Some of them might have included; dog training, how to train dog, potty train your dog, teach your dog to sit, teach your dog fetch, teach dog to shake, how to stop your dog from barking etc.

Every time a web user entered one of those search terms in the Google search box, my ad would have been triggered and shown in the left column of the search results. However my ad wasn't very well targeted to their search because of it's broad nature. That ad is about dog training in general. So somebody looking specifically for information on how to potty train their dog might have passed over my ad without a click. Somebody looking to train their dog to fetch may pass over my ad because I didn't mention that my guide has information on how to teach a dog to fetch.

The point is that the ad isn't real targeted to any aspect of dog training, so it may or may not appeal to the searchers. This lack of appeal would likely result in a very low click thru rate. The chances that the people that did click thru are less likely to purchase my guide as I have only qualified them as a prospect to the point that I know they are looking for some sort of dog training. But back in the day that didn't matter as much because if you were throwing hundreds of keywords into the ad group, you were just about assured of getting enough to make a profit if you had a good converting sales letter. It was a lot less work to build a successful campaign in that era.

If I was selling a dog training in today's GAW environment, here is what it would look like;

I would still setup my campaign as "Dog Training Guide Campaign". However I would setup several ad groups. Each ad group would contain very specific keywords that are highly relevant to the ad associated with each ad group.

Targeting Your Ads cont'd

Allow me to further demonstrate what I am saying here;

Assume my dog training guide shows how to teach a dog to sit, stay and fetch. So I will set up three ad groups up within the "Dog Training Guide" campaign.

Ad group #1, I will call the "sit" ad group, ad group #2 will be called the "stay" ad group, and ad group #3 will be called the "fetch" ad group. Easy enough so far right?

So now I need an ad for ad group #1. That ad might look like this;

The next step would be to insert the keywords that are relevant. They might include;

Teach your dog to sit, teach dog to sit, how to train dog to sit, teaching your dog to sit, training your dog to sit etc. the ad group may end up with anywhere from just a couple of keywords to maybe a dozen. This will vary depending on the item your are advertising. You will have more keywords for some than others. But the idea is that they will all be very specific to training a dog to sit.

So now if somebody types something to do with training their dog to sit in the Google search box, my GAW will be triggered and shown. As they glance over the adwords shown, mine will stick out because it will have the specific mention of training a dog to sit. The rest will likely be the broad type of ad that simply mentions dog training. My ad is more relevant and will likely result in a higher click thru rate, and that means I will earn a higher quality score from Google which in turn will result in higher ad placement for less money. As a result I will have a profitable ad group that may not have been profitable when setup as a generic, broad ad.

Since I know the people clicking on that ad are interested in training their dog to sit, I want to be sure the link in my ad leads them to a page where I am talking about how my guide will show them how to easily train their dog to sit. I have tied everything from the actual ad, to the keywords, to the sales page together and they are all highly relevant to teaching a dog to sit.

With highly qualified, screened, and targeted visitors coming to my site from this ad I will undoubtedly also see a higher sales conversion rate which means less money spend on my advertising, and more profits from my higher number of sales.

In my example I would have also setup the second and third ad groups with the same targeted relevancy. I am specifically targeting three groups of people all looking for a different aspect of dog training. But since my guide teaches all three aspects of the training, it is relevant to all of them. I am just bringing more of them to my ad because I have given the impression that it is very specific to their needs.