Something else about adwords... not Arwords

A definition is the enclosing a wilderness of idea within a wall of words.
‘Notebooks’ by Samuel Butler

I receive an email last week from a friend that was asking about how to increase the visibility of one organization. At least the domain is. org.

They have a site from around 3 years, but until the moment, they do not achieve the performance that they expect. They are looking for a fast way to increase the traffic using Adwords.

We have been talking about the same issue several times during the last 6 months, and I used to answer in the same way:

What do you want to achieve with more visibility? Alternatively, do you know what is the actual target of your organization?

It is possible to think that the last questions have an easy answer, but from my experience is very unusual to find people that provide a clear response to those or similar questions. It is more common that the people talk from the beginning about the cost, the percentage of new traffic etc.

Like every task in any organization or company, you need to test and refine, trial and error, every process in the system. The marketer needs to know the real targets or the company mission. The marketing campaign need to know the core, the idea that move the company and only after, it will be designed the best envelope for that idea, it will be tested, refined until the advertiser receives the expected results; and in some cases, it should be possible that during the process the company not only adapts the marketing campaign but even every process of the company system.

At the end the Adwords campaigns have many things in common with traditional advertisement techniques, but the best thing from my point of view, is that the advertiser is able to test very fast the results of the campaign, and it is possible to use those results to refine or redesign the campaign, and to use the results in other areas of the business.