Week 8 - MKGT 349 - AdWords Fundamentals Exam Tips

So you are having trouble passing the Fundamentals exam for AdWords. Don't worry, you are not alone. Personally, it took me 3 attempts to pass it. Well, my first attempt I took it without studying or having any background with working in AdWords so I wouldn't really count that. But in all honesty, it is going to take time to study for the exam. It will not be uncommon for you to study at least 8 hours a week in preparation for the exam. For me, a big help was to actually work with AdWords through a Google Grant at my school, I am more of a hands on learner so that experience and background really helped me with the certification. If you cannot get access to this, the exam study guides will do fine. You just have to be prepared with reading the same components over and over again. There are some good videos out there that I have linked in one of my older blogs that can help, but you are going to want to read through the following study guides:

• Introduction to AdWords
• Campaign Management
• Measurement and Optimization
• AdWords Fundamentals PDF Download-Help With Offline Studying

Another tip I have for you is to take the test multiple times, the more you are familiar with the questions, the more you know what you need to study. If you always seem to struggle with certain questions, you can go to the study guides and individually pick out what you need to study. 

Week 7 - MKTG 349 - Campaign Optimization

So you created a campaign for your website using Google AdWords and you notice that the campaign is not meeting your expectations. What do you do now? You may have to make some minor changes that can boost your campaign in a big way. This is known as optimization. The first step is to use a landing page that best represents your ad. Your ad should display or explain to the customer exactly what your webpage contains. If a customer finds that your webpage does not contain exactly what your ad shows or states, then they are more likely to leave your site. This may not only loose you that customer, but possibly future customers if they recommend to others to not use your website. If an ad states that you are offering a discount or sale, then your landing page should demonstrate that promotion.

For an example, let's search "baseball bats" and see if an ad effectively demonstrates what a customer will find on the landing page.

Ad

Landing Page (click to view)

Looking at the ad, we see some keywords that we expect to find in the webpage. These include: "free shipping," "free returns," "24/7 customer service."  Now notice the first thing a customer will see at the top of the page is that there is free shipping everyday. For many customers, free shipping is going to catch their attention and give them a good reason to do business with this company. In to top right, there is a link for returns for customers that already bought a product but need to send it back. Customer service is a big deal for many consumers, and in several areas on the landing page, there are different ways for which a customer can contact the company with any questions or issues. On many websites, a customer may have to go through several pages to find this information. For them to have all of this on their landing page makes them seem like a company someone would want to do business with.