Understanding Adwords - Part IV: Immediate Ads

Adwords has one unique advantage over most of the other pay-per-click websites. With Google, you can create a new ad and it will be active, essentially immediately. PPC sites like Overture and MSN, for example, require an editorial review of both the ad and the keywords associated with it. At some level, I don't blame them! But from our (the advertiser's) stand-point, it makes our jobs of developing effective ad campaigns more difficult. Most ads and/or keywords take 1-3 days for editorial review. GoogleAds will activate your ads and keywords immediately. There are a few things to point out, though.

1) Because the ads and keywords are effective immediately, Google still must regulate what the user is trying to do. Even though they are not reviewed my a person (initially), Google's computer brain tries to review it. This can both work for or against you. If the Google computer software does not like your ad, keyword, or even landing page, it will charge you a high price to active the keyword. On the other hand, you may get away with a fairly irrelevant keyword at a low price. No one other than Google knows the algorithm of determining this.

2) Some ads or keywords will produce "flags" in the Google system. There are some topics that google does not like (for example, gambling). If you put anything in your ad that relates to gambling, it may warn you immediately (and request justification) or it will flag it internally, allow you to bid on it, say it is active, but not tell you that your ad requires review prior to publishing. This really stinks at times! I will wait on an ad for days and not get a single impression just to find out that Google has flagged it and requires manual review. Usually a call to Google can solve this problem, but it usually takes a few days to even figure it out.

3) The benefit! Assuming that your ad does not require manual review, the ability to activate ads and test them immediately gives you lots of flexibility to test your ads and fine tune them for maximum click through rates (CTR). Perry Marshall's eBook focuses on this topic extensively and has really helped me to improve my CTR as well as my ROI (return on investment). Again, I highly recommend this book for anyone using Adwords. You'll earn back the money you spent on it in no time! Click here to learn more!