It’s Summer and time to slow down a bit and enjoy the sunshine! So this month, just a short post to share some of my insights on running an online marketing campaign

In a prior post I mentioned some good online sessions from Google.

• 101: OnLine Marketing 101: Adwords
• 201: Online Marketing 201: Running a Campaign
• 301: Online Marketing 301:Tracking and Improving Results

So in this post I wanted to follow up with my own insights in hopes that it might be useful as you plan your own.

My Insights

In my own work, I’ve found that running a good online campaign, required:

1. 20%: Defining your goals and budget
2. 40%: In-depth keyword research, review and refinement
3. 20%: Creating ad campaigns and ad groups (your keyword bundles to use on the various campaigns)
4. 20%: Building the actual campaigns and setting up your budgets

In addition allocate about 1 hour per day (yes, 1 hour) to examine your campaigns, keywords, bids and make adjustments. If you rush through it, you’ll get ‘rush through it’ results(!)

I have also found it useful to analyze the time of day when my campaigns and keywords were the most active. Believe it or not, it’s pretty useful in determining the audience mix.

Questions I ask myself when reviewing the data:

• Are they late at night?  Early in the morning? Mid-day?
• How much time did they spend looking at your ads (by keyword)
• Compare the click through rate (CTR) and the average price for your best (top 5) ads and keywords

It’s useful to build a small spreadsheet to capture and analyze key data.

A good analysis will come pretty quickly once you get into a habit, and will help refine your bids to drive the best traffic at the most opportune times of the day.