can buy at AdWords and send to pages where you display high-priced Yahoo! Ads.

The mechanics of such a Campaign are not tricky, you'll find that the only real difference in the process involves the grouping and exporting of keywords from MI!.

Suppose, for instance, that you find a dozen "buy low", "sell high" keywords. Chances are that only a few, if any, of these keywords will be related in theme. As you remember, you need to group keywords according to theme when using Google AdWords so you may need to export these keywords in very small groups.

Follow this process when setting up your new "buy low", "sell high" AdWords Campaign...

• Log into your account, and create a new Campaign called "Buy-Low-Sell-High" (follow instructions from Step 1 above).



• Create a new AdGroup for the first group of the "buy low", "sell high" keywords that can logically be associated with a common Title and Description.
  
  For example, "Anguilla villas" related words would have their own AdGroup, as would "Anguilla boat rentals", "Carribean vacations" and so on. It's the same as usual, right? The only difference will be the number of the keywords per AdGroup -- generally, only a few.
  
  As usual, Google's Quality Score is your motivation for associating highly relevant keywords with highly relevant Ads only.



• Follow along with the process outlined above up to Step #4, and then use the option to "Create Another AdGroup" to expedite the listing process. Keep following the process to Step #4 and use the "Create Another AdGroup" option until you have created all of the AdGroups you need for this Campaign. Then continue on to complete the rest of the process.
  
  Don't worry if some AdGroups may only contain a single keyword or two. That's perfectly OK.
  
  Of course, make sure each referral URL is set to point at your most profitable page for this set of high-profit keywords, and preferably with a Tracking URL.

And that's it. Pretty simple, right?

If you need more information on the mechanics of "Buying Low" and "Selling High," please see the PPC-Buying Help.
 

Strategy #3) Typical PPC Advertising Campaign

Using Google's AdWords for a typical Advertising Campaign, especially if your ROI is high and your keywords vary greatly in cost, is the most complex procedure of all. The good news is that it's not really difficult. It just requires an additional step.

As usual, group your keywords by theme, topic, or whatever other criteria you determine to be critical for your business. Now for the extra step -- group your keywords by bid cost. I mentioned this briefly earlier, so let me expand upon it now...

When you set your maximum bid amount, it applies to all the keywords within an AdGroup.

What this does is effectively apply higher bids to keywords with much lower bids. For example, if you mix $0.05 keywords with keywords that cost $0.50, your minimum bid for that AdGroup will need to be at least $0.50 to ensure your Ad appears for the most expensive keywords. Unfortunately, that means your $0.50 maximum will also be applied to $0.05 words. In some cases, this could force you to pay more than you need to for these keyword bargains. It may also inadvertently have you paying a higher CPC for keywords that have a low Quality Score.

Ideally, keywords that have a low Quality Score should be removed from the AdGroups they reside in, and placed in a new, more targeted AdGroup. Otherwise, Google will force you to pay more to display your Ads for those keywords. Should those keywords be part of an AdGroup with a higher max CPC, Google will automatically charge you whatever it is they deem appropriate (up to your max CPC). So if a poorly performing $0.05 word is included in a AdGroup that has a max CPC of $0.50, you could theoretically pay up to that amount for each click-through. On the other hand, if that poorly performing word is part of an AdGroup that is grouped by cost (say $0.05-0.15/click) the most you will ever pay for that keyword is $0.15. Of course, you do not really want to do that either, especially if the keyword isn't really worth $0.15. That's why it's critical to log into your account regularly and asses the performance of your keywords.

The solution?

If you have keywords covering a wide CPC range, you'll need to split them up according to bid cost -- yes, in addition to splitting keywords up by theme, topic, referred URL or what have you. For instance...

Suppose you determined that your maximum CPC was $0.50. Using Monetize It!, you find 50 "Anguilla Villas" themed keywords, all varying in cost from $0.05 to 0.50. Instead of dumping all of these keywords into one AdGroup, where they would ALL be subject to a CPC of $0.50, you would be better off grouping them according to cost...

• all Anguilla Villas keywords priced from $0.05-0.15
• all Anguilla Villas keywords priced from $0.16-0.30
• all Anguilla Villas keywords priced from $0.31-0.50

... and placing each one into its own AdGroup, with an independently set max bid reflective of the keywords within that group. The Ads themselves (i.e., the Titles and Descriptions) could be identical. It would only be the CPC (and the AdGroup's Name, of course) that would vary from AdGroup to AdGroup.

Name each AdGroup accordingly. Something like...

• Anguilla-Villas-max15
• Anguilla-Villas-max30
• Anguilla-Villas-max50

... would be fine.

What if you find this extra step to be too much trouble?

Yes, it is entirely possible for you to drop all your keywords into one AdGroup, but it will end up costing you more money and reducing your control over the Campaign and your CPCs. This is important so it's worth repeating a few times...

Google will charge you more money to display your Ads for keywords that perform less than optimally. If those keywords belong to an AdGroup which has a CPC significantly higher than what you'd prefer to pay for them, Google will automatically charge you the higher amount.

The ideal scenario is not to pay a higher CPC to display Ads for keywords that don't perform well. Instead, associate these keywords with their own AdGroup(s), and work to create listings that lead to more click-throughs from a targeted audience.
 

A Few Final Words

If you're feeling a little intimidated by Google's AdWords program, don't worry. It's a typical reaction. The best way to overcome this feeling is to roll up your sleeves, follow the process outlined here, and set up your first Campaign.

As you become a little more familiar with the program, the mystery and mystique unravel, leaving you with an extremely flexible and powerful advertising medium. The combination of Monetize It! and AdWords will expand your business far beyond your wildest expectations!

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