#wherever i go it's gotta have good healthcare

[kerosene-saint]

I need to move some where that has lots of trees. mountains too.

[spnreactionblogging]

CARRY ON

spoilers below but I’m very late to the game

here we go!!! there's Some Woman in the thumbnail for this episode and I'm like oh boy did you fuckers turn castiel into a girl to make it Not Gay, I will riot. we're off to a dread-inducing start I'm honestly not even sure I want to watch this? I have not heard anything good but since my options are either keep SPN blacklisted forever but ultimately get spoiled anyway, or use my dwindling remaining time to see it for myself without being told what happens, may as well be on my own terms I am hearing that misha and possibly j2 were not happy with this, whatever this is (?????) yikes I don't understand how you even have another episode after the last one. that seems like a traditional ending. you either beat a dead horse or go ultra meta and it sounds like they dropped the ball, big time but let's see jack's sweet and deserved better. there's a clock but it's NOT heat of the moment playing, damn oh the dog. we love you miracle dog sam's still jogging where's eileen!!!! I like seeing sam cooking I actually enjoy watching them do domestic stuff dean sneaking food to the dog 😭 can this be the whole episode, just them doing chores I meant to catch which book sam was reading I can't tell but it looks like it's old this is extra bonus sad for knowing that they couldn't even like, have a wrap party or anything. extra isolated. :( SPECIAL GUEST STAR JIM BEAVER!!! "Are you sure you're ready for this?" "Oh, I don't have a choice." dean hasn't been this relatable to me in years, this is how I feel watching this lmao akron pie fest dean dies of complications from diabetes god I miss bakeries or restaurants or anything I do love Sad Sam Face "I"'m thinking about Cas, you know? Jack. If they could be here." thank you Sam that pain isn't going away for me either "stop being an eeyore" Sam's the Eeyore of the series, Dean, okay, and same lmao jared fucking slammed that pie into jensen's face and they just filmed it. you can see the actual glee on his face brady??? like sam's old classmate? wasn't that his name? or no some kid. is this just a regular-ass monster of the week. do sam and dean just get killed by like. regular people? are there no monsters anymore. I would actually love that. humanity is truly the worst monster of all. didn't we learn that in season 1 :') in "the benders" are these guys sam and dean? are they just murdering monster families like they did in the holiday episode? what is happening. are those dean's shoes. I could probably recognize how they walk if I really paid attention i guess not. probably. "singer and kripke, FBI" ha fucking clowns lmao poor sam they still have dad's journal, huh. THE LORE evil mimes. vamp-mimes. I guess they kill these dudes? we gonna unmask them or what there we go this guy looks like joseph gordon-levitt oh we love torture on this show this is definitely "dean who's NOT the ultimate killer" amirite "if those kids are dead he's gonna use a spoon" how very walter sullivan of you also I feel like sam would not do this anymore but hey who am I, someone who likes consistent characterization? lol we're back to creepy barns instead of wet pipe factories dean has a fucking shuriken lmao I honestly for real need a machete for the overgrown weeds I don't hate this so far? I'm tired of the constant torture but I guess this feels like early seasons, kind of. idk. lmao sam with the concussions. classic tie them to a chair. it's what we do. i will be disappointed if they are not tied to a chair jenny? cue studio killers. I do not remember whatever episiode this is but it looks very early based on sam's hair oh thanks sam. couldn't get out of this episode without beheading a woman too one of the suggestions for me typing "woman" was a high-heeled shoe emoji. thanks, predictive text...?????? true feminist oh damn he could very well get tetanus from that. that's how trinity dies, man. should've gotten your booster shot, dean. vaccines save lives this is like the plot of signs why don't you guys wear bulletproof shit. your plot armor was holding you together until now. GUYS THIS IS HOW HUNTERS GO OKAY don't ever un-impale someone, guys like "dean we are in a major city, there are ambulances" call fucking 911, someone could be there already "I've always looked up to you" because you're taller than me lmaoooo idefk what to say about this like. we all know this is how hunters die. you fucking leered at jessica is what you did, dean if sam makes it out of this I'll accept it. if sam lives I can be okay. if this is the only way sam gets free of this, I'm okay. CALL 911 AND CALL JACK "always keep fighting" aw :( they're both very good at crying, I will give them that we never think it's gonna be the day. at least you got pie. OH THE WINCHESTER FAMILY MUSIC don't do this to me dean got a way better death than castiel. this actually reminds me a liiiiittle bit of the end of season 2? with how dean holds sam's body. the writing here is overwrought though. jared and jensen do the best they can with the script they're given but like you guys just FOUGHT GOD. they're a bit too up their own ass with this. you can tell that dabb thinks he's very clever. sam... gets a dog again? at least. i guess. the pacing is bad. I don't hate this on principle but it is not executed well. I am having like no emotional response to this except maybe relief for sam in a horrid way. like, you're free! at what cost. it's like the opposite of season 5? sam survives instead of dean. and... sam marries a dog. where do they get all this fucking lumber!!! did sam chop that all himself dude if he woke up to "heat of the moment" i'd lose my shit in the best way. gabriel wins. "gotta keep you on your toes." what had to change in this because of the pandemic? at least sam has a dog to be in scenes with him. the two guns as big and little brothers is an interesting choice of a shot. god the fucking phones. "DHS" "CIA" "dean's 'other other' phone" "state patrol" what's the paperwork on his desk? (512) is an Austin area code I have this on amazon prime and the saddest thing thus far is X-Ray: Jared Padalecki as Sam Winchester, with no other actors at all. meta ways, pandemic related. "this is agent bon jovi" donna's alive??? sam just quit, babe. just quit. or take a day off at least, jesus. didn't you just drive back from ohio are you even gonna go back to the bunker DEAN IN HEAVEN!!! how'd you get here. "well at least I made it to heaven" lmao he said the same thing oh hey bobby!! I love jack god i've missed jim beaver you guys moved on to dream bubbles!!!!! RUFUS how very homestuck + narnia of you, starring sam winchester as susan pevensie so jack just like melded all of these metaphysical spaces, I'm cool with that "so the question is what are you gonna do now, dean?" get a better beer so I can drink and drive with my car that's in heaven, I'm already dead so who cares what I hit TELL ME WHERE IS BALTHAZAR FOR I MUCH DESIRE TO SPEAK WITH HIM break everyone out of the empty I do get the impression this was supposed to be a big cast reunion and the pandemic clobbered that :( oh it's the original license plate on the impala sure do love that cas and jack "helped" to give dean everything he's ever wanted. the only time "carry on my wayward son" has been diegetic I guess sam and the dog had a child I like jared in glasses are we doing a bunch of elderly makeup yeah there he is did they just spray grey temp dye on his hair or what is sam gonna drive into toluca lake!!! buddy please don't just run the engine in a garage, he took off his glasses and that makes me nervous jake gyllenhaal looking dude which cover is this must be nice to have healthcare I so appreciate that sam's wife has zero personality and is merely in the background, of no importance whatsoever compared to his kid named dean are the two impalas gonna meet in heaven????? vancouver is beautiful, or wherever this is at jared looks so cozy in that coat you can tell j2 really do love each other for real the majesty of that forest/that river got me choked up a bit, it's such a lonely thing. like. I can see what they were going for? like dean just... getting sick, falling off a ladder, getting in a car accident, etc etc would've been more potent, I think. the execution was not good. I'm not that unhappy though. it's all right. eh. it's fine. the heartfelt message from the cast (what's left of them....) and the crew was sweet. I want to know what they were intending to do? I feel like you can definitely feel the weight of COVID fucking this up which is genuinely upsetting. sam gets like 50 years of being free of dean I GUESS???? perhaps the only way to break the cycle.

at least there was no sexual assault in this episode. i have definitely watched way worse episodes of this show. it's like. twee. but I can't be mad at these guys especially with how much I know jared in particular has been struggling with the state of the world this year but jensen talked about it with rosenbaum on his show too. 2020 has been rough. like. at least they filmed it. whatever. I feel like I get what they were trying to do even if circumstances meant it wasn't really pulled off. it seems like they were supposed to have a big cast reunion and the pandemic took the wind completely out of their sails. this feels incredibly tacked on. 15x19 would've been a much better place to stop. I feel like I just read andrew dabb's notes. I get what they were trying to go for but they didn't pull it off. I thought it was gonna be a lot worse tbh in summary: EHHHHHHHHH

[13-reasons-ideas]

Finding Peace In Another Part 19

A/N: T/W: Discussion of drug addiction and dating violence. This chapter is coming out a few days early and I’m sorry for the delay, I've been really busy with school. I hope everyone is coping well with the virus and isn't going to stir crazy. Also note that this is a work of free fiction and as such I’m not sticking to exact US immigration protocol. Much love!

A few weeks after my dinner with Scott, things were going well. His suspicions were quelled, Monty and I were good and there were no lingering issues with me hanging out with Scott. Since things had calmed down some, I decided to partake in my new favourite pastime. Recently I started surprising Justin at Monet’s after his shifts.

“Hey Justin, can I get peach tea and a raspberry scone please?”

“Coming right up. Usual table?”

“Depends, do you have leftovers?”

“You’ll just have to wait and see. I’m beginning to think you’re only using me for a baked good fix.”

“Maybe. I do bake as a hobby though, so its definitely more that I like you.”

He laughed as I took my drink and wandered over to the table. I people watched while he finished his shift.

“So, how are things with you?” I asked, casually after he sat down.

“You know, things are going. Clay is kind of oblivious to things, mom and dad are trying to judge what they should and shouldn’t push me on. The usual stuff. You?”

“Yeah. Things are going with me too. Dad still occasionally pops in town for a few days before going to wherever he needs to again. Still acts like I don’t essentially live on my own. I think he’s going to be in town for like two weeks sometime soon so that will be interesting.”

“Oh?” He asked, surprised. “Interesting how?”

I had to be careful how I answered. Man, this hiding our relationship thing is getting hard. “Well, he could decide to actually parent me. I’m an adult though so that could cause problems. May end up being a very silent couple of weeks.”

“Sounds like a trip.” He said, laughing.

“Justin. The last time he was home for any length of time, he told me to go look for a job.”

“Uh, why?”

“I have no idea. I can’t even legally work here. Dad’s work did something with the paperwork or something because I am still in high school. I literally can’t work, even if I wanted to.”

“I know. That makes no sense. Could tell him to send you home really.” He said, jokingly. There was a skepticalness to his tone that seemed to indicate he was nervous for my answer.

“What? No. I have finally finished settling in and have begun to think of Evergreen County as my second home. Alberta will always be my home, but that doesn’t mean I want to move back. I still don’t understand your reluctance for universal healthcare but that’s fine. Technically it hasn’t been long enough to be removed from Alberta Healthcare, but I’m not about to go to the trouble of going all the way home to deal with something that can be dealt with here. Dad haggled and made them give him really good insurance to move here and give up the free healthcare.”

“Okay good. Because we like you and don’t want you to leave.”

We talked about some school stuff for a while before I noticed him start to seem a little restless. I knew about his addiction issues and we talked about it often. “Hey, you still with me Justin?”

“Hmm? Oh, yeah. Sorry what were we talking about?”

“Math test, but that’s not important. How are you doing right now?” I asked, subtly referencing the possible cause of his restlessness.

He sighed before answering, “I’m doing okay I guess.”

“Do you want to talk about it? We can go for a walk if you’re not comfortable talking here.”

After a moment he nodded. I got up and went to order us two coffees to go while he waited, trying to organize his thoughts.

“You ready to go?”

“Yeah, let’s go. Your usual?”

I rolled my eyes at him. Obviously.

We left the shop and wandered around a bit before he broke the silence. “It’s just harder than I expected it to be. Even with going to meetings, it’s hard to manage sometimes.”

“I get it. Have you talked to your sponsor at all?”

“I call him every afternoon to check in but that doesn’t mean it’s not hard. And I want to talk to Jess about it, but I don’t want to scare her or push her away. And I want to talk to mom and dad about it but I don’t want them to be mad or….”

“Or what Justin?”

“Or kick me out or something? I don’t know.”

“Well, I’m pretty sure that wouldn’t happen, but I hear you and I understand what you mean.” We sat on a park bench and people watched for a while. “You should tell Jess. Trust me when I tell you she is probably going to figure something out sooner or later.”

He looked at me in surprise, “You…?”

“No, not me. My ex-boyfriend was a prescription drug addict. Percocet was his drug of choice. He was in quasi-recovery, still drank and smoked weed so not actually trying stay sober, when we started dating. It wasn’t pills though so I wasn’t going to push the issue. But as time went on, he started using again and tried to hide it from me. It wasn’t that hard to figure it out. Things got… bad towards the end. Not that you would ever… just. I knew.”

“Oh. I-I didn’t know. Are you like, okay?”

“Yeah. It wasn’t that bad. If we stayed together it would have been worse, but thankfully we ended up breaking up after he went on a bender and I said enough was enough. But we aren’t talking about me, we are talking about you.”

“Do you think she would understand?”

“I think so. It might be hard at first, but I think she will. And she needs to hear it from you, not figure it out on her own like I did or be told by someone else. That will make it easier.”

“And my parents?”

“If you want, I can go with you to talk to them.”

“I think that would be good, yeah.”

“What do you want to do Justin?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, what do you need? Do you need to go to more meetings? Do you need someone to take you to meetings? Do you need to consider going to rehab? What do you need?”

“I don’t know. I know I need help. I just don’t know where to start. Why?”

“Because I want to help you. You’re my friend. And your parents will ask, so maybe thinking about it before you talk to them would be helpful. If not though, I understand. And if you need anything, just call me. Okay? Day or night.”

“Okay, I will. Thanks Becca.”

We chatted randomly for a while again before calling it a night and parting ways.

The next day went smoothly as well. At least until lunch that is. The guys were goofing off as usual and since Scott had seemed to quell his suspicions at least for now, Monty and I didn’t have to walk on eggshells as much around him anymore. Bailey called me about halfway through lunch. It wasn’t unusual for him to call me in the middle of the day, given he had a spare after lunch, but he didn’t usually call and then text and then call again. Odd. I hope everything is okay….

“Someone’s popular? Hot date you forgot about tonight Becca?” Garrison joked. I wasn’t looking at Monty but I knew his eye twitched ever so slightly, as it did whenever someone made a comment like that.

“Uh, yeah sure. Whatever Garrison.” I said, distracted as my phone began to ring again. Something is going on. I answered it at the table rude I know, but I don’t think a bunch of teenage boys care much about table etiquette. “Hey Bailey, what’s up?” I asked.

“Hey so I didn’t want to get involved or get you involved since you aren’t here to defend yourself, but I feel like you need to know. And it’s my problem because you’re my best friend.”

“Need to know what?” I put my hand up to quiet the boys down a bit.

“James has been… saying stuff. About you. And your relationship.”

“Uh okay? Why is that a problem?”

“Because of what he has been saying and what it involves regarding your relationship.”

“What has he been saying Bailey?” I felt my cheeks begin to warm and Monty and Zach’s eyes on me.

“He’s been telling our friends uh… intimate details about your erm… private relationship.”

I laughed in disbelief. That little prick. I took a deep breath to centre myself, though it did little to quell my growing anger. The table grew silent as I started to vibrate, “well Bailey. You tell James that if he keeps running his damn mouth, I will get on the next plane home, find him, and shove my foot so far up his ass he will taste it.” I heard Bryce let out a laugh and glared at him threateningly.

“Okay. Is it wrong that I would pay to watch that? Because that would be great.”

“Bailey.”

“Sorry, just trying to break the tension.”

“Has the little slime ball been saying anything else?”

“I mean, he complains about the end of your relationship, which I don’t like but that’s not unusual.”

“Remind him that I kept my mouth shut about a lot of shit he did, to protect him. And remind him about the little agreement we made when we broke up. I may not live there anymore, but my phone plan has international calling and I am on very good terms with the school resource officer.”

“What agreement Rebecca?”

“The agreement that keeps his dumb ass out of jail for various things that I cannot talk about right now. And certainly not with you.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t have money to bail you out of jail and the exchange rate is terrible right now. That’s why.”

“O-okay then. Talk later?”

“Yeah, I might call tonight but if not, later this week. Depends on my plans for the evening.” I heard a bell on the other end of the line.

“Gotta run, love you Becky.”

“Love you too Bear.”

When I looked up, the table was staring at me, slack jawed. Scott looked the least surprised out of the group, considering he had a little more insight than everyone else regarding my last relationship. “What?”

“What the fuck was that?” Matt asked.

“My ex was talking about shit he shouldn’t have been talking about.”

“Okay we got that much but… what was that?” Zach asked.

“You’re so small. How can such a small person have that kind of anger in them?” Garrison added.

“Could have something to do with people not watching where the hell they walk and stepping on me, or it could have something to do with my tolerance for bullshit getting lower and lower the older I get.”

“But you hang out with us. So, I don’t see how that is possible? That was kind of hot though.” Scott asked.

“No offence, but I’ve met second graders who exude more bullshit than you guys do all put together. Well if I knew that’s all it would take to turn you on Scott, I would have told Bailey to call me during lunch a long time ago.”

“Okay, that’s fair. Hurtful but fair. What can I say, it’s the simple things. Are you going to eat your apple?”

“Depends Scotty. Are you going to take it anyway?”

“I plead the fifth.”

“Uh huh. Since I don’t get a choice anymore, knock yourself out.” I chucked my apple at him, half hoping he would miss. He never did.

Zach and Monty shared a look. Still haven’t grasped subtlety yet I see. “Do you want my carrot sticks Monty? I’m not very hungry.”

“Why?”

“Big breakfast.”

“Right. Sure, not one to say no to free food. Even if they are someone’s leftovers.”

“They aren’t leftovers you meatball. I cut them this morning. I had green beans last night.”

“Do you eat other vegetables Becks?” Monty asked, teasingly, taking a bite of the stick.

“Dude, chew your fucking food.” Bryce chided.

“Why? What is this? Interrogate Rebecca day or something? Eat your damn carrot sticks.”

There was a beat of silence, where the boys sat with perplexed looks on their faces. Zach, bless him, jumped in with some game related question that I tuned out as it went over my head. I’m dating a sports player. I never said I understood any of it. The heat seemed to be off of us again, though I could feel Scott glancing my way every now and then while I tried to brush up on some geometry before math class.

I had full intentions to lessen Scott’s once again raised suspicions, so instead of waiting for Montgomery a minute or two after the lunch bell as usual, I merely waived goodbye to my friends and ran to math. I was the first one there so I pulled out the book I was reading between classes.

“Good book?” Cyrus asked, startling me as he sat down.

“God! You scared me. Yeah, I have read it a few times though.”

“Cool. Did you want to come hang out tonight? Mack is going to Chad’s place to talk boys or something.”

“Maybe, I’ll have to check my schedule.”

“Dad is making baked ziti for dinner. You can have a corner piece.” He bribed.

“A corner piece of ziti you say? Well in that case, my schedule is clear as day.”

“It’s a plan.”

Mr. Daniels started class a few minutes later. Will geometry ever get easier?

I met Cyrus at my locker after school and yelled a goodbye to my friends, who were having an animated discussion about who would in a fight, someone I had never heard of or some other guy I’ve never heard of. There was a chorus of ‘byes’ and grunts of acknowledgement. We parted ways and met again at his house.

“Hey Andrew.” I greeted his dad.

“Hey kids. How was school?”

“It was school dad. The establishment and crap.”

“I see you had a good day Cyrus.”

“At Liberty? Sure.”

“I had a pretty good day. I told my friend at home to tell my ex where he can stick his opinion. Do you need help with anything?”

“No, that’s okay thanks though Becca.”

“Oh this I need to hear.” Cyrus said, grabbing a Coke from the fridge.

“Pass me a Diet and I’ll tell you.” After opening my drink, I told the father and son the story of the lunch phone call.

His dad raised his brow and muttered something about punk ass little shits who don’t know their cocks from their feet.

“That is awesome dude. You should have told him to Facetime you when he told this James dickwad.”

“That would require me seeing the asshat’s stupid face. So no sadly.”

“Fair point. We are going to my room to do some homework Dad. Call when dinner is ready? I bribed her with a corner piece so save one for her.”

“For sure kids. Have fun.”

With that, we ran off to his room, but we didn’t work on the non-existent homework. Instead, we went through his records and Spotify account and argued about which to play. “Just go to a radio if it’s going to be an issue Cyrus.”

“No no. You’re my guest, you choose.”

“I already chose and you said no.”

“Fine. Defy it is. You’re lucky I like you.”

“Mhmm. Just play the damn album Cy.”

He laughed as he hit play and the sounds of Of Mice & Men filled the room.

“You better not have been lying about the corner piece man.”

“Lie to you about dad’s cooking? I would never.”

“Right. And I’m the Queen of England.”

We joked around for a while before dinner. Andrew called us down later and as promised, I had my crispy corner slice of ziti.

“Thank God it’s Friday. I want this week to be over. Thank you for dinner again.”

“Everything okay Becca? It’s no problem.” Andrew asked.

“Yeah, it’s just been busy. Lots of assignments and stuff.” Too much work and not enough boyfriend time.

“Well you have the weekend to relax at least.” Cyrus pointed out, waving his fork.

“If you don’t stop that, you’ll poke your eye out one of these days. Are you going to the game next Saturday, Cyrus?” “Maybe. Not really my scene.”

“Oh come on, it’ll be fun. We can not care about the sport together. It’s high school. You only go once.”

“Fine, but you are buying me popcorn.”

“Deal.” I said and shook his hand.

Andrew made sure to send me home with leftovers and a standing invitation to come for dinner any time at the end of the night.

[too-cool-for-facebook]

Ghost Adventures!

I had a fun thought experiment while trying to fall asleep.

What if I had “Ghost Powers”?

And not necessarily like Danny Phantom - he could shoot laser beams and stuff, and that’s not what I’m really going for

So what would these Ghost Powers entail?

When I so choose, the ability to:

be invisible

be inaudible

pass through solid objects

fly / float

turn objects & living beings invisible if I touch them; or leave them visible and make them look like they’re floating around on their own

said objects & beings I’ve turned invisible, as long as I’m touching them, retain my power of also remaining inaudible and can pass through solid objects. Once I release them, they return back to normal

*Note on invisibility: What I mean is that photons, instead of bouncing off me, would pass right through me, leaving no shadow. This does bring up the problem of, “But if light doesn’t hit your retina, you won’t be able to see!” Well let’s pretend that’s part of my powers - I can see even though others can’t see me. Also I can hear myself and any object I’ve touched.

What are the limitations?:

If I fall asleep or fall unconscious, I can’t use my powers. Ex.: If I’m invisible and then fall asleep, I will become visible again

If I am startled, I’ll revert back to normal (become visible/audible). (Hopefully I’m not flying in midair when that happens)

My powers are dependent on my energy level. If I haven’t eaten or am not well-rested, my power is diminished, especially my flight, because that takes a LOT of energy

If I touch a person and turn them invisible, they can now see me / hear me, but only as long as I’m touching them

Cats (Felis catus) can always see me no matter what

I didn’t think about this until now, but smell - I don’t think I can cover up my smell, meaning any animals, particularly dogs, would know I’m around

If any part of my body (hair, blood, spit, etc) is no longer connected / contained within the rest of my body, the fallen part immediately becomes visible

I cannot permanently make something invisible/inaudible

I cannot make objects float on their own. I have to physically pick them up, therefore I can only take what I can carry. On that same note - weight does not diminish. Just because something is “ghostly” now, doesn’t mean it no longer is heavy. I can’t pick up airplanes

I can still leave prints on anything I make contact with - footprints, fingerprints, even DNA

I’m still mortal, and still must eat and sleep, and am still susceptible to illness and injury and the range of human emotions

I think that’s about everything I thought of.

So with these newfound powers, what’s the very first thing I decide to do?

TO DISNEYLAND!!!

I myself could fly to California, but that would take a lot of energy. Easier to ghostly enter an airport and get aboard an airplane and let it take me to CA, and then from there fly to the park.

Then I thought about, “What do I do about sleep? I’d have to be somewhere safe because I’m vulnerable when asleep.” So then I came up with: a hotel. For free. All I’d have to do is use my ghost powers to go from room to room until I find one that’s unoccupied and make camp.

But what if someone checks-in to the room while I’m in it? Easy - bolt and latch the door. When they try to get in, it will undoubtedly make noise. And if they’re really frustrated, they’ll probably knock, at which point I’m awake and can turn ghost, grab my backpack, and get the hell outta there.

Now what about the backpack? I was pretty sure (and I just checked and am right) that backpacks aren’t allowed. My solution? Fly up to the hotel’s roof and leave it up there - and then hope like hell no employee is doing work on the roof that day. For added security - putting the backpack in a large garbage bag in case the weather turns foul

Getting into the park is easy: Go Ghost. I could fly in, but that’s not as fun. I want the experience of walking through those front gates.

And as soon as I get in, find an inconspicuous place hidden from view and then turn non-ghost again. Then I can wander the park to my heart’s content. (Def first stop is the Disneyland Railroad. You just gotta).

What about food though? While doing this thought experiment, I concluded that if I can turn things invisible, then easily I can acquire food. If I’m in a gas station and grab a muffin and a bottle of milk, they’re going to vanish and I can just walk through the walls with them and eat them later, disposing of the trash away from prying eyes

That’s a little harder at a theme park. What if I want soft serve ice cream? I could make the bowl disappear, but the ice cream that’s pouring out of the machine would still be visible - and that’s bound to freak some people out. So I’m still going to need money to pay for some things.

So wait, where does the money come from, I wonder? Because if I’m a ghost and can fly, do you really think I’m gonna stick around my job? Fuck no! I CAN FLY! I’m going wherever the hell I want to!

So if I’m not working a job, where do the munnies come from? I guess I could always steal it...

My first thought was just nick it from the nearest cash register, but then I immediately realized, no, that would get the cashier in trouble and their lives are hard enough as it is. So where to get money?

The bank’s always a good place. Just ghost in, grab a stack of 20s out of the vault, and fly away. No more than a stack at a time. Too much gone missing will cause alarm. Also, I could hit every bank in town, grabbing one stack from each. Just make a day out of it.

But then that posed the problem of where to keep the money. If I’m going to my bank and depositing all this cash (while cash has mysteriously gone missing from local banks), I think it’s going to raise a few flags. So maybe only deposit a few handfuls of it at a time, and bury the rest of it in a big mayonnaise jar out back or whatever

But here’s where limitations on my powers could pose a problem. What if I leave fingerprints in the bank vault? What if a strand of hair gets left behind and now they’ve got my DNA? But that’s a long and complicated line of thought, and I don’t wanna ruin my fun, so we’ll act like that doesn’t happen

So back to Disneyland: Money’s not an issue. I can buy food. And I thought, “Ah, you know what? I’ll stop by the Rainforest Cafe!”

But then I realized something that I didn’t even think about - loneliness. I’d be by myself. And wandering around by oneself is relaxing and all, but when it comes to having meals, especially in a place where the atmosphere is the real selling point, I dunno. Eating by myself is just really lonely and makes me sad.

In theory, if I can turn anyone invisible, I could ostensibly bring someone to California with me. Major problem with that: TRUST NO ONE. As soon as my powers are revealed to ANYONE, they risk being exposed to EVERYONE. You ever seen Death Note? That in my opinion was Light Yagami’s biggest fuck up was revealing how people were being killed. Also (oddly enough a statistic from Death Note), the more people involved in an operation, the more likely it is to fail. More moving parts means the easier it is to break. If I just keep it to me, my chances of safety are increased / risk of exposure decreased

So unfortunately I’m going to have to deal with a lot of loneliness. I don’t even think I’d be able to post things on social media, because then I’m leaving a trail. If all the banks in my hometown get robbed, and then I’m at Disneyland and suddenly the experience a rash of shoplifting (because yes, I’m contemplating jacking that giant expensive snowglobe), a clever detective could put two-and-two together. Still, they’d have a hard time figuring out how I dunnit, but why even take the risk?

But again, we’re getting too serious when I wanted this to be a fun exercise

So I wander the park, I ride the rides, I get my Dole© Pineapple soft serve ice cream at the Tiki Room - and the best part is, I can take all the time in the world. There’s no time limit. I can mosey about as long as I want. As long as I can always find an unoccupied hotel room to sleep in, I’m good.

OH SHITBEES! I DIDN’T EVEN CONSIDER! I COULD STAY IN A DAMN DISNEY HOTEL!

IF I GO TO ORLANDO, I COULD STAY IN THE CINDERELLA SUITE IN THE DAMN CASTLE INSIDE THE PARK!

(Of course then again, I get the feeling they don’t have electricity running to the room at all times, only when guests stay there; which fun fact, that room can’t be booked, no matter how much you’re willing to pay. It’s by invitation only. So if it’s dark in there, it’ll certainly be spooky)

ANYWHO...

I guess that’s all that can be said about this trip. I’m not gonna do a play-by-play of my fantasy Disney trip. It’s just a starting point for a very liberating daydream. Food’s not a problem, money’s not a problem, housing’s not a problem.

Really the only problem is if I get sick or injured. But if money’s not a problem, I can afford healthcare now. So yeah.

And who says I have to stop at Disneyland? I could travel the whole world and see everything!

And it’s not all selfish. Who says I can’t drop a stack of twenties in front of a person who’s homeless? Or a crate of food?

Oh what’s that? There’s a person abusing / beating their partner and/or child? Lemme just phase my hand right into your chest and clench you heart artery and give you a heart attack :) I could go full-on Kira given the chance

A child’s been kidnapped? Welp, yoink! SURPRISE! THEY’RE INVISIBLE NOW! And I fly them back home and drop ‘em off

You get the idea.

There’s a lot I could do with Ghost Powers

[imaginetonyandbucky]

Imagine Tony building robots from the latest movies Avengers watched just because he can (Wall-E, R2D2, BB8, you name it). His latest creation is Baymax, which he equipped with mental health assistance protocol and he gift to Bucky. Bucky loves it ofc, he wants to show his appreciation but unsure how to ask Tony out. Baymax helped.

I am satisfied with my care

It started with Steve.

Steve kept a little notebook to fill up with all the pop culture high notes he had missed in the past seventy years. Tony knew that. Everyone knew that. But Tony also knew that Steve was getting increasingly frustrated with how he was writing in way more than he was crossing off, especially because everyone kept saying, “oh, how could you not know that?” or “well, you have to see that!” about every little thing.

So, Tony took pity. Never let it be said that Tony didn’t have a heart. He sat Steve down on a Thursday and told JARVIS to start rolling the original Star Wars trilogy. Pretty soon, the other Avengers started trickling in as the movies played.Watching Steve and Thor react to the “Luke, I am your father” reveal was priceless. Tony was only sad that Clint had beat him to posting the reaction video to YouTube first. Steve fell in love with R2D2 and asked why robots like that didn’t exist in the future already. So then, Tony paused the movie showing to introduce the team to DUM-E, U, and Butterfingers. Tony beamed like a proud parent in the face of his tough ass teammates cooing at his bots.

After the Avengers trooped back up to the rec room and finished the movies, when it was just Tony and his insomnia, Tony realized that R2D2 wasn’t that much different from DUM-E and if he had been able to make DUM-E when he’d been a kid, then making an R2D2 bot for Steve should be no trouble now.

So, for Steve’s next birthday—which, July 4th, how cliché—Tony presented him with an exact replica of R2D2 with a fully functioning AI and everything. Steve actually cried. It was kind of embarrassing. But Tony was going to cherish that sunshine smile beamed right into his face for the rest of his life. And the only reason Tony had tears in his eyes was because R2D2 had rammed into his shin (the ungrateful bot).

(read more)

And then they watched Wall-E. Clint joked that he had wooed Natasha much the way Wall-E had wooed EVE. Natasha rolled her eyes but didn’t say anything to contradict him. So, of course, Tony had to make a Wall-E bot and an EVE bot, which he gave to Clint and Natasha respectively.

Clint about crushed Tony to death while he squealed in happiness about the dinky little bot trundling around them in circles. Natasha watched EVE fly about with an undecipherable expression. When she closed in on Tony, he froze in fear, but then she gave him a chaste peck on the cheek and he blushed bright red. Steve made cracks about the great Tony Stark blushing while Tony cursed at him. Steve’s bot tried making friends with the two new ones.

Tony couldn’t help but smile at his new family loving the bots he made as much as he did.

Of course, Tony couldn’t forget about his Science Bro TM. They marathoned Doctor Who together, so naturally, Tony just had to make Brucie his very own K9. Bruce was shocked by the gift, which made Tony’s heart break, but then he gave Tony a shy little smile of pleasure, and Tony about melted.

Thor didn’t spend a lot of time with the rest of the team. He was either performing princely duties up in Asgard or hanging with his astrophysicist girlfriend out in the middle of nowhere. But when he was staying at Avengers Tower, he enjoyed the team movie night with even more enthusiasm than all the rest of them put together.

Not wanting Thor to feel left out, Tony made him a toaster with an AI named Toasty (okay, so Tony wasn’t the best with naming things) so that he could toast his pop tarts wherever he went. Thor almost broke Tony’s ribs with a giant bear hug. He actually even composed an epic poem about his new toaster companion.

That video got even more likes on YouTube. And this time Tony was the one who got to post it. Ha, take that, Barton.

When Steve brought his new bird friend around the Tower after the whole SHIELD/Hydra debacle, Tony tore Steve a new one for not asking for his help. Oh no, let’s not ask the guy who designed the Tricarriers for help in taking them down. And let’s just ignore the computer genius a phone call away and just release all the SHIELD/Hydra files online willy-nilly. Steve took the tongue lashing, all shame-faced but with a stubborn little pout on his lips.

To mollify Tony, Steve offered up information about the Winter Soldier, who apparently was actually Steve’s BFF from the dark ages, and asked Tony to help find him. Well mollified, Tony politely greeted the rather shell-shocked Sam and then went down to his workshop to start the search for the elusive Bucky Barnes.

In between running search algorithms and sending Sam and Steve out to likely locations, Tony found the time for some hobbyist tinkering. The next time Sam stopped by the Tower, Tony presented him with a BB8 bot.

Sam looked puzzled as he watched the cute little bot roll around. “What’s this for?”

Tony said, “Well, I figure you’re pretty much part of the team at this point and everyone else has got one.”

Sam smiled up at Tony from where he was crouched on the ground petting BB8. “Oh, well then, thank you very much for the gift. But I gotta ask, why BB8 specifically?”

“You’re basically like Cap 2.0, and everyone knows BB8 is like R2D2 2.0.”

Sam laughed. “Thanks, man. No, really, you’re the best.”

“Um, you’re welcome,” Tony awkwardly accepted the praise. He quickly hurried back to his workshop.

When they finally found Bucky, Tony couldn’t help but think that the man was a mess. Bucky was going to need a lot of headshrinkers and a bunch of other help that Tony wasn’t sure how to provide except offering money to help pay for it all. Steve wouldn’t take his money and after much arguing back and forth, Tony had conceded the battle to the red, white, and blue Stubborn Pillar of Stubbornness.

Well. That just meant Tony had to figure out another way to help. He was a helper. A fixer. He could totally do this.

He couldn’t do this. Or, at least he didn’t know how until the whole team (including Bucky) watched Big Hero 6 for one of their movie nights. Baymax was perfect. He could be a constant companion to Bucky without being as intrusive as another human being. He could hug Bucky. And wake him up from nightmares. And best of all, if Bucky went into one of his fugue states where he attacked everything in sight, Baymax could be easily fixed.

It took some doing to figure out how to make what basically amounted to a blowup snowman move. But of course Tony wasn’t a genius engineer for nothing. After a week of sleepless nights, he was finally done.

Tony went looking for Bucky on the floor he shared with Steve. When the elevator door opened, Steve was there to greet him. R2D2 beeped at him from nearby.

“Hey, Cap. Hello, R2.” Tony greeted absently while he looked for the guy he was actually here to visit.

Tony found Bucky lurking in the shadows of the living room doorway.“Ah-ha! Frosty, there you are!”

Bucky froze in alarm at the sight of Tony coming towards his carrying a small red case (it had been easy peasy to make Baymax’s case smaller than it had been in the movie; after all, he was the master of miniaturization, between his arc reactor and his suitcase suits).

Tony thrust the case out at him. “Here you go. Present for you.”

Bucky glanced helplessly at Steve before accepting the case. He asked, soft and bewildered. “What is this?”

Tony said, “Set it down on the ground, go on. You’ll have to plug it in later. The case is a charging station. It’s Baymax. Or well, my version. I figured you could use one. Here, you just press the button in the center and he pops out.”

Bucky looked overwhelmed. “Um, thanks.”

Tony shook his head. “No, no, you’re not supposed to say thanks until you’ve actually seen the gift. Come on, try it out.”

Bucky set the case down and pressed the large button in the center. The case started unfolding and the bot started inflating. Less than a minute later, Baymax stood round and tall in front of Bucky.

Baymax raised a hand for a wave. “Hello, my name is Baymax. I am a Healthcare Companion. Are you in distress? How may I help you?”

Bucky’s eyes looked wet as he stared at the bot. He coughed and said roughly, “Thanks, I’m fine. For now. Oh, um, my name’s Bucky.”

“Hello, Bucky, nice to meet you. You are crying. Would you like a hug?”

Bucky nodded mutely.

Baymax walked forward and wrapped Bucky up in a bear hug. Bucky let his arms encircle the bot and sank into the hug with a sigh. They stayed like that for a solid minute before Bucky pulled back and Baymax let go.

Bucky turned to Tony with red but dry eyes and a genuine smile. “Now can I say thank you?”

That smile about knocked Tony down. It was absolutely gorgeous. Thankfully, he had enough wits about him to reply, “Yeah. No problem.”

“Well, thanks. This is the best gift anyone has ever gotten me.”

Steve had the good grace to save Tony from his emotional constipation by saying teasingly, “What, Bucky, you’re telling me the plums I got you this morning wasn’t the best gift anyone’s ever gotten you?”

Bucky rolled his eyes. “Shaddup, punk, I’m having a moment here.”

“You’re having a moment alright.”

“Don’t make me come over there and kick your smart ass.”

“I’d like to see you try!”

Tony chuckled to himself to see the two of them bicker at each other. “Well, I’ll just let myself out.”

As Tony sidled towards the elevator, Steve paused in his squabbling and turned to give Tony a smile even more brilliant than the one he gave Tony for giving him R2D2.

Tony clutched at his chest in the elevator. Ugh. Super soldier smiles were aggravating his heart condition.

It warmed Tony’s old, scarred heart to see Baymax being put to good use. Bucky used to spend most of his time holed up in his and Steve’s floor. Now, it was common to see his roaming around the Tower with Baymax at his heels.

Tony wanted badly to ask JARVIS to tell him if Bucky was sleeping better, but even he, as socially inept as he could sometimes be, knew that was kind of creepy. At least the shadows under Bucky’s eyes seemed fainter and he smiled more and actually talked to people other than Steve. Tony thought he might be able to just live off of coffee and Bucky’s smiles.

In fact, it wasn’t just Baymax and Bucky that Tony was happy to see. The other Avengers still seemed well pleased with their bots even long after the novelty had worn off. Clint had managed to talk Wall-E into rolling around the vents with him. Natasha and EVE bonded through target practice—EVE was programmed with a bunch of combat flying sequences and Natasha had a repurposed laser tag gun. Steve and Bruce both seemed less depressed with their bots around. BB8 was a big hit with Sam’s nieces. And Toasty had some managed to become temperamental and refused to toast anything except Thor’s pop tarts. Thor beamed proudly and called Toasty a most loyal friend.

Was it possible for a heart to grow ten times bigger and still fit in a man’s chest?

Tony really shouldn’t have fallen asleep in the common room. He’d known tonight wasn’t going to be a good night. He’d known nightmares were coming. He should have hidden in the privacy of his bedroom. But of course, for all that Tony was a genius, he could be really dumb sometimes.

And so, here he was, out where anyone could walk in and see him, shaking apart at the seams and trying to keep the screams behind his teeth. He loved his brain. But sometimes, sometimes he fucking hated it. You’d think one horror would wipe out another, but nope, his brain strung them all together like Christmas lights and played them back to him like the world’s shittiest highlight video. Afghanistan. New York. Malibu.

Tony let out a shriek of surprise when he felt himself being lifted into the air. He instinctively struggled but whoever he was struggling against was too soft to be human. The lights suddenly turned on and he blinked against the brightness to see that he was being cradled by Baymax.

“Tony, are you okay? Do you need a hug?”

“Now you ask?! After you scared the shit out of me swooping in out of nowhere?”

“I am sorry. Would you like me to put you down?”

Tony, feeling ridiculous, grumbled, “No. You’re fine. You can hug me. If you want.”

Baymax shifted Tony until he was vertical and therefore able to be hugged. For some reason, Tony’s feet were dangling in the air. Tony didn’t think Bucky ever had to deal with this. Bucky’s feet were always solidly planted on the ground whenever he was hugging Baymax.

“Baymax, what is—oh, Tony.” Speak of the devil.

Tony snuggled further into Baymax for show. “Sorry, Bucky, I’m Baymax’s new favorite. We’re running away together.”

Baymax’s head swiveled around. “You are both my favorites.”

Tony pretended exasperation. “You’re ruining the joke.”

Bucky walked further into the common room. He must have seen something in Tony’s face because he asked softly, “Hey, what’s wrong?”

Tony grinned so widely he could feel it stretching the corners of his mouth. “Nothing’s wrong. Why do you ask?”

Bucky shook his head and said gently, “Knock that off. I know your smile doesn’t really look like that. Besides, Baymax responds to distress. He’s with you. Hence, you’re distressed.”

“Hence? Really?” Tony joked.

Bucky just looked calmly back, not taking the bait.

Tony sighed. “Okay, you got me. Hey, Baymax, can you put me down?”

Once Tony was set back down, he patted one inflated arm and said, “Thanks, buddy, I am satisfied with my care.”

Baymax backed off and stood unobtrusively to one side like a puffy friendly ghost.

Tony slumped down into the couch. Bucky came around to sit next to him. “You want to talk about it? Steve tells me it might help.”

“And does it? Talking?”

Bucky shrugged. “Sometimes.”

And so Tony told him everything. Starting with that fateful trip into the desert. Getting blown up by a bomb with his name painted on the side. Waking up with a hole in his chest. Yinsen. God, Yinsen. Coming back and having everyone think he was crazy. Obie’s betrayal. Just…everything.

It felt like a flood was coming now that he’d opened his mouth. It hurt, but it was good. To be able to let it flow. To have Bucky there to hear him. And during one of the hard parts—honestly, they were all hard, but sometimes certain things hit him harder than others—Bucky had held out his hand for Tony to take.

And through it all, Tony realized that his heart wouldn’t get too big for his chest because maybe he’d finally found someone to share it with.

~CatZY

[coloringtheworldwithwords]

On nights that I feel low, I’ve developed the ability of reframing my mindset to think about all the possibilities that lie ahead for me. There’s so much this life has to offer, and the magic that exists in being human, lies in the very fact that we, ourselves, don’t even know what’s to come. This goes for the greatness we might possibly achieve and the tragedies we may possibly face as well. I choose to focus on the greatness I have coming my way, channeling positive energy, and believing that I’m good enough in this world to do something greater than good. I know I have a brilliant mind and a heart that could set the whole world on fire.  Hushing my insecurities is me having to constantly remind myself that I’m not less of a person for not having a lover, or that I’m not less of a person for not being at the same point someone else is on their own journey. Comparison - the number one killer in happiness. It’s so easy and it’s so tempting, especially with today’s social media, to compare each and every detail of our lives to others.  I’ve had two very good friends of mine claim their jealousy for my life of travel and having no ties, to anyone or anything...being able to live free, and not have to think about anyone but myself.  I’ve shot back at them, the other side of the coin, claiming my jealousy of their consistency, their stable lives, their comfort, their homes, their forever lovers...how I would love to have someone to answer to and how I want to share my mind with someone special, together. It’s humbling to see we always wonder and yearn to have what’s on the other side of what we have not yet seen, or experienced. Now, I don’t, for a second, regret traveling, but I’d be lying if I told you it never gets lonely. I have my moments, of good times and bad, but more often than not, the bad times last only a second, because I can reframe my mind to live in the moment, and to be thankful for the path I’m on...the life I’m destined to lead. Where I’m at now, I’m learning all these things about myself. So many things that at times I can’t keep up.  I know, because of that, my lack of a lover is fair, because I really want to have myself figured out before I expect a fair and healthy relationship with somebody else, who’s own feelings and thoughts come in to weigh on the new formed bond we’d share. And I know I’m going to be a hell of a lover, when that time comes. I’m going to be happy, and I’m going to be independent, but I’m always going to wake up choosing her, wherever and whoever she is, because that is what’s important. I don’t need someone to complete me, I just need someone who is going to do life with me...someone who I can depend on, someone I can learn from, someone who will respect me and my choices, someone who wants to always be on my team. And I know that time is coming. That dream of a lifelong partner, is real. Whether it happens soon, or years from now, I know I’ll never settle for anything less, and I’ll never fill my time with a distraction. My next relationship is going to be one that’s worth it...one that doesn’t end...one that lasts. I also am fortunate to know my mind will lead me down a very noble and rewarding career, not just in healthcare, but in bussiness. Money sure doesn’t buy happiness, but at the young age of 24, I’ve started researching ways to invest, small businesses that i could start, that could potentially be a money maker outside of my career right now. A wise man told me once, you’ve gotta have something outside of your job that makes you at least half of what you make in a career, and then your set. Since this conversation, and since researching, my interest is peaked in how to make money and how to capitalize by investing and taking risks. I am hopeful, there’s something out there for me that will make me MEAN something. Something I can build or create that will take off and be the most amazing thing ever. I see that as a vision for myself....I truly believe it can happen. I am so fortunate to where I’m at now, with the good job that I have, the opportunities I get to travel (for free, that people would kill for), and to have the mind that I have, one which has the ability to always see both sides to every situation. One that no longer lets myself dwell in sadness and despair - there’s so much more to life than bracing for impact, or impending doom, that may, or may not happen. I choose to shoot for the stars, but expect nothing in return. It’s up to me to jump and leap as far as I can, but it’s no one’s job to catch me or bring me there. I came into this world alone, and I go through this world alone, and I’m happy to love myself and surround myself with those who I know love me.  What’s important is knowing who you are, keeping yourself in check, and always always being brutally honest with yourself. I am no where near perfect, and I never strive to be, because perfect means you’re done growing, and I always want to be a work in progress.

[kazimirov-archive]

Cor: 7, 10 (u gotta pick another name !), 18, 27, 34, 42, 44, Brose: 3, 16, 18, 20, 29, 39, 40 Orlan: 47, 39, 18, 30, 17, 11, 5. :D also i gave them all 18 lol

Cor

1. If you could be a mythical creature, which would you choose?

“Oh. Hm. I don’t know if I’d want to be any fantasy creature that I can think of? Of course, elf is always the immediate reaction, but if we mean Tolkien’s elves, and I assume we are, they’re really kind of boring aren’t they? But I guess I’m also boring also. Or actually! a Water horse or hippocampus. They’re not super smart or anything, but there’s something infinitely cool about being a sea monster of sorts, but a sea monster that looks friendly enough to not be perceived as a threat.”

10. Do you like your name? Would you ever change it?

“I mean, yes? My parents gave me this name of course I like it. But if I had to change it, probably...jeong?? it’s weird to have it as a one character name, but one of the hanja for it means quiet or calm. i believe in choosing names for their meanings so having a name that actually fits me, and doesn’t just mean war horn would be nice. though i guess you could argue war horn does fit me since i think the horn players didn’t fight. they just played music and died, which sounds about right.”

18. Tell us about an early childhood memory.

“When I was little, my mom really tried to keep her Korean heritage alive for me. She spoke Korean to me and fed me Korean food and told me stories about her side of the family and their lives. I don’t remember very many details about my childhood, but I remember on several instances  sitting on her lap in bed as she went through Korean children’s books with me. She would point to the rabbit and ask, “Mwoya?” ‘What is it?’ and I would giggle and shout, “Naya!” ‘It’s me!’. To this day I mutter “naya” to myself whenever I see wild rabbits.”

27. Do you like your cereal crunchy or soggy?

“I don’t like the use of soggy here. Soggy has bad connotations. I like my cereal soft with a little bit of a crunch, and that is definitely not soggy.”

34. Do you address older people by their first or last name?

“Usually by their last. It’s very rude in Korea to address a stranger, particularly an older or higher ranking one, by their first name, so even though I grew up speaking Korean in America and Italy, you get into the habit of using last names anyway because the language is structured around that. And also both my parents and my aunt were very strict in regards to politeness, so last name was always safest.”

42. Where do you feel the safest?

“At home, wherever that may be. There’s something comforting about being surrounded by your own stuff in your own home and knowing that you belong there. I also find safety in certain people. Marcus, for example, is a very grounding person and I always seek him out in crowds or stressful situations because he makes me feel protected. Cesaire is also a very safe person to be around, but moreso on the ‘will neutralize any threats instantly’ end of the spectrum rather than the ‘chill person’ end.”

44. If you could travel back to any era, which would you choose?

“Well, we’re living in objectively the best era to be in, right? The best healthcare, the highest life expectancy, the most equality, and all that. So permanently? I would stay right here. But if it was just a trip, probably pre-colonial Africa or Asia or South America or something. It would be fascinating to see what those cultures were like before European influence, to see what they thought of religion and time and gender and all that. I’m not sure which one I would want to visit, though, I’ll have to think on that.”

Brose

3. If you could learn a new skill, what would it be?

“oh oh oh! knitting. it’s really domestic i know but paris is SO COLD and i want to learn how to make everyone aesthetic mittens and hats and all that! alaina and i could match :D”

16. Who do you want to be closer to?

“everyone??? i want to be closer to all my friends i want to be the most important person in their lives 800000% of the time. but more seriously, probably asiel?? weirdly enough. we’re friends of course but i dunno the bond he has with alaina just seems really nice, even though i also have that bond with her i guess. i just want more bonds!!”

18. Tell us about an early childhood memory.

“when i was almost three italy made it to the final round of the world cup, literally for the first time in like 12 years. so like my family was PUMPED. and i was really little of course but i remember being forced to stay up super late and watch the game and my parents gave me espresso because italians i guess. and then we lost BUT we still got second place and it had been 12 years and ohmyGOSH the shouting and cheering was insane!! and i was the tiniest 2 1/2 year old ever so i was literally passed around like a trophy and hoisted up into the air as everyone celebrated. it was amazing. i still have a picture of me swimming in my cousin’s jersey.”

20. What can you see outside your bedroom window?

“uhhh the city? lots of cool buildings and stuff i guess? also the seine which i hate to admit it but is a much nicer river to look at than the tiber. still not as nice as my hometown, though. ((((but a million times better than new york so i’m not bitching.))))”

29. Do you like reading? What was the last thing you read?

“uhhhh i don’t?? read??? i’ve never been much of a reader- i’m dyslexic and it’s just not my thing. the last thing i read was probably actually the bible?? i joined this online bible study and it’s been very interesting to compare people’s ideas about passages. but, fun trick i use: i have an audiobook of an italian translation, so it’s reading but only sort of.”

39. What is one thing you would want to teach your children?

“only one thing?? probably acceptance. acceptance of people’s differences, acceptance of life’s hardships, acceptance of your own existence, acceptance of truth even when it hurts. fighting is good and all, but being able to sit down and say ‘i accept whoever and whatever comes my way’ is really powerful. no that doesn’t mean you never stand up for yourself, you have to also accept that certain people and things might not be right for you, but it means that you are able to be at peace with life and if they come away with any lessons, i want it to be that.”

40. If you had to have a tattoo, what would it be and where would you get it?

“i actually cracked and got one! i have my mom’s birthday on my ribs with my favorite bible passage under it. and and then alaina and i are getting ones, but the design and everything is a surprise!”

Orlan

47. How would you spend your ideal day?

“my ideal days are ones when things go right. i like being able to sit back and relax and not worry about plans or people messing up. on a day when everything is going right i would probably spend it lying around with thelry and just relaxing and watching tv and maybe cooking some real food. y’know, maximizing the relaxation.”

39. What is one thing you would want to teach your children?

“to always fight for what they believe in. that’s what my mamma taught me and it’s been my driving force my entire life. never stand down and let people walk over you or let the bad guys get away with it, because if you do you’re just as bad as them.”

18. Tell us about an early childhood memory.

“i don’t have many positive ones, especially since my mom died when i was fairly young, but we shared a bed and i remember having her arms around me and she would be right there if i had a nightmare or wanted a hug, ready to pull me closer and chase all the darkness away. i miss that.”

30. How do you show someone you love them?

“with closeness. like emotional closeness and also physical closeness. i let myself be open with them and let them be open with me and spend as much time in their presence as possible. i’m pretty obvious.”

17. Do you miss someone at the moment?

“mamma, always mamma.”

11. Who is a mentor to you?

“there’s no one in particular, but i like to study revolutionaries and rule breakers of the past. they inspire to me to stand behind my beliefs and morals, but also to be smart and not just charge ahead aimlessly. i particularly like studying insurgents of the past, it’s interesting to see how they played the game from both sides. as for mentors in my real life?? weirdly enough, probably some of the bosses i’ve come in contact with. our morals are the exact opposite,if they even have morals, but they are ruthless in their execution.”

5. What was your favourite book as a child?

“we had a copy of fiabe italiane growing up and my mother used to read to me from it and i’ve always said it was my favorite book. the problem is that she would rework the stories to make them less gory, because she thought fiction shouldn’t be violent if real life already was, so when i finally read the book on my own after she died i was shocked! so maybe not fiabe italiane, but i’m not sure what else to say.”

[thebackroadtourist]

Eating Abroad: How To Find Balance On The Road.

Backpacking is hard enough. It tests you in ways you could never imagine. When you take an open-ended backpacking trip you will inevitably navigate foreign land surrounded by strangers who don’t speak a lick of your language. You will feel lost at times, lonely, hungry, thirsty, emotionally pushed to your limits and you will be without your favorite snack.…yeah, hanger is a real thing. So why make it all harder for yourself?

Imagine this: *You get off the bus in a small town in Colombia, it’s a scorching 95 degrees outside and you’re starving, exhausted, and sick of schlepping your 60 liter backpack. The mid afternoon sun is beaming down on you as beads of sweat roll into your eyes. You’re haven’t eaten since the early morning and you don’t know where you’re sleeping that night. You need food in your belly before you search for a hostel. Food is calling your name. But you’re vegan, by choice. You search and search, scanning down street after street with no sign of a vegan option, only cheese empanadas. You’e been living off of exotic Costa Rican fruits for the past month so your’e craving a papaya. You can’t find one. With no tienda’s in sight where you could at least get some pretzels, you finally spot a street vendor in the near distance. You approach the vendor in hopes of sinking your teeth into fresh delicious vegan food, maybe a few ears of corn or some yucca fries. You confidently approach the man behind the steaming cart. As it turns out he is frying up plantains and you order 10 of them, turning down the delicious dairy-based yogurt sauce that accompanies it. You find a small stoop to sit on and munch on the plantains that were just fried in mystery oil. It’s delicious but quite dry because you turned down the sauce. You finish your “meal” but it leaves you feeling parched and for some reason you just aren’t satisfied. The lack of protein and amino acids leave you sluggish as you continue on with your day.*

^That was me 3 years ago on my first ever backpacking trip. This true story along with many situations like that made me one stressed out vegan - more stressed than I should have ever been! During this time I was a new vegan having just watched the horrifying documentaries on Netflix and convinced that plants were sufficient enough for me to sustain life. 

Now don't get me wrong, I admire veganism and I myself eat a diet comprised mainly of vegan food. I buy vegan products and it sickens me how factory farm animals can be mistreated. However during this trip I let my extremism get the best of me despite my opportunity to eat fresh, local, sustainable, delicious (and still healthy) food made from scratch by locals who really know how to cook. Instead, I resorted to fruit and peanut butter, became malnourished, lost weight and eventually became ill.

Food is an important part of travel and I believe it is integral to sink your teeth into the flesh of wherever you are, literally. International travel is an opportunity to open up, expand your horizons and try new things. It’s a chance to step outside of yourself. You may only be there once in your entire, so why create needless boundaries?

Here is another story: *A week prior to my plantain experience I was sitting in the city square of Cartagena on a Friday night with a group of backpackers I befriended on the ferry ride over the day before from Panama. The smell of BBQ filled our nostrils as street vendors began to grill burgers besides us. Of course everyone in the group ordered a fat juicy burger except for me. I was stuck with fries, because that was all I told myself I could eat. They munched and moaned over what they referred to as “the best burger they have ever had” as juice from the patty dripped down their chins. My subconscious jealously skyrocketed as I began to consciously resent every one of them for being “ignorant” and “uneducated” about the impact of meat consumption on themselves, the animals, and the planet, turning over my pent up frustration on to them. But then that anger turned into resentment towards…ME. I felt stupid in that moment for having such a narrow mind regarding food and even more stupid for building a wall around myself during this time of my life where I should be exploring. In that moment my self-pity reached it’s limit and I wanted to break down that wall and end my 8 month vegan streak but I knew that a greasy burger would make me vomit since I hadn’t consumed meat in so long. So I persevered and continued to nibble on my fries.*

^Since this break-through of mine, I began incorporating quality meats and cheeses into my travels, balanced out with the typical vegan food I normally eat at home, such as greens, fruits, legumes, nuts and seeds. And because of this, my openness to try new things and my limitless potential to experience foods I have never eaten, have exponentially heightened my overall enjoyment of travel.

A paleo diet is restricting as well, along with other fad diets which are fine when you’re at home however I suggest you drop it when you’re on the road. Why? Because you can always come back home and pick up where you left off. Food is an important element in travel, and can make for the best memories.

Throughout my most recent backpacking trip through the Balkans, I met a few vegans. Two of them were new vegans who reminded me a lot like myself on my first backpacking trip. I could sense their tension. They complained how “hard it was” to travel through the Balkans on a vegan diet (which is nearly impossible). One of them even remarked “That smells SO good,” when my lamb dish came to the table. An extreme (and new) vegan I met in Greece was restricted to only one restaurant throughout her week in the village I stayed in, and honestly her restaurant wasn’t that good. I could tell she wasn’t too happy, plus she got salty towards me when I refused her offer to join her for dinner one night.

That being said, whatever you eat - you must always be careful with the food you eat, anywhere you go. If you’re going to Italy for only a week, go ahead and splurge on all the gelato, pasta and meat you can handle, eat it all -  ALL OF IT! However if you’re in Italy for an entire month, go inevitably crazy for the first week and then slow it down a bit. When you travel you tend to eat foods that are heavier than foods you normally eat. You must find balance. Be mindful of your consumption quantities and try not to over-do it. You eyes are always bigger than your stomach when you travel, at least mine are. When I was in Italy I ate a substantial amount of dairy in literally every meal. In the States I rarely consume dairy. So what happened? Two weeks into dairy-city I got sick!

That is why I have created a set of key points for eating abroad. Think of this as your “10 Conscious Commandments to Keeping a Healthy Body and Mind”:

1. If a healthcare professional has not assigned a specific diet for you to overcome a dis-ease in your body, do NOT create one for yourself. If you find yourself depriving yourself of food that would otherwise be perfectly healthy for you, ask yourself “Why.” *If you are a veteran vegan who will never cheat on your diet and you know ahead of time where to eat or you bring your own food for a trip abroad, then great!* Otherwise, why even bother going to places that you know won’t accommodate you? There are no vegetables in Albania.

2. When you deprive yourself from experiencing foods, you miss out on the true authentic local flavors. There truly are incredible foods out there in this world,

3. When you deprive yourself of certain foods, especially in countries that eat mostly those foods you deprive yourself of, you risk malnourishment and your chance of becoming sick increases. 

4. When you deprive yourself of certain foods you miss out on social memories. Eating is a social experience. If you don’t have an allergy or a sensitivity to something, just eat it. It will bond you closer to people.

5. When you deprive yourself of foods, stress may (and most likely will) accumulate, even on the subconscious level. The stress / resentment towards yourself or others in regards to eating a particular food will bottle up inside you, hence creating a tensified aura around you.

6. Always bring vegan probiotics when traveling abroad. Heavy foods can create mucus in your GI tract and the mucus producing areas in your body will follow suit, including sinuses and ears.

7. Do your best to eat light and clean meals on days in between large and heavy meals. Get a juice. Buy a smoothie. Eat some fruit. Cleanse yourself from time to time on long trips to prevent sickness and built up mucus.

8. Exercise! You gotta do more than just walk. Wake up early and jog around the city center, or find a park to do yoga in. Maybe find a conducive space in your hostel or place of stay to do some push-ups, squats, lunges, and other bodyweight exercises that can get your heart-rate up and your body moving. Swimming is also a great exercise. Your body is your vehicle, take care of it! I am a big advocate for meditation as well.

9. Drink clean water. This may be my most important commandment of all. Water quality varies by country so please do your homework and know when you need to buy bottled water. In Central and South America water it is not advised to drink water straight from the tap. South-Eastern European countries also have sketchy tap water. I got sick in Albania from drinking their tap water. When you brush your teeth rinse your mouth with bottled water. Avoid iced drinks and ice cubes including iced coffee and teas. And beware of people selling bottled water on the streets that were previously opened and filled with tap water (this scam happens more so than one might think), so always check the seal before purchasing.

10. Life with NO REGRETS. Eat with NO GUILT.

In conclusion, balance balance balance. Aim for the middle path. Too much or too little of one thing can create an imbalance in your health. If you are vegan it is possible to life a vegan lifestyle at home and cheat a little on the road to experience a place more fully. There is nothing wrong with some flexibility, even if it’s one or two bites. I just want YOU to experience the most out of life. :)

[josephkchoi]

Google Ads Basics: A Guide to Setting Up Your First Google Ads Campaign

Google Ads are to online marketing what the “pizza move” is to beginner skiers—once you get the hang of the basics, you’ll start seeing results straight away (and likely be keen to learn more, more, more). But that initial learning curve can be a little daunting, especially if you’re still learning about online marketing in general, and all the tactics, tools, and strategies that come with it.

Since Google is basically synonymous with the Internet, Google Ads are worth getting friendly with. Not only will they get your business, product, or offerings in front of a lot more of the right eyeballs, they can help build good credit within the Google ecosystem to bolster your organic ranking efforts.

But you’ve gotta crawl before you can walk, so I put together a step-by-step guide to creating and setting up your first Google Ads. Full disclosure—I’m pretty new to setting up Google Ads myself, in the interest of taking a genuine, no-foolin’ beginner’s approach. I’ve also included all of the awesome resources I used in my research at the bottom of the post, so you can explore advanced strategies at your leisure. Now let’s tackle this bunny hill together. 

Why Should I Use Google Ads?

Google Ads put your offers in front of a super-targeted audience that is—in many cases—actively looking for exactly what you’re offering. Beyond the pay-to-play power of advertising your business on the world’s most-used search engine, Google Ads can be your portal to building a high Quality Score that reflects on your business overall.

Quality Score is a measurement of relevance through an assessment of click-through rate, ad relevance, and landing pages experience. It’s a way for Google to calculate which advertisers are creating honest, well-targeted, and useful ads versus ones that are… not.

You know those clickbaity, keyword-dense ads that send you to a mystery website or page with a million different products? Their Quality Scores are probably in the pooper—and that sh*t has consequences, like:

Which ads are eligible to run

How eligible ads are ranked in search results

CPC (cost-per-click) you’ll pay as an advertiser

What Google’s really looking at is the experience you’re providing to people searching for those keywords. Your Quality Score gets better the more relevant your keywords are to your offer, the more targeted your ad messaging is, and the better your landing page matches your ad—so visitors get exactly what they’re expecting when they click through. This also translates to increased ad opportunities, higher ad rankings, lower costs-per-click, and more return on your ad spend. 

Expert tip from Andrew Miller, Co-Founder of Workshop Digital: “Ad relevance is extremely important but don’t underestimate visitors’ experience on landing pages. Advertisers can improve Quality Score by creating landing pages that load quickly, look great on mobile devices, and provide users with a sense of trust that their data will be protected.

I recommend running all landing pages through Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool to find opportunities to speed things up. Be sure to test your landing pages and website on a variety of devices and operating systems to make sure all visitors can get what they need. Finally, make your privacy policy and data protection policies are transparent and visible.”

Terms to Know

Pay-per-click (PPC): The general term for paid online advertising, in which you’re paying by the number of clicks on your ad.

AdRank: A value assigned to your ad position in relation to other ads. Essentially, when there are several ads showing up at the top of a search engine results page, this is where you show up in the queue.

Bidding: The highest amount you’re willing to pay for an ad click.

Click-through rate (CTR): The number of clicks your ad receives divided by the number of times your ad is shown, as a percentage.

Cost-per-click (CPC): What each individual ad click costs.

Conversion rate: The average number of conversions on your ad, as a percentage. A conversion is the action you want visitors to take after they’ve clicked the ad—a sale, call, signup, etc.

Keywords: Words or phrases describing your product or service that you choose to help determine when and where your ad can appear.

Quality Score: Google’s assessment of the quality of your ads, keywords, and landing pages.

Search volume: The number of searches expected for a keyword within a certain time period.

What Type of Ads Can I Run With Google?

In the spirit of tackling the basics, we’ll just be covering Search Network ads in this post. But there are several options to explore with the world of Google Advertising.

Search Network: Text ads shown next to search results when a query is typed into Google.

Display Network: Visual ads shown to prospective customers wherever they may be on the Internet (relevant websites, blogs, etc.) within the Google Display Network.

Video: Video ads shown on YouTube and other video partner websites.

Search Network with Display: You guessed it—a combination of search and display ads. 

Shopping: Designed for physical products, these ads are shown at the top of search results and give detailed descriptions of your item.

Universal App: Promotes your app across Google Play, YouTube, Google Display Network, and Google Search.

Ad Extensions: A feature that shows extra information about your business, like a phone number, address, store rating, or additional website links.

Remarketing: Displays your ad to people who’ve visited your site already, wherever they may be—like the Display Network—by using cookies.

Which Keywords Should I Bid on?

You can use Google’s Keyword Planner to research keywords, discover new ones, and get estimated bids on ones you’re planning to go after. While you’ll need a Google Ads account to access the Keyword Planner, you don’t need to have any ads running yet. Signing up is totally free.

SEO expert Brian Dean has an excellent beginner’s guide to using the keyword planner. Check it out for thorough, step-by-step instructions to getting the most out of your keywords. But a few things to keep in mind when choosing:

Think of search intent, not simply descriptions. Put yourself in the mind of your customer—which terms would they be searching for that your product or service could be the solution to? For instance, if you’re selling grass skirts for cats, you may want to explore terms like “funny cat outfits” or “novelty cat clothing” (or “nearest hospital” for the eventual aftermath).

The more specific your offer, and the more specific your customer, the more specific your keywords should be. Say you’ve got a surplus of women’s Nike runners in size eight you need to sell. Your ad will likely be just what someone searching for “women’s size eight Nikes” or “women’s Nike running shoes on sale” is looking for. Note that getting too specific may narrow your search opportunities, so you’ll have to find the right balance between being super-targeted and using terms with enough search volume to get in front of people.

Bid on broader keywords if you want to reach more people. If your ad is more general, it can apply to more people and be relevant to a more general search. Keywords with higher search volume have tougher competition and can be pricier to bid on, though, so play around with broad keywords that are both relevant to your offer and give your ad a decent chance to be noticed.

If you’re into outsourcing to robots, Google offers a tool called Smart Bidding that uses machine learning to bid on keywords and optimize your ads for conversion.

Expert tip: “Keyword research is not a “set it and forget it” exercise. It’s a continual process of expansion (finding more keywords to test) and refinement (culling keywords that underperform) that requires attention on a regular basis.

Google Keyword Planner is great for medium-to-high volume keywords, but niche targets may require a little more digging: Google Search Console for organic search queries, interviews with current customers, sales teams, and industry experts, Competitive intelligence tools such as SEMRush or Spyfu, and Google Trends data.”

Setting Up Your First Ad

Once you’ve got your keywords sorted, you’re ready to set your ad up. 

Luckily, Google makes it a pretty straightforward process. You may already have completed some of these steps when you signed up to access the Keyword Planner. 

Step One

Log into Google Ads to enter your business name and the landing page you want to send your ad visitors to. For example, I’ve chosen to create an ad for the video recap page for our most recent Call to Action Conference for this example. (Shameless plug alert: the videos are free and have tons of expert marketing advice!)

The reason Google (and Unbounce, naturally) emphasizes using a landing page as your PPC ad destination instead of your homepage or website is because they’re inherently more targeted. They can be fully customized to match each ad, providing a more focused and relevant experience to the visitor with a single call to action. And, at its core, what makes Google happy—and Quality Scores and ad ROI go up—is relevance.

If you don’t have a landing page yet, we’re offering free use of the Unbounce platform to those in critical services like healthcare, education, nonprofits, and government for three months from your initial sign up date. Learn here how to get a professional landing page built, designed, and published in no time. For more tips, Landing Page Basics and the Conversion Resources Library have everything you need to know to create a high-converting page.   

Step Two

Select your conversion goal based on the call to action you’ve added to your landing page. In this case, we ask people to sign up for access to the CTAConf 2019 videos. The conversion goal is how you can really measure the success of your ad.

Step Three

Choose the location(s) you want your ad to appear in. The audience tally in the right corner will automatically adjust as you add and remove location options so you can gauge whether your audience size is too small to bother with, or too large to allow for an impact. 

The landing page I’m promoting is applicable to more than just British Columbians and Albertans, but for this particular ad I want to keep the audience at a manageable size and not go so broad that it shows to 50 million people at once and gobbles up my budget like a 2 am Big Mac.  

If you’re keen to take your geographic strategy a step further, WordStream’s Erin Bell has written a comprehensive guide to Google AdWords geotargeting. 

Expert tip: “The “perfect” audience is the right combination of quality (likelihood to convert) and quantity (number of potential customers), which will vary for each business. Consider your budgets and risk tolerance when selecting your target audiences.

If you have a smaller budget or are just getting started with Google Ads, I recommend starting with a very focused audience of your most likely customers. It is easy to spend more when you find a combination of keywords and locations that balance quality and quantity. It can be difficult to identify high-performing keywords and audiences if you cast too wide a net.”

Step Four

It’s keyword time. Add in the keywords and terms you want to target. Like it did with audience location size, Google will adjust your monthly reach potential as you add and subtract keywords. It’ll also suggest related keywords to boost your efforts, if needed. 

Step Five

Write your ad! The copy should mirror the messaging on your landing page to create the most cohesive ad experience possible, get those precious relevance points with the Google overlords, and most importantly, convert more click-throughs. Get tips on how to write the best, most compelling Google Ads copy here. 

Expert tip: “Every ad should reinforce the keywords or search intent, highlight your value propositions or differentiators, and include a strong call to action with an offer or incentive.

Try to identify where each searcher is in his/her journey. For example, are they able to articulate the problem(s) they are trying to solve? Are they already aware of solutions and/or brands that can help them? Are they aware of your brand? Your ad copy will likely need to change at each stage of the customer journey to move people closer to finding a solution to their problems.

You can also use Google’s Responsive Search Ads to provide multiple headlines and descriptions at one time. Google will automatically test and rotate the ad variations for you. With enough data, Google can start to optimize the ads to show the best combinations to each search.”

Step Six

Set your budget—or bid—to let Google know how much you’re willing to spend per day on your ad clicks. The amount of clicks that will get you depends on your cost-per-click, which depends on your keywords, audience size, and ad quality. Once you’ve gotten enough clicks to reach your daily spend limit, Google will stop showing your ad until the next day. You can take Google’s suggestions or enter a custom amount based on your budget allotment. 

Expert tip: “I always recommend a starting budget that allows you to buy at least 300-500 clicks. Cost Per Click (CPC) is going to vary depending on your industry and competitors so your budget should be high enough to afford this initial testing period.

The first 300-500 clicks will give you enough data to measure the outcomes (phone calls, transactions, lead form submissions, etc.), determine a baseline, and project ROI. If you are happy with the results from the first few hundred clicks, step up your budget in comfortable increments until you find a point of diminishing returns, then look for other keywords or audiences to continue your expansion. If the initial test does not meet your expectations, revisit your assumptions, change a variable, and test again.”

Once you hit “Next,” you’ll be taken to a page to review your Google Ad and campaign parameters. Then you’ll be asked to enter your payment information before finally submitting your ad.

You won’t be billed until after the ad has run its course, since Google won’t know how much your ad truly costs until all of the click-throughs are accounted for. Payments can be done automatically once the ad campaign is finished or as a monthly invoice. And be sure to grab your $150 USD ad credit for Google Ads first-timers.

Now you’re done! Well, almost. After you’ve submitted your ad, Google will process it and let you know whether it’s approved or denied. Don’t fret if it doesn’t go through the first time—you’ll be told exactly what needs fixing and be able to resubmit.

Optimizing Your Google Ads

Marketing never sleeps—there are always ways to tweak and experiment with ads to get the most conversions. Be sure to check on your campaigns and look for ways to optimize both your ads and their respective PPC landing pages to plug any conversion leaks and make the most of your ad spend.

A/B testing, which involves running multiple pages within the same campaign to test different messaging, design, and calls to action, is one of the most effective ways to see what’s resonating with your audience (and what’s not).

If you’re building Unbounce landing pages, Smart Traffic can also run these experiments for you, using machine learning to send visitors to the most relevant page variant based on individual attributes. Learn how to use Smart Traffic to convert more clicks with the almighty power of robots. 

Expert tip: “Some of the biggest wins come from helping your ad stand out from the crowd. Here are some easy ways to dress it up a bit:

1. Use as many ad extensions as possible to help your text ads stand out on a search results page. The most common ad extensions are “click to call” buttons/links, location/maps information, and sitelinks that highlight other content on your website. There are several others so be sure to test as many as possible.

2. Create mobile-specific ads to customize the experience for users on the move. This may include a different set of calls to action or offers. For example, offer driving directions or click to call/text options that minimize the number of clicks required to engage with you.

3. Promote a compelling offer that helps your ad stand out from others. Consumers are conditioned to look for discounts, free shipping, and fast delivery.”

Further Reading

I hope this was helpful to you in getting your first Google Ad out in the wild! There’s tons to learn, explore, and fiddle with as you become a Google Ads pro. As promised, below are the resources I used to study up and link throughout this post to get you on your way there. Good luck and happy advertising!

2020 Google Ads Guide

How to Use the Google Keyword Planner in 2020

6 Easy Steps to Get Your Google Ads Ready for 2020

The Beginner’s Guide to SEO: Keyword Research

What is Quality Score and Why It Matters

How to Create Landing Page Variants & Optimize with AI

What is A/B Testing?

Sloppy PPC Landing Pages Hurt Your Ad Spend. Here’s How to Fix ‘Em

How to Optimize for Google AdWords in 2020: 50 Tips to Increase Clicks

How to Get Your Google Ads Approved (Fast)

How to Write the Best Google Ads Copy (Best Practices)

Landing Page Best Practices

Complete Guide to AdWords Geotargeting and Local PPC

Unbounce Conversion Resources Library

Customers Still Need You: Here’s How to Start Your Online Business Quickly

How We’re Working for You During COVID-19

What is a PPC Landing Page?

Google Ads Basics: A Guide to Setting Up Your First Google Ads Campaign published first on https://nickpontemrktg.wordpress.com/

[annaxkeating]

Google Ads Basics: A Guide to Setting Up Your First Google Ads Campaign

Google Ads are to online marketing what the “pizza move” is to beginner skiers—once you get the hang of the basics, you’ll start seeing results straight away (and likely be keen to learn more, more, more). But that initial learning curve can be a little daunting, especially if you’re still learning about online marketing in general, and all the tactics, tools, and strategies that come with it.

Since Google is basically synonymous with the Internet, Google Ads are worth getting friendly with. Not only will they get your business, product, or offerings in front of a lot more of the right eyeballs, they can help build good credit within the Google ecosystem to bolster your organic ranking efforts.

But you’ve gotta crawl before you can walk, so I put together a step-by-step guide to creating and setting up your first Google Ads. Full disclosure—I’m pretty new to setting up Google Ads myself, in the interest of taking a genuine, no-foolin’ beginner’s approach. I’ve also included all of the awesome resources I used in my research at the bottom of the post, so you can explore advanced strategies at your leisure. Now let’s tackle this bunny hill together. 

Why Should I Use Google Ads?

Google Ads put your offers in front of a super-targeted audience that is—in many cases—actively looking for exactly what you’re offering. Beyond the pay-to-play power of advertising your business on the world’s most-used search engine, Google Ads can be your portal to building a high Quality Score that reflects on your business overall.

Quality Score is a measurement of relevance through an assessment of click-through rate, ad relevance, and landing pages experience. It’s a way for Google to calculate which advertisers are creating honest, well-targeted, and useful ads versus ones that are… not.

You know those clickbaity, keyword-dense ads that send you to a mystery website or page with a million different products? Their Quality Scores are probably in the pooper—and that sh*t has consequences, like:

Which ads are eligible to run

How eligible ads are ranked in search results

CPC (cost-per-click) you’ll pay as an advertiser

What Google’s really looking at is the experience you’re providing to people searching for those keywords. Your Quality Score gets better the more relevant your keywords are to your offer, the more targeted your ad messaging is, and the better your landing page matches your ad—so visitors get exactly what they’re expecting when they click through. This also translates to increased ad opportunities, higher ad rankings, lower costs-per-click, and more return on your ad spend. 

Expert tip from Andrew Miller, Co-Founder of Workshop Digital: “Ad relevance is extremely important but don’t underestimate visitors’ experience on landing pages. Advertisers can improve Quality Score by creating landing pages that load quickly, look great on mobile devices, and provide users with a sense of trust that their data will be protected.

I recommend running all landing pages through Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool to find opportunities to speed things up. Be sure to test your landing pages and website on a variety of devices and operating systems to make sure all visitors can get what they need. Finally, make your privacy policy and data protection policies are transparent and visible.”

Terms to Know

Pay-per-click (PPC): The general term for paid online advertising, in which you’re paying by the number of clicks on your ad.

AdRank: A value assigned to your ad position in relation to other ads. Essentially, when there are several ads showing up at the top of a search engine results page, this is where you show up in the queue.

Bidding: The highest amount you’re willing to pay for an ad click.

Click-through rate (CTR): The number of clicks your ad receives divided by the number of times your ad is shown, as a percentage.

Cost-per-click (CPC): What each individual ad click costs.

Conversion rate: The average number of conversions on your ad, as a percentage. A conversion is the action you want visitors to take after they’ve clicked the ad—a sale, call, signup, etc.

Keywords: Words or phrases describing your product or service that you choose to help determine when and where your ad can appear.

Quality Score: Google’s assessment of the quality of your ads, keywords, and landing pages.

Search volume: The number of searches expected for a keyword within a certain time period.

What Type of Ads Can I Run With Google?

In the spirit of tackling the basics, we’ll just be covering Search Network ads in this post. But there are several options to explore with the world of Google Advertising.

Search Network: Text ads shown next to search results when a query is typed into Google.

Display Network: Visual ads shown to prospective customers wherever they may be on the Internet (relevant websites, blogs, etc.) within the Google Display Network.

Video: Video ads shown on YouTube and other video partner websites.

Search Network with Display: You guessed it—a combination of search and display ads. 

Shopping: Designed for physical products, these ads are shown at the top of search results and give detailed descriptions of your item.

Universal App: Promotes your app across Google Play, YouTube, Google Display Network, and Google Search.

Ad Extensions: A feature that shows extra information about your business, like a phone number, address, store rating, or additional website links.

Remarketing: Displays your ad to people who’ve visited your site already, wherever they may be—like the Display Network—by using cookies.

Which Keywords Should I Bid on?

You can use Google’s Keyword Planner to research keywords, discover new ones, and get estimated bids on ones you’re planning to go after. While you’ll need a Google Ads account to access the Keyword Planner, you don’t need to have any ads running yet. Signing up is totally free.

SEO expert Brian Dean has an excellent beginner’s guide to using the keyword planner. Check it out for thorough, step-by-step instructions to getting the most out of your keywords. But a few things to keep in mind when choosing:

Think of search intent, not simply descriptions. Put yourself in the mind of your customer—which terms would they be searching for that your product or service could be the solution to? For instance, if you’re selling grass skirts for cats, you may want to explore terms like “funny cat outfits” or “novelty cat clothing” (or “nearest hospital” for the eventual aftermath).

The more specific your offer, and the more specific your customer, the more specific your keywords should be. Say you’ve got a surplus of women’s Nike runners in size eight you need to sell. Your ad will likely be just what someone searching for “women’s size eight Nikes” or “women’s Nike running shoes on sale” is looking for. Note that getting too specific may narrow your search opportunities, so you’ll have to find the right balance between being super-targeted and using terms with enough search volume to get in front of people.

Bid on broader keywords if you want to reach more people. If your ad is more general, it can apply to more people and be relevant to a more general search. Keywords with higher search volume have tougher competition and can be pricier to bid on, though, so play around with broad keywords that are both relevant to your offer and give your ad a decent chance to be noticed.

If you’re into outsourcing to robots, Google offers a tool called Smart Bidding that uses machine learning to bid on keywords and optimize your ads for conversion.

Expert tip: “Keyword research is not a “set it and forget it” exercise. It’s a continual process of expansion (finding more keywords to test) and refinement (culling keywords that underperform) that requires attention on a regular basis.

Google Keyword Planner is great for medium-to-high volume keywords, but niche targets may require a little more digging: Google Search Console for organic search queries, interviews with current customers, sales teams, and industry experts, Competitive intelligence tools such as SEMRush or Spyfu, and Google Trends data.”

Setting Up Your First Ad

Once you’ve got your keywords sorted, you’re ready to set your ad up. 

Luckily, Google makes it a pretty straightforward process. You may already have completed some of these steps when you signed up to access the Keyword Planner. 

Step One

Log into Google Ads to enter your business name and the landing page you want to send your ad visitors to. For example, I’ve chosen to create an ad for the video recap page for our most recent Call to Action Conference for this example. (Shameless plug alert: the videos are free and have tons of expert marketing advice!)

The reason Google (and Unbounce, naturally) emphasizes using a landing page as your PPC ad destination instead of your homepage or website is because they’re inherently more targeted. They can be fully customized to match each ad, providing a more focused and relevant experience to the visitor with a single call to action. And, at its core, what makes Google happy—and Quality Scores and ad ROI go up—is relevance.

If you don’t have a landing page yet, we’re offering free use of the Unbounce platform to those in critical services like healthcare, education, nonprofits, and government for three months from your initial sign up date. Learn here how to get a professional landing page built, designed, and published in no time. For more tips, Landing Page Basics and the Conversion Resources Library have everything you need to know to create a high-converting page.   

Step Two

Select your conversion goal based on the call to action you’ve added to your landing page. In this case, we ask people to sign up for access to the CTAConf 2019 videos. The conversion goal is how you can really measure the success of your ad.

Step Three

Choose the location(s) you want your ad to appear in. The audience tally in the right corner will automatically adjust as you add and remove location options so you can gauge whether your audience size is too small to bother with, or too large to allow for an impact. 

The landing page I’m promoting is applicable to more than just British Columbians and Albertans, but for this particular ad I want to keep the audience at a manageable size and not go so broad that it shows to 50 million people at once and gobbles up my budget like a 2 am Big Mac.  

If you’re keen to take your geographic strategy a step further, WordStream’s Erin Bell has written a comprehensive guide to Google AdWords geotargeting. 

Expert tip: “The “perfect” audience is the right combination of quality (likelihood to convert) and quantity (number of potential customers), which will vary for each business. Consider your budgets and risk tolerance when selecting your target audiences.

If you have a smaller budget or are just getting started with Google Ads, I recommend starting with a very focused audience of your most likely customers. It is easy to spend more when you find a combination of keywords and locations that balance quality and quantity. It can be difficult to identify high-performing keywords and audiences if you cast too wide a net.”

Step Four

It’s keyword time. Add in the keywords and terms you want to target. Like it did with audience location size, Google will adjust your monthly reach potential as you add and subtract keywords. It’ll also suggest related keywords to boost your efforts, if needed. 

Step Five

Write your ad! The copy should mirror the messaging on your landing page to create the most cohesive ad experience possible, get those precious relevance points with the Google overlords, and most importantly, convert more click-throughs. Get tips on how to write the best, most compelling Google Ads copy here. 

Expert tip: “Every ad should reinforce the keywords or search intent, highlight your value propositions or differentiators, and include a strong call to action with an offer or incentive.

Try to identify where each searcher is in his/her journey. For example, are they able to articulate the problem(s) they are trying to solve? Are they already aware of solutions and/or brands that can help them? Are they aware of your brand? Your ad copy will likely need to change at each stage of the customer journey to move people closer to finding a solution to their problems.

You can also use Google’s Responsive Search Ads to provide multiple headlines and descriptions at one time. Google will automatically test and rotate the ad variations for you. With enough data, Google can start to optimize the ads to show the best combinations to each search.”

Step Six

Set your budget—or bid—to let Google know how much you’re willing to spend per day on your ad clicks. The amount of clicks that will get you depends on your cost-per-click, which depends on your keywords, audience size, and ad quality. Once you’ve gotten enough clicks to reach your daily spend limit, Google will stop showing your ad until the next day. You can take Google’s suggestions or enter a custom amount based on your budget allotment. 

Expert tip: “I always recommend a starting budget that allows you to buy at least 300-500 clicks. Cost Per Click (CPC) is going to vary depending on your industry and competitors so your budget should be high enough to afford this initial testing period.

The first 300-500 clicks will give you enough data to measure the outcomes (phone calls, transactions, lead form submissions, etc.), determine a baseline, and project ROI. If you are happy with the results from the first few hundred clicks, step up your budget in comfortable increments until you find a point of diminishing returns, then look for other keywords or audiences to continue your expansion. If the initial test does not meet your expectations, revisit your assumptions, change a variable, and test again.”

Once you hit “Next,” you’ll be taken to a page to review your Google Ad and campaign parameters. Then you’ll be asked to enter your payment information before finally submitting your ad.

You won’t be billed until after the ad has run its course, since Google won’t know how much your ad truly costs until all of the click-throughs are accounted for. Payments can be done automatically once the ad campaign is finished or as a monthly invoice. And be sure to grab your $150 USD ad credit for Google Ads first-timers.

Now you’re done! Well, almost. After you’ve submitted your ad, Google will process it and let you know whether it’s approved or denied. Don’t fret if it doesn’t go through the first time—you’ll be told exactly what needs fixing and be able to resubmit.

Optimizing Your Google Ads

Marketing never sleeps—there are always ways to tweak and experiment with ads to get the most conversions. Be sure to check on your campaigns and look for ways to optimize both your ads and their respective PPC landing pages to plug any conversion leaks and make the most of your ad spend.

A/B testing, which involves running multiple pages within the same campaign to test different messaging, design, and calls to action, is one of the most effective ways to see what’s resonating with your audience (and what’s not).

If you’re building Unbounce landing pages, Smart Traffic can also run these experiments for you, using machine learning to send visitors to the most relevant page variant based on individual attributes. Learn how to use Smart Traffic to convert more clicks with the almighty power of robots. 

Expert tip: “Some of the biggest wins come from helping your ad stand out from the crowd. Here are some easy ways to dress it up a bit:

1. Use as many ad extensions as possible to help your text ads stand out on a search results page. The most common ad extensions are “click to call” buttons/links, location/maps information, and sitelinks that highlight other content on your website. There are several others so be sure to test as many as possible.

2. Create mobile-specific ads to customize the experience for users on the move. This may include a different set of calls to action or offers. For example, offer driving directions or click to call/text options that minimize the number of clicks required to engage with you.

3. Promote a compelling offer that helps your ad stand out from others. Consumers are conditioned to look for discounts, free shipping, and fast delivery.”

Further Reading

I hope this was helpful to you in getting your first Google Ad out in the wild! There’s tons to learn, explore, and fiddle with as you become a Google Ads pro. As promised, below are the resources I used to study up and link throughout this post to get you on your way there. Good luck and happy advertising!

2020 Google Ads Guide

How to Use the Google Keyword Planner in 2020

6 Easy Steps to Get Your Google Ads Ready for 2020

The Beginner’s Guide to SEO: Keyword Research

What is Quality Score and Why It Matters

How to Create Landing Page Variants & Optimize with AI

What is A/B Testing?

Sloppy PPC Landing Pages Hurt Your Ad Spend. Here’s How to Fix ‘Em

How to Optimize for Google AdWords in 2020: 50 Tips to Increase Clicks

How to Get Your Google Ads Approved (Fast)

How to Write the Best Google Ads Copy (Best Practices)

Landing Page Best Practices

Complete Guide to AdWords Geotargeting and Local PPC

Unbounce Conversion Resources Library

Customers Still Need You: Here’s How to Start Your Online Business Quickly

How We’re Working for You During COVID-19

What is a PPC Landing Page?

from Digital https://unbounce.com/ppc/google-ads-basics/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

[roypstickney]

Google Ads Basics: A Guide to Setting Up Your First Google Ads Campaign

Google Ads are to online marketing what the “pizza move” is to beginner skiers—once you get the hang of the basics, you’ll start seeing results straight away (and likely be keen to learn more, more, more). But that initial learning curve can be a little daunting, especially if you’re still learning about online marketing in general, and all the tactics, tools, and strategies that come with it.

Since Google is basically synonymous with the Internet, Google Ads are worth getting friendly with. Not only will they get your business, product, or offerings in front of a lot more of the right eyeballs, they can help build good credit within the Google ecosystem to bolster your organic ranking efforts.

But you’ve gotta crawl before you can walk, so I put together a step-by-step guide to creating and setting up your first Google Ads. Full disclosure—I’m pretty new to setting up Google Ads myself, in the interest of taking a genuine, no-foolin’ beginner’s approach. I’ve also included all of the awesome resources I used in my research at the bottom of the post, so you can explore advanced strategies at your leisure. Now let’s tackle this bunny hill together. 

Why Should I Use Google Ads?

Google Ads put your offers in front of a super-targeted audience that is—in many cases—actively looking for exactly what you’re offering. Beyond the pay-to-play power of advertising your business on the world’s most-used search engine, Google Ads can be your portal to building a high Quality Score that reflects on your business overall.

Quality Score is a measurement of relevance through an assessment of click-through rate, ad relevance, and landing pages experience. It’s a way for Google to calculate which advertisers are creating honest, well-targeted, and useful ads versus ones that are… not.

You know those clickbaity, keyword-dense ads that send you to a mystery website or page with a million different products? Their Quality Scores are probably in the pooper—and that sh*t has consequences, like:

Which ads are eligible to run

How eligible ads are ranked in search results

CPC (cost-per-click) you’ll pay as an advertiser

What Google’s really looking at is the experience you’re providing to people searching for those keywords. Your Quality Score gets better the more relevant your keywords are to your offer, the more targeted your ad messaging is, and the better your landing page matches your ad—so visitors get exactly what they’re expecting when they click through. This also translates to increased ad opportunities, higher ad rankings, lower costs-per-click, and more return on your ad spend. 

Expert tip from Andrew Miller, Co-Founder of Workshop Digital: “Ad relevance is extremely important but don’t underestimate visitors’ experience on landing pages. Advertisers can improve Quality Score by creating landing pages that load quickly, look great on mobile devices, and provide users with a sense of trust that their data will be protected.

I recommend running all landing pages through Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool to find opportunities to speed things up. Be sure to test your landing pages and website on a variety of devices and operating systems to make sure all visitors can get what they need. Finally, make your privacy policy and data protection policies are transparent and visible.”

Terms to Know

Pay-per-click (PPC): The general term for paid online advertising, in which you’re paying by the number of clicks on your ad.

AdRank: A value assigned to your ad position in relation to other ads. Essentially, when there are several ads showing up at the top of a search engine results page, this is where you show up in the queue.

Bidding: The highest amount you’re willing to pay for an ad click.

Click-through rate (CTR): The number of clicks your ad receives divided by the number of times your ad is shown, as a percentage.

Cost-per-click (CPC): What each individual ad click costs.

Conversion rate: The average number of conversions on your ad, as a percentage. A conversion is the action you want visitors to take after they’ve clicked the ad—a sale, call, signup, etc.

Keywords: Words or phrases describing your product or service that you choose to help determine when and where your ad can appear.

Quality Score: Google’s assessment of the quality of your ads, keywords, and landing pages.

Search volume: The number of searches expected for a keyword within a certain time period.

What Type of Ads Can I Run With Google?

In the spirit of tackling the basics, we’ll just be covering Search Network ads in this post. But there are several options to explore with the world of Google Advertising.

Search Network: Text ads shown next to search results when a query is typed into Google.

Display Network: Visual ads shown to prospective customers wherever they may be on the Internet (relevant websites, blogs, etc.) within the Google Display Network.

Video: Video ads shown on YouTube and other video partner websites.

Search Network with Display: You guessed it—a combination of search and display ads. 

Shopping: Designed for physical products, these ads are shown at the top of search results and give detailed descriptions of your item.

Universal App: Promotes your app across Google Play, YouTube, Google Display Network, and Google Search.

Ad Extensions: A feature that shows extra information about your business, like a phone number, address, store rating, or additional website links.

Remarketing: Displays your ad to people who’ve visited your site already, wherever they may be—like the Display Network—by using cookies.

Which Keywords Should I Bid on?

You can use Google’s Keyword Planner to research keywords, discover new ones, and get estimated bids on ones you’re planning to go after. While you’ll need a Google Ads account to access the Keyword Planner, you don’t need to have any ads running yet. Signing up is totally free.

SEO expert Brian Dean has an excellent beginner’s guide to using the keyword planner. Check it out for thorough, step-by-step instructions to getting the most out of your keywords. But a few things to keep in mind when choosing:

Think of search intent, not simply descriptions. Put yourself in the mind of your customer—which terms would they be searching for that your product or service could be the solution to? For instance, if you’re selling grass skirts for cats, you may want to explore terms like “funny cat outfits” or “novelty cat clothing” (or “nearest hospital” for the eventual aftermath).

The more specific your offer, and the more specific your customer, the more specific your keywords should be. Say you’ve got a surplus of women’s Nike runners in size eight you need to sell. Your ad will likely be just what someone searching for “women’s size eight Nikes” or “women’s Nike running shoes on sale” is looking for. Note that getting too specific may narrow your search opportunities, so you’ll have to find the right balance between being super-targeted and using terms with enough search volume to get in front of people.

Bid on broader keywords if you want to reach more people. If your ad is more general, it can apply to more people and be relevant to a more general search. Keywords with higher search volume have tougher competition and can be pricier to bid on, though, so play around with broad keywords that are both relevant to your offer and give your ad a decent chance to be noticed.

If you’re into outsourcing to robots, Google offers a tool called Smart Bidding that uses machine learning to bid on keywords and optimize your ads for conversion.

Expert tip: “Keyword research is not a “set it and forget it” exercise. It’s a continual process of expansion (finding more keywords to test) and refinement (culling keywords that underperform) that requires attention on a regular basis.

Google Keyword Planner is great for medium-to-high volume keywords, but niche targets may require a little more digging: Google Search Console for organic search queries, interviews with current customers, sales teams, and industry experts, Competitive intelligence tools such as SEMRush or Spyfu, and Google Trends data.”

Setting Up Your First Ad

Once you’ve got your keywords sorted, you’re ready to set your ad up. 

Luckily, Google makes it a pretty straightforward process. You may already have completed some of these steps when you signed up to access the Keyword Planner. 

Step One

Log into Google Ads to enter your business name and the landing page you want to send your ad visitors to. For example, I’ve chosen to create an ad for the video recap page for our most recent Call to Action Conference for this example. (Shameless plug alert: the videos are free and have tons of expert marketing advice!)

The reason Google (and Unbounce, naturally) emphasizes using a landing page as your PPC ad destination instead of your homepage or website is because they’re inherently more targeted. They can be fully customized to match each ad, providing a more focused and relevant experience to the visitor with a single call to action. And, at its core, what makes Google happy—and Quality Scores and ad ROI go up—is relevance.

If you don’t have a landing page yet, we’re offering free use of the Unbounce platform to those in critical services like healthcare, education, nonprofits, and government for three months from your initial sign up date. Learn here how to get a professional landing page built, designed, and published in no time. For more tips, Landing Page Basics and the Conversion Resources Library have everything you need to know to create a high-converting page.   

Step Two

Select your conversion goal based on the call to action you’ve added to your landing page. In this case, we ask people to sign up for access to the CTAConf 2019 videos. The conversion goal is how you can really measure the success of your ad.

Step Three

Choose the location(s) you want your ad to appear in. The audience tally in the right corner will automatically adjust as you add and remove location options so you can gauge whether your audience size is too small to bother with, or too large to allow for an impact. 

The landing page I’m promoting is applicable to more than just British Columbians and Albertans, but for this particular ad I want to keep the audience at a manageable size and not go so broad that it shows to 50 million people at once and gobbles up my budget like a 2 am Big Mac.  

If you’re keen to take your geographic strategy a step further, WordStream’s Erin Bell has written a comprehensive guide to Google AdWords geotargeting. 

Expert tip: “The “perfect” audience is the right combination of quality (likelihood to convert) and quantity (number of potential customers), which will vary for each business. Consider your budgets and risk tolerance when selecting your target audiences.

If you have a smaller budget or are just getting started with Google Ads, I recommend starting with a very focused audience of your most likely customers. It is easy to spend more when you find a combination of keywords and locations that balance quality and quantity. It can be difficult to identify high-performing keywords and audiences if you cast too wide a net.”

Step Four

It’s keyword time. Add in the keywords and terms you want to target. Like it did with audience location size, Google will adjust your monthly reach potential as you add and subtract keywords. It’ll also suggest related keywords to boost your efforts, if needed. 

Step Five

Write your ad! The copy should mirror the messaging on your landing page to create the most cohesive ad experience possible, get those precious relevance points with the Google overlords, and most importantly, convert more click-throughs. Get tips on how to write the best, most compelling Google Ads copy here. 

Expert tip: “Every ad should reinforce the keywords or search intent, highlight your value propositions or differentiators, and include a strong call to action with an offer or incentive.

Try to identify where each searcher is in his/her journey. For example, are they able to articulate the problem(s) they are trying to solve? Are they already aware of solutions and/or brands that can help them? Are they aware of your brand? Your ad copy will likely need to change at each stage of the customer journey to move people closer to finding a solution to their problems.

You can also use Google’s Responsive Search Ads to provide multiple headlines and descriptions at one time. Google will automatically test and rotate the ad variations for you. With enough data, Google can start to optimize the ads to show the best combinations to each search.”

Step Six

Set your budget—or bid—to let Google know how much you’re willing to spend per day on your ad clicks. The amount of clicks that will get you depends on your cost-per-click, which depends on your keywords, audience size, and ad quality. Once you’ve gotten enough clicks to reach your daily spend limit, Google will stop showing your ad until the next day. You can take Google’s suggestions or enter a custom amount based on your budget allotment. 

Expert tip: “I always recommend a starting budget that allows you to buy at least 300-500 clicks. Cost Per Click (CPC) is going to vary depending on your industry and competitors so your budget should be high enough to afford this initial testing period.

The first 300-500 clicks will give you enough data to measure the outcomes (phone calls, transactions, lead form submissions, etc.), determine a baseline, and project ROI. If you are happy with the results from the first few hundred clicks, step up your budget in comfortable increments until you find a point of diminishing returns, then look for other keywords or audiences to continue your expansion. If the initial test does not meet your expectations, revisit your assumptions, change a variable, and test again.”

Once you hit “Next,” you’ll be taken to a page to review your Google Ad and campaign parameters. Then you’ll be asked to enter your payment information before finally submitting your ad.

You won’t be billed until after the ad has run its course, since Google won’t know how much your ad truly costs until all of the click-throughs are accounted for. Payments can be done automatically once the ad campaign is finished or as a monthly invoice. And be sure to grab your $150 USD ad credit for Google Ads first-timers.

Now you’re done! Well, almost. After you’ve submitted your ad, Google will process it and let you know whether it’s approved or denied. Don’t fret if it doesn’t go through the first time—you’ll be told exactly what needs fixing and be able to resubmit.

Optimizing Your Google Ads

Marketing never sleeps—there are always ways to tweak and experiment with ads to get the most conversions. Be sure to check on your campaigns and look for ways to optimize both your ads and their respective PPC landing pages to plug any conversion leaks and make the most of your ad spend.

A/B testing, which involves running multiple pages within the same campaign to test different messaging, design, and calls to action, is one of the most effective ways to see what’s resonating with your audience (and what’s not).

If you’re building Unbounce landing pages, Smart Traffic can also run these experiments for you, using machine learning to send visitors to the most relevant page variant based on individual attributes. Learn how to use Smart Traffic to convert more clicks with the almighty power of robots. 

Expert tip: “Some of the biggest wins come from helping your ad stand out from the crowd. Here are some easy ways to dress it up a bit:

1. Use as many ad extensions as possible to help your text ads stand out on a search results page. The most common ad extensions are “click to call” buttons/links, location/maps information, and sitelinks that highlight other content on your website. There are several others so be sure to test as many as possible.

2. Create mobile-specific ads to customize the experience for users on the move. This may include a different set of calls to action or offers. For example, offer driving directions or click to call/text options that minimize the number of clicks required to engage with you.

3. Promote a compelling offer that helps your ad stand out from others. Consumers are conditioned to look for discounts, free shipping, and fast delivery.”

Further Reading

I hope this was helpful to you in getting your first Google Ad out in the wild! There’s tons to learn, explore, and fiddle with as you become a Google Ads pro. As promised, below are the resources I used to study up and link throughout this post to get you on your way there. Good luck and happy advertising!

2020 Google Ads Guide

How to Use the Google Keyword Planner in 2020

6 Easy Steps to Get Your Google Ads Ready for 2020

The Beginner’s Guide to SEO: Keyword Research

What is Quality Score and Why It Matters

How to Create Landing Page Variants & Optimize with AI

What is A/B Testing?

Sloppy PPC Landing Pages Hurt Your Ad Spend. Here’s How to Fix ‘Em

How to Optimize for Google AdWords in 2020: 50 Tips to Increase Clicks

How to Get Your Google Ads Approved (Fast)

How to Write the Best Google Ads Copy (Best Practices)

Landing Page Best Practices

Complete Guide to AdWords Geotargeting and Local PPC

Unbounce Conversion Resources Library

Customers Still Need You: Here’s How to Start Your Online Business Quickly

How We’re Working for You During COVID-19

What is a PPC Landing Page?

[kennethmontiveros]

Google Ads Basics: A Guide to Setting Up Your First Google Ads Campaign

Google Ads are to online marketing what the “pizza move” is to beginner skiers—once you get the hang of the basics, you’ll start seeing results straight away (and likely be keen to learn more, more, more). But that initial learning curve can be a little daunting, especially if you’re still learning about online marketing in general, and all the tactics, tools, and strategies that come with it.

Since Google is basically synonymous with the Internet, Google Ads are worth getting friendly with. Not only will they get your business, product, or offerings in front of a lot more of the right eyeballs, they can help build good credit within the Google ecosystem to bolster your organic ranking efforts.

But you’ve gotta crawl before you can walk, so I put together a step-by-step guide to creating and setting up your first Google Ads. Full disclosure—I’m pretty new to setting up Google Ads myself, in the interest of taking a genuine, no-foolin’ beginner’s approach. I’ve also included all of the awesome resources I used in my research at the bottom of the post, so you can explore advanced strategies at your leisure. Now let’s tackle this bunny hill together. 

Why Should I Use Google Ads?

Google Ads put your offers in front of a super-targeted audience that is—in many cases—actively looking for exactly what you’re offering. Beyond the pay-to-play power of advertising your business on the world’s most-used search engine, Google Ads can be your portal to building a high Quality Score that reflects on your business overall.

Quality Score is a measurement of relevance through an assessment of click-through rate, ad relevance, and landing pages experience. It’s a way for Google to calculate which advertisers are creating honest, well-targeted, and useful ads versus ones that are… not.

You know those clickbaity, keyword-dense ads that send you to a mystery website or page with a million different products? Their Quality Scores are probably in the pooper—and that sh*t has consequences, like:

Which ads are eligible to run

How eligible ads are ranked in search results

CPC (cost-per-click) you’ll pay as an advertiser

What Google’s really looking at is the experience you’re providing to people searching for those keywords. Your Quality Score gets better the more relevant your keywords are to your offer, the more targeted your ad messaging is, and the better your landing page matches your ad—so visitors get exactly what they’re expecting when they click through. This also translates to increased ad opportunities, higher ad rankings, lower costs-per-click, and more return on your ad spend. 

Expert tip from Andrew Miller, Co-Founder of Workshop Digital: “Ad relevance is extremely important but don’t underestimate visitors’ experience on landing pages. Advertisers can improve Quality Score by creating landing pages that load quickly, look great on mobile devices, and provide users with a sense of trust that their data will be protected.

I recommend running all landing pages through Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool to find opportunities to speed things up. Be sure to test your landing pages and website on a variety of devices and operating systems to make sure all visitors can get what they need. Finally, make your privacy policy and data protection policies are transparent and visible.”

Terms to Know

Pay-per-click (PPC): The general term for paid online advertising, in which you’re paying by the number of clicks on your ad.

AdRank: A value assigned to your ad position in relation to other ads. Essentially, when there are several ads showing up at the top of a search engine results page, this is where you show up in the queue.

Bidding: The highest amount you’re willing to pay for an ad click.

Click-through rate (CTR): The number of clicks your ad receives divided by the number of times your ad is shown, as a percentage.

Cost-per-click (CPC): What each individual ad click costs.

Conversion rate: The average number of conversions on your ad, as a percentage. A conversion is the action you want visitors to take after they’ve clicked the ad—a sale, call, signup, etc.

Keywords: Words or phrases describing your product or service that you choose to help determine when and where your ad can appear.

Quality Score: Google’s assessment of the quality of your ads, keywords, and landing pages.

Search volume: The number of searches expected for a keyword within a certain time period.

What Type of Ads Can I Run With Google?

In the spirit of tackling the basics, we’ll just be covering Search Network ads in this post. But there are several options to explore with the world of Google Advertising.

Search Network: Text ads shown next to search results when a query is typed into Google.

Display Network: Visual ads shown to prospective customers wherever they may be on the Internet (relevant websites, blogs, etc.) within the Google Display Network.

Video: Video ads shown on YouTube and other video partner websites.

Search Network with Display: You guessed it—a combination of search and display ads. 

Shopping: Designed for physical products, these ads are shown at the top of search results and give detailed descriptions of your item.

Universal App: Promotes your app across Google Play, YouTube, Google Display Network, and Google Search.

Ad Extensions: A feature that shows extra information about your business, like a phone number, address, store rating, or additional website links.

Remarketing: Displays your ad to people who’ve visited your site already, wherever they may be—like the Display Network—by using cookies.

Which Keywords Should I Bid on?

You can use Google’s Keyword Planner to research keywords, discover new ones, and get estimated bids on ones you’re planning to go after. While you’ll need a Google Ads account to access the Keyword Planner, you don’t need to have any ads running yet. Signing up is totally free.

SEO expert Brian Dean has an excellent beginner’s guide to using the keyword planner. Check it out for thorough, step-by-step instructions to getting the most out of your keywords. But a few things to keep in mind when choosing:

Think of search intent, not simply descriptions. Put yourself in the mind of your customer—which terms would they be searching for that your product or service could be the solution to? For instance, if you’re selling grass skirts for cats, you may want to explore terms like “funny cat outfits” or “novelty cat clothing” (or “nearest hospital” for the eventual aftermath).

The more specific your offer, and the more specific your customer, the more specific your keywords should be. Say you’ve got a surplus of women’s Nike runners in size eight you need to sell. Your ad will likely be just what someone searching for “women’s size eight Nikes” or “women’s Nike running shoes on sale” is looking for. Note that getting too specific may narrow your search opportunities, so you’ll have to find the right balance between being super-targeted and using terms with enough search volume to get in front of people.

Bid on broader keywords if you want to reach more people. If your ad is more general, it can apply to more people and be relevant to a more general search. Keywords with higher search volume have tougher competition and can be pricier to bid on, though, so play around with broad keywords that are both relevant to your offer and give your ad a decent chance to be noticed.

If you’re into outsourcing to robots, Google offers a tool called Smart Bidding that uses machine learning to bid on keywords and optimize your ads for conversion.

Expert tip: “Keyword research is not a “set it and forget it” exercise. It’s a continual process of expansion (finding more keywords to test) and refinement (culling keywords that underperform) that requires attention on a regular basis.

Google Keyword Planner is great for medium-to-high volume keywords, but niche targets may require a little more digging: Google Search Console for organic search queries, interviews with current customers, sales teams, and industry experts, Competitive intelligence tools such as SEMRush or Spyfu, and Google Trends data.”

Setting Up Your First Ad

Once you’ve got your keywords sorted, you’re ready to set your ad up. 

Luckily, Google makes it a pretty straightforward process. You may already have completed some of these steps when you signed up to access the Keyword Planner. 

Step One

Log into Google Ads to enter your business name and the landing page you want to send your ad visitors to. For example, I’ve chosen to create an ad for the video recap page for our most recent Call to Action Conference for this example. (Shameless plug alert: the videos are free and have tons of expert marketing advice!)

The reason Google (and Unbounce, naturally) emphasizes using a landing page as your PPC ad destination instead of your homepage or website is because they’re inherently more targeted. They can be fully customized to match each ad, providing a more focused and relevant experience to the visitor with a single call to action. And, at its core, what makes Google happy—and Quality Scores and ad ROI go up—is relevance.

If you don’t have a landing page yet, we’re offering free use of the Unbounce platform to those in critical services like healthcare, education, nonprofits, and government for three months from your initial sign up date. Learn here how to get a professional landing page built, designed, and published in no time. For more tips, Landing Page Basics and the Conversion Resources Library have everything you need to know to create a high-converting page.   

Step Two

Select your conversion goal based on the call to action you’ve added to your landing page. In this case, we ask people to sign up for access to the CTAConf 2019 videos. The conversion goal is how you can really measure the success of your ad.

Step Three

Choose the location(s) you want your ad to appear in. The audience tally in the right corner will automatically adjust as you add and remove location options so you can gauge whether your audience size is too small to bother with, or too large to allow for an impact. 

The landing page I’m promoting is applicable to more than just British Columbians and Albertans, but for this particular ad I want to keep the audience at a manageable size and not go so broad that it shows to 50 million people at once and gobbles up my budget like a 2 am Big Mac.  

If you’re keen to take your geographic strategy a step further, WordStream’s Erin Bell has written a comprehensive guide to Google AdWords geotargeting. 

Expert tip: “The “perfect” audience is the right combination of quality (likelihood to convert) and quantity (number of potential customers), which will vary for each business. Consider your budgets and risk tolerance when selecting your target audiences.

If you have a smaller budget or are just getting started with Google Ads, I recommend starting with a very focused audience of your most likely customers. It is easy to spend more when you find a combination of keywords and locations that balance quality and quantity. It can be difficult to identify high-performing keywords and audiences if you cast too wide a net.”

Step Four

It’s keyword time. Add in the keywords and terms you want to target. Like it did with audience location size, Google will adjust your monthly reach potential as you add and subtract keywords. It’ll also suggest related keywords to boost your efforts, if needed. 

Step Five

Write your ad! The copy should mirror the messaging on your landing page to create the most cohesive ad experience possible, get those precious relevance points with the Google overlords, and most importantly, convert more click-throughs. Get tips on how to write the best, most compelling Google Ads copy here. 

Expert tip: “Every ad should reinforce the keywords or search intent, highlight your value propositions or differentiators, and include a strong call to action with an offer or incentive.

Try to identify where each searcher is in his/her journey. For example, are they able to articulate the problem(s) they are trying to solve? Are they already aware of solutions and/or brands that can help them? Are they aware of your brand? Your ad copy will likely need to change at each stage of the customer journey to move people closer to finding a solution to their problems.

You can also use Google’s Responsive Search Ads to provide multiple headlines and descriptions at one time. Google will automatically test and rotate the ad variations for you. With enough data, Google can start to optimize the ads to show the best combinations to each search.”

Step Six

Set your budget—or bid—to let Google know how much you’re willing to spend per day on your ad clicks. The amount of clicks that will get you depends on your cost-per-click, which depends on your keywords, audience size, and ad quality. Once you’ve gotten enough clicks to reach your daily spend limit, Google will stop showing your ad until the next day. You can take Google’s suggestions or enter a custom amount based on your budget allotment. 

Expert tip: “I always recommend a starting budget that allows you to buy at least 300-500 clicks. Cost Per Click (CPC) is going to vary depending on your industry and competitors so your budget should be high enough to afford this initial testing period.

The first 300-500 clicks will give you enough data to measure the outcomes (phone calls, transactions, lead form submissions, etc.), determine a baseline, and project ROI. If you are happy with the results from the first few hundred clicks, step up your budget in comfortable increments until you find a point of diminishing returns, then look for other keywords or audiences to continue your expansion. If the initial test does not meet your expectations, revisit your assumptions, change a variable, and test again.”

Once you hit “Next,” you’ll be taken to a page to review your Google Ad and campaign parameters. Then you’ll be asked to enter your payment information before finally submitting your ad.

You won’t be billed until after the ad has run its course, since Google won’t know how much your ad truly costs until all of the click-throughs are accounted for. Payments can be done automatically once the ad campaign is finished or as a monthly invoice. And be sure to grab your $150 USD ad credit for Google Ads first-timers.

Now you’re done! Well, almost. After you’ve submitted your ad, Google will process it and let you know whether it’s approved or denied. Don’t fret if it doesn’t go through the first time—you’ll be told exactly what needs fixing and be able to resubmit.

Optimizing Your Google Ads

Marketing never sleeps—there are always ways to tweak and experiment with ads to get the most conversions. Be sure to check on your campaigns and look for ways to optimize both your ads and their respective PPC landing pages to plug any conversion leaks and make the most of your ad spend.

A/B testing, which involves running multiple pages within the same campaign to test different messaging, design, and calls to action, is one of the most effective ways to see what’s resonating with your audience (and what’s not).

If you’re building Unbounce landing pages, Smart Traffic can also run these experiments for you, using machine learning to send visitors to the most relevant page variant based on individual attributes. Learn how to use Smart Traffic to convert more clicks with the almighty power of robots. 

Expert tip: “Some of the biggest wins come from helping your ad stand out from the crowd. Here are some easy ways to dress it up a bit:

1. Use as many ad extensions as possible to help your text ads stand out on a search results page. The most common ad extensions are “click to call” buttons/links, location/maps information, and sitelinks that highlight other content on your website. There are several others so be sure to test as many as possible.

2. Create mobile-specific ads to customize the experience for users on the move. This may include a different set of calls to action or offers. For example, offer driving directions or click to call/text options that minimize the number of clicks required to engage with you.

3. Promote a compelling offer that helps your ad stand out from others. Consumers are conditioned to look for discounts, free shipping, and fast delivery.”

Further Reading

I hope this was helpful to you in getting your first Google Ad out in the wild! There’s tons to learn, explore, and fiddle with as you become a Google Ads pro. As promised, below are the resources I used to study up and link throughout this post to get you on your way there. Good luck and happy advertising!

2020 Google Ads Guide

How to Use the Google Keyword Planner in 2020

6 Easy Steps to Get Your Google Ads Ready for 2020

The Beginner’s Guide to SEO: Keyword Research

What is Quality Score and Why It Matters

How to Create Landing Page Variants & Optimize with AI

What is A/B Testing?

Sloppy PPC Landing Pages Hurt Your Ad Spend. Here’s How to Fix ‘Em

How to Optimize for Google AdWords in 2020: 50 Tips to Increase Clicks

How to Get Your Google Ads Approved (Fast)

How to Write the Best Google Ads Copy (Best Practices)

Landing Page Best Practices

Complete Guide to AdWords Geotargeting and Local PPC

Unbounce Conversion Resources Library

Customers Still Need You: Here’s How to Start Your Online Business Quickly

How We’re Working for You During COVID-19

What is a PPC Landing Page?

Google Ads Basics: A Guide to Setting Up Your First Google Ads Campaign published first on http://nickpontemktg.blogspot.com/

[itsjessicaisreal]

Google Ads Basics: A Guide to Setting Up Your First Google Ads Campaign

Google Ads are to online marketing what the “pizza move” is to beginner skiers—once you get the hang of the basics, you’ll start seeing results straight away (and likely be keen to learn more, more, more). But that initial learning curve can be a little daunting, especially if you’re still learning about online marketing in general, and all the tactics, tools, and strategies that come with it.

Since Google is basically synonymous with the Internet, Google Ads are worth getting friendly with. Not only will they get your business, product, or offerings in front of a lot more of the right eyeballs, they can help build good credit within the Google ecosystem to bolster your organic ranking efforts.

But you’ve gotta crawl before you can walk, so I put together a step-by-step guide to creating and setting up your first Google Ads. Full disclosure—I’m pretty new to setting up Google Ads myself, in the interest of taking a genuine, no-foolin’ beginner’s approach. I’ve also included all of the awesome resources I used in my research at the bottom of the post, so you can explore advanced strategies at your leisure. Now let’s tackle this bunny hill together. 

Why Should I Use Google Ads?

Google Ads put your offers in front of a super-targeted audience that is—in many cases—actively looking for exactly what you’re offering. Beyond the pay-to-play power of advertising your business on the world’s most-used search engine, Google Ads can be your portal to building a high Quality Score that reflects on your business overall.

Quality Score is a measurement of relevance through an assessment of click-through rate, ad relevance, and landing pages experience. It’s a way for Google to calculate which advertisers are creating honest, well-targeted, and useful ads versus ones that are… not.

You know those clickbaity, keyword-dense ads that send you to a mystery website or page with a million different products? Their Quality Scores are probably in the pooper—and that sh*t has consequences, like:

Which ads are eligible to run

How eligible ads are ranked in search results

CPC (cost-per-click) you’ll pay as an advertiser

What Google’s really looking at is the experience you’re providing to people searching for those keywords. Your Quality Score gets better the more relevant your keywords are to your offer, the more targeted your ad messaging is, and the better your landing page matches your ad—so visitors get exactly what they’re expecting when they click through. This also translates to increased ad opportunities, higher ad rankings, lower costs-per-click, and more return on your ad spend. 

Expert tip from Andrew Miller, Co-Founder of Workshop Digital: “Ad relevance is extremely important but don’t underestimate visitors’ experience on landing pages. Advertisers can improve Quality Score by creating landing pages that load quickly, look great on mobile devices, and provide users with a sense of trust that their data will be protected.

I recommend running all landing pages through Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool to find opportunities to speed things up. Be sure to test your landing pages and website on a variety of devices and operating systems to make sure all visitors can get what they need. Finally, make your privacy policy and data protection policies are transparent and visible.”

Terms to Know

Pay-per-click (PPC): The general term for paid online advertising, in which you’re paying by the number of clicks on your ad.

AdRank: A value assigned to your ad position in relation to other ads. Essentially, when there are several ads showing up at the top of a search engine results page, this is where you show up in the queue.

Bidding: The highest amount you’re willing to pay for an ad click.

Click-through rate (CTR): The number of clicks your ad receives divided by the number of times your ad is shown, as a percentage.

Cost-per-click (CPC): What each individual ad click costs.

Conversion rate: The average number of conversions on your ad, as a percentage. A conversion is the action you want visitors to take after they’ve clicked the ad—a sale, call, signup, etc.

Keywords: Words or phrases describing your product or service that you choose to help determine when and where your ad can appear.

Quality Score: Google’s assessment of the quality of your ads, keywords, and landing pages.

Search volume: The number of searches expected for a keyword within a certain time period.

What Type of Ads Can I Run With Google?

In the spirit of tackling the basics, we’ll just be covering Search Network ads in this post. But there are several options to explore with the world of Google Advertising.

Search Network: Text ads shown next to search results when a query is typed into Google.

Display Network: Visual ads shown to prospective customers wherever they may be on the Internet (relevant websites, blogs, etc.) within the Google Display Network.

Video: Video ads shown on YouTube and other video partner websites.

Search Network with Display: You guessed it—a combination of search and display ads. 

Shopping: Designed for physical products, these ads are shown at the top of search results and give detailed descriptions of your item.

Universal App: Promotes your app across Google Play, YouTube, Google Display Network, and Google Search.

Ad Extensions: A feature that shows extra information about your business, like a phone number, address, store rating, or additional website links.

Remarketing: Displays your ad to people who’ve visited your site already, wherever they may be—like the Display Network—by using cookies.

Which Keywords Should I Bid on?

You can use Google’s Keyword Planner to research keywords, discover new ones, and get estimated bids on ones you’re planning to go after. While you’ll need a Google Ads account to access the Keyword Planner, you don’t need to have any ads running yet. Signing up is totally free.

SEO expert Brian Dean has an excellent beginner’s guide to using the keyword planner. Check it out for thorough, step-by-step instructions to getting the most out of your keywords. But a few things to keep in mind when choosing:

Think of search intent, not simply descriptions. Put yourself in the mind of your customer—which terms would they be searching for that your product or service could be the solution to? For instance, if you’re selling grass skirts for cats, you may want to explore terms like “funny cat outfits” or “novelty cat clothing” (or “nearest hospital” for the eventual aftermath).

The more specific your offer, and the more specific your customer, the more specific your keywords should be. Say you’ve got a surplus of women’s Nike runners in size eight you need to sell. Your ad will likely be just what someone searching for “women’s size eight Nikes” or “women’s Nike running shoes on sale” is looking for. Note that getting too specific may narrow your search opportunities, so you’ll have to find the right balance between being super-targeted and using terms with enough search volume to get in front of people.

Bid on broader keywords if you want to reach more people. If your ad is more general, it can apply to more people and be relevant to a more general search. Keywords with higher search volume have tougher competition and can be pricier to bid on, though, so play around with broad keywords that are both relevant to your offer and give your ad a decent chance to be noticed.

If you’re into outsourcing to robots, Google offers a tool called Smart Bidding that uses machine learning to bid on keywords and optimize your ads for conversion.

Expert tip: “Keyword research is not a “set it and forget it” exercise. It’s a continual process of expansion (finding more keywords to test) and refinement (culling keywords that underperform) that requires attention on a regular basis.

Google Keyword Planner is great for medium-to-high volume keywords, but niche targets may require a little more digging: Google Search Console for organic search queries, interviews with current customers, sales teams, and industry experts, Competitive intelligence tools such as SEMRush or Spyfu, and Google Trends data.”

Setting Up Your First Ad

Once you’ve got your keywords sorted, you’re ready to set your ad up. 

Luckily, Google makes it a pretty straightforward process. You may already have completed some of these steps when you signed up to access the Keyword Planner. 

Step One

Log into Google Ads to enter your business name and the landing page you want to send your ad visitors to. For example, I’ve chosen to create an ad for the video recap page for our most recent Call to Action Conference for this example. (Shameless plug alert: the videos are free and have tons of expert marketing advice!)

The reason Google (and Unbounce, naturally) emphasizes using a landing page as your PPC ad destination instead of your homepage or website is because they’re inherently more targeted. They can be fully customized to match each ad, providing a more focused and relevant experience to the visitor with a single call to action. And, at its core, what makes Google happy—and Quality Scores and ad ROI go up—is relevance.

If you don’t have a landing page yet, we’re offering free use of the Unbounce platform to those in critical services like healthcare, education, nonprofits, and government for three months from your initial sign up date. Learn here how to get a professional landing page built, designed, and published in no time. For more tips, Landing Page Basics and the Conversion Resources Library have everything you need to know to create a high-converting page.   

Step Two

Select your conversion goal based on the call to action you’ve added to your landing page. In this case, we ask people to sign up for access to the CTAConf 2019 videos. The conversion goal is how you can really measure the success of your ad.

Step Three

Choose the location(s) you want your ad to appear in. The audience tally in the right corner will automatically adjust as you add and remove location options so you can gauge whether your audience size is too small to bother with, or too large to allow for an impact. 

The landing page I’m promoting is applicable to more than just British Columbians and Albertans, but for this particular ad I want to keep the audience at a manageable size and not go so broad that it shows to 50 million people at once and gobbles up my budget like a 2 am Big Mac.  

If you’re keen to take your geographic strategy a step further, WordStream’s Erin Bell has written a comprehensive guide to Google AdWords geotargeting. 

Expert tip: “The “perfect” audience is the right combination of quality (likelihood to convert) and quantity (number of potential customers), which will vary for each business. Consider your budgets and risk tolerance when selecting your target audiences.

If you have a smaller budget or are just getting started with Google Ads, I recommend starting with a very focused audience of your most likely customers. It is easy to spend more when you find a combination of keywords and locations that balance quality and quantity. It can be difficult to identify high-performing keywords and audiences if you cast too wide a net.”

Step Four

It’s keyword time. Add in the keywords and terms you want to target. Like it did with audience location size, Google will adjust your monthly reach potential as you add and subtract keywords. It’ll also suggest related keywords to boost your efforts, if needed. 

Step Five

Write your ad! The copy should mirror the messaging on your landing page to create the most cohesive ad experience possible, get those precious relevance points with the Google overlords, and most importantly, convert more click-throughs. Get tips on how to write the best, most compelling Google Ads copy here. 

Expert tip: “Every ad should reinforce the keywords or search intent, highlight your value propositions or differentiators, and include a strong call to action with an offer or incentive.

Try to identify where each searcher is in his/her journey. For example, are they able to articulate the problem(s) they are trying to solve? Are they already aware of solutions and/or brands that can help them? Are they aware of your brand? Your ad copy will likely need to change at each stage of the customer journey to move people closer to finding a solution to their problems.

You can also use Google’s Responsive Search Ads to provide multiple headlines and descriptions at one time. Google will automatically test and rotate the ad variations for you. With enough data, Google can start to optimize the ads to show the best combinations to each search.”

Step Six

Set your budget—or bid—to let Google know how much you’re willing to spend per day on your ad clicks. The amount of clicks that will get you depends on your cost-per-click, which depends on your keywords, audience size, and ad quality. Once you’ve gotten enough clicks to reach your daily spend limit, Google will stop showing your ad until the next day. You can take Google’s suggestions or enter a custom amount based on your budget allotment. 

Expert tip: “I always recommend a starting budget that allows you to buy at least 300-500 clicks. Cost Per Click (CPC) is going to vary depending on your industry and competitors so your budget should be high enough to afford this initial testing period.

The first 300-500 clicks will give you enough data to measure the outcomes (phone calls, transactions, lead form submissions, etc.), determine a baseline, and project ROI. If you are happy with the results from the first few hundred clicks, step up your budget in comfortable increments until you find a point of diminishing returns, then look for other keywords or audiences to continue your expansion. If the initial test does not meet your expectations, revisit your assumptions, change a variable, and test again.”

Once you hit “Next,” you’ll be taken to a page to review your Google Ad and campaign parameters. Then you’ll be asked to enter your payment information before finally submitting your ad.

You won’t be billed until after the ad has run its course, since Google won’t know how much your ad truly costs until all of the click-throughs are accounted for. Payments can be done automatically once the ad campaign is finished or as a monthly invoice. And be sure to grab your $150 USD ad credit for Google Ads first-timers.

Now you’re done! Well, almost. After you’ve submitted your ad, Google will process it and let you know whether it’s approved or denied. Don’t fret if it doesn’t go through the first time—you’ll be told exactly what needs fixing and be able to resubmit.

Optimizing Your Google Ads

Marketing never sleeps—there are always ways to tweak and experiment with ads to get the most conversions. Be sure to check on your campaigns and look for ways to optimize both your ads and their respective PPC landing pages to plug any conversion leaks and make the most of your ad spend.

A/B testing, which involves running multiple pages within the same campaign to test different messaging, design, and calls to action, is one of the most effective ways to see what’s resonating with your audience (and what’s not).

If you’re building Unbounce landing pages, Smart Traffic can also run these experiments for you, using machine learning to send visitors to the most relevant page variant based on individual attributes. Learn how to use Smart Traffic to convert more clicks with the almighty power of robots. 

Expert tip: “Some of the biggest wins come from helping your ad stand out from the crowd. Here are some easy ways to dress it up a bit:

1. Use as many ad extensions as possible to help your text ads stand out on a search results page. The most common ad extensions are “click to call” buttons/links, location/maps information, and sitelinks that highlight other content on your website. There are several others so be sure to test as many as possible.

2. Create mobile-specific ads to customize the experience for users on the move. This may include a different set of calls to action or offers. For example, offer driving directions or click to call/text options that minimize the number of clicks required to engage with you.

3. Promote a compelling offer that helps your ad stand out from others. Consumers are conditioned to look for discounts, free shipping, and fast delivery.”

Further Reading

I hope this was helpful to you in getting your first Google Ad out in the wild! There’s tons to learn, explore, and fiddle with as you become a Google Ads pro. As promised, below are the resources I used to study up and link throughout this post to get you on your way there. Good luck and happy advertising!

2020 Google Ads Guide

How to Use the Google Keyword Planner in 2020

6 Easy Steps to Get Your Google Ads Ready for 2020

The Beginner’s Guide to SEO: Keyword Research

What is Quality Score and Why It Matters

How to Create Landing Page Variants & Optimize with AI

What is A/B Testing?

Sloppy PPC Landing Pages Hurt Your Ad Spend. Here’s How to Fix ‘Em

How to Optimize for Google AdWords in 2020: 50 Tips to Increase Clicks

How to Get Your Google Ads Approved (Fast)

How to Write the Best Google Ads Copy (Best Practices)

Landing Page Best Practices

Complete Guide to AdWords Geotargeting and Local PPC

Unbounce Conversion Resources Library

Customers Still Need You: Here’s How to Start Your Online Business Quickly

How We’re Working for You During COVID-19

What is a PPC Landing Page?

from Marketing https://unbounce.com/ppc/google-ads-basics/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

[samanthasmeyers]

Google Ads Basics: A Guide to Setting Up Your First Google Ads Campaign

Google Ads are to online marketing what the “pizza move” is to beginner skiers—once you get the hang of the basics, you’ll start seeing results straight away (and likely be keen to learn more, more, more). But that initial learning curve can be a little daunting, especially if you’re still learning about online marketing in general, and all the tactics, tools, and strategies that come with it.

Since Google is basically synonymous with the Internet, Google Ads are worth getting friendly with. Not only will they get your business, product, or offerings in front of a lot more of the right eyeballs, they can help build good credit within the Google ecosystem to bolster your organic ranking efforts.

But you’ve gotta crawl before you can walk, so I put together a step-by-step guide to creating and setting up your first Google Ads. Full disclosure—I’m pretty new to setting up Google Ads myself, in the interest of taking a genuine, no-foolin’ beginner’s approach. I’ve also included all of the awesome resources I used in my research at the bottom of the post, so you can explore advanced strategies at your leisure. Now let’s tackle this bunny hill together. 

Why Should I Use Google Ads?

Google Ads put your offers in front of a super-targeted audience that is—in many cases—actively looking for exactly what you’re offering. Beyond the pay-to-play power of advertising your business on the world’s most-used search engine, Google Ads can be your portal to building a high Quality Score that reflects on your business overall.

Quality Score is a measurement of relevance through an assessment of click-through rate, ad relevance, and landing pages experience. It’s a way for Google to calculate which advertisers are creating honest, well-targeted, and useful ads versus ones that are… not.

You know those clickbaity, keyword-dense ads that send you to a mystery website or page with a million different products? Their Quality Scores are probably in the pooper—and that sh*t has consequences, like:

Which ads are eligible to run

How eligible ads are ranked in search results

CPC (cost-per-click) you’ll pay as an advertiser

What Google’s really looking at is the experience you’re providing to people searching for those keywords. Your Quality Score gets better the more relevant your keywords are to your offer, the more targeted your ad messaging is, and the better your landing page matches your ad—so visitors get exactly what they’re expecting when they click through. This also translates to increased ad opportunities, higher ad rankings, lower costs-per-click, and more return on your ad spend. 

Expert tip from Andrew Miller, Co-Founder of Workshop Digital: “Ad relevance is extremely important but don’t underestimate visitors’ experience on landing pages. Advertisers can improve Quality Score by creating landing pages that load quickly, look great on mobile devices, and provide users with a sense of trust that their data will be protected.

I recommend running all landing pages through Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool to find opportunities to speed things up. Be sure to test your landing pages and website on a variety of devices and operating systems to make sure all visitors can get what they need. Finally, make your privacy policy and data protection policies are transparent and visible.”

Terms to Know

Pay-per-click (PPC): The general term for paid online advertising, in which you’re paying by the number of clicks on your ad.

AdRank: A value assigned to your ad position in relation to other ads. Essentially, when there are several ads showing up at the top of a search engine results page, this is where you show up in the queue.

Bidding: The highest amount you’re willing to pay for an ad click.

Click-through rate (CTR): The number of clicks your ad receives divided by the number of times your ad is shown, as a percentage.

Cost-per-click (CPC): What each individual ad click costs.

Conversion rate: The average number of conversions on your ad, as a percentage. A conversion is the action you want visitors to take after they’ve clicked the ad—a sale, call, signup, etc.

Keywords: Words or phrases describing your product or service that you choose to help determine when and where your ad can appear.

Quality Score: Google’s assessment of the quality of your ads, keywords, and landing pages.

Search volume: The number of searches expected for a keyword within a certain time period.

What Type of Ads Can I Run With Google?

In the spirit of tackling the basics, we’ll just be covering Search Network ads in this post. But there are several options to explore with the world of Google Advertising.

Search Network: Text ads shown next to search results when a query is typed into Google.

Display Network: Visual ads shown to prospective customers wherever they may be on the Internet (relevant websites, blogs, etc.) within the Google Display Network.

Video: Video ads shown on YouTube and other video partner websites.

Search Network with Display: You guessed it—a combination of search and display ads. 

Shopping: Designed for physical products, these ads are shown at the top of search results and give detailed descriptions of your item.

Universal App: Promotes your app across Google Play, YouTube, Google Display Network, and Google Search.

Ad Extensions: A feature that shows extra information about your business, like a phone number, address, store rating, or additional website links.

Remarketing: Displays your ad to people who’ve visited your site already, wherever they may be—like the Display Network—by using cookies.

Which Keywords Should I Bid on?

You can use Google’s Keyword Planner to research keywords, discover new ones, and get estimated bids on ones you’re planning to go after. While you’ll need a Google Ads account to access the Keyword Planner, you don’t need to have any ads running yet. Signing up is totally free.

SEO expert Brian Dean has an excellent beginner’s guide to using the keyword planner. Check it out for thorough, step-by-step instructions to getting the most out of your keywords. But a few things to keep in mind when choosing:

Think of search intent, not simply descriptions. Put yourself in the mind of your customer—which terms would they be searching for that your product or service could be the solution to? For instance, if you’re selling grass skirts for cats, you may want to explore terms like “funny cat outfits” or “novelty cat clothing” (or “nearest hospital” for the eventual aftermath).

The more specific your offer, and the more specific your customer, the more specific your keywords should be. Say you’ve got a surplus of women’s Nike runners in size eight you need to sell. Your ad will likely be just what someone searching for “women’s size eight Nikes” or “women’s Nike running shoes on sale” is looking for. Note that getting too specific may narrow your search opportunities, so you’ll have to find the right balance between being super-targeted and using terms with enough search volume to get in front of people.

Bid on broader keywords if you want to reach more people. If your ad is more general, it can apply to more people and be relevant to a more general search. Keywords with higher search volume have tougher competition and can be pricier to bid on, though, so play around with broad keywords that are both relevant to your offer and give your ad a decent chance to be noticed.

If you’re into outsourcing to robots, Google offers a tool called Smart Bidding that uses machine learning to bid on keywords and optimize your ads for conversion.

Expert tip: “Keyword research is not a “set it and forget it” exercise. It’s a continual process of expansion (finding more keywords to test) and refinement (culling keywords that underperform) that requires attention on a regular basis.

Google Keyword Planner is great for medium-to-high volume keywords, but niche targets may require a little more digging: Google Search Console for organic search queries, interviews with current customers, sales teams, and industry experts, Competitive intelligence tools such as SEMRush or Spyfu, and Google Trends data.”

Setting Up Your First Ad

Once you’ve got your keywords sorted, you’re ready to set your ad up. 

Luckily, Google makes it a pretty straightforward process. You may already have completed some of these steps when you signed up to access the Keyword Planner. 

Step One

Log into Google Ads to enter your business name and the landing page you want to send your ad visitors to. For example, I’ve chosen to create an ad for the video recap page for our most recent Call to Action Conference for this example. (Shameless plug alert: the videos are free and have tons of expert marketing advice!)

The reason Google (and Unbounce, naturally) emphasizes using a landing page as your PPC ad destination instead of your homepage or website is because they’re inherently more targeted. They can be fully customized to match each ad, providing a more focused and relevant experience to the visitor with a single call to action. And, at its core, what makes Google happy—and Quality Scores and ad ROI go up—is relevance.

If you don’t have a landing page yet, we’re offering free use of the Unbounce platform to those in critical services like healthcare, education, nonprofits, and government for three months from your initial sign up date. Learn here how to get a professional landing page built, designed, and published in no time. For more tips, Landing Page Basics and the Conversion Resources Library have everything you need to know to create a high-converting page.   

Step Two

Select your conversion goal based on the call to action you’ve added to your landing page. In this case, we ask people to sign up for access to the CTAConf 2019 videos. The conversion goal is how you can really measure the success of your ad.

Step Three

Choose the location(s) you want your ad to appear in. The audience tally in the right corner will automatically adjust as you add and remove location options so you can gauge whether your audience size is too small to bother with, or too large to allow for an impact. 

The landing page I’m promoting is applicable to more than just British Columbians and Albertans, but for this particular ad I want to keep the audience at a manageable size and not go so broad that it shows to 50 million people at once and gobbles up my budget like a 2 am Big Mac.  

If you’re keen to take your geographic strategy a step further, WordStream’s Erin Bell has written a comprehensive guide to Google AdWords geotargeting. 

Expert tip: “The “perfect” audience is the right combination of quality (likelihood to convert) and quantity (number of potential customers), which will vary for each business. Consider your budgets and risk tolerance when selecting your target audiences.

If you have a smaller budget or are just getting started with Google Ads, I recommend starting with a very focused audience of your most likely customers. It is easy to spend more when you find a combination of keywords and locations that balance quality and quantity. It can be difficult to identify high-performing keywords and audiences if you cast too wide a net.”

Step Four

It’s keyword time. Add in the keywords and terms you want to target. Like it did with audience location size, Google will adjust your monthly reach potential as you add and subtract keywords. It’ll also suggest related keywords to boost your efforts, if needed. 

Step Five

Write your ad! The copy should mirror the messaging on your landing page to create the most cohesive ad experience possible, get those precious relevance points with the Google overlords, and most importantly, convert more click-throughs. Get tips on how to write the best, most compelling Google Ads copy here. 

Expert tip: “Every ad should reinforce the keywords or search intent, highlight your value propositions or differentiators, and include a strong call to action with an offer or incentive.

Try to identify where each searcher is in his/her journey. For example, are they able to articulate the problem(s) they are trying to solve? Are they already aware of solutions and/or brands that can help them? Are they aware of your brand? Your ad copy will likely need to change at each stage of the customer journey to move people closer to finding a solution to their problems.

You can also use Google’s Responsive Search Ads to provide multiple headlines and descriptions at one time. Google will automatically test and rotate the ad variations for you. With enough data, Google can start to optimize the ads to show the best combinations to each search.”

Step Six

Set your budget—or bid—to let Google know how much you’re willing to spend per day on your ad clicks. The amount of clicks that will get you depends on your cost-per-click, which depends on your keywords, audience size, and ad quality. Once you’ve gotten enough clicks to reach your daily spend limit, Google will stop showing your ad until the next day. You can take Google’s suggestions or enter a custom amount based on your budget allotment. 

Expert tip: “I always recommend a starting budget that allows you to buy at least 300-500 clicks. Cost Per Click (CPC) is going to vary depending on your industry and competitors so your budget should be high enough to afford this initial testing period.

The first 300-500 clicks will give you enough data to measure the outcomes (phone calls, transactions, lead form submissions, etc.), determine a baseline, and project ROI. If you are happy with the results from the first few hundred clicks, step up your budget in comfortable increments until you find a point of diminishing returns, then look for other keywords or audiences to continue your expansion. If the initial test does not meet your expectations, revisit your assumptions, change a variable, and test again.”

Once you hit “Next,” you’ll be taken to a page to review your Google Ad and campaign parameters. Then you’ll be asked to enter your payment information before finally submitting your ad.

You won’t be billed until after the ad has run its course, since Google won’t know how much your ad truly costs until all of the click-throughs are accounted for. Payments can be done automatically once the ad campaign is finished or as a monthly invoice. And be sure to grab your $150 USD ad credit for Google Ads first-timers.

Now you’re done! Well, almost. After you’ve submitted your ad, Google will process it and let you know whether it’s approved or denied. Don’t fret if it doesn’t go through the first time—you’ll be told exactly what needs fixing and be able to resubmit.

Optimizing Your Google Ads

Marketing never sleeps—there are always ways to tweak and experiment with ads to get the most conversions. Be sure to check on your campaigns and look for ways to optimize both your ads and their respective PPC landing pages to plug any conversion leaks and make the most of your ad spend.

A/B testing, which involves running multiple pages within the same campaign to test different messaging, design, and calls to action, is one of the most effective ways to see what’s resonating with your audience (and what’s not).

If you’re building Unbounce landing pages, Smart Traffic can also run these experiments for you, using machine learning to send visitors to the most relevant page variant based on individual attributes. Learn how to use Smart Traffic to convert more clicks with the almighty power of robots. 

Expert tip: “Some of the biggest wins come from helping your ad stand out from the crowd. Here are some easy ways to dress it up a bit:

1. Use as many ad extensions as possible to help your text ads stand out on a search results page. The most common ad extensions are “click to call” buttons/links, location/maps information, and sitelinks that highlight other content on your website. There are several others so be sure to test as many as possible.

2. Create mobile-specific ads to customize the experience for users on the move. This may include a different set of calls to action or offers. For example, offer driving directions or click to call/text options that minimize the number of clicks required to engage with you.

3. Promote a compelling offer that helps your ad stand out from others. Consumers are conditioned to look for discounts, free shipping, and fast delivery.”

Further Reading

I hope this was helpful to you in getting your first Google Ad out in the wild! There’s tons to learn, explore, and fiddle with as you become a Google Ads pro. As promised, below are the resources I used to study up and link throughout this post to get you on your way there. Good luck and happy advertising!

2020 Google Ads Guide

How to Use the Google Keyword Planner in 2020

6 Easy Steps to Get Your Google Ads Ready for 2020

The Beginner’s Guide to SEO: Keyword Research

What is Quality Score and Why It Matters

How to Create Landing Page Variants & Optimize with AI

What is A/B Testing?

Sloppy PPC Landing Pages Hurt Your Ad Spend. Here’s How to Fix ‘Em

How to Optimize for Google AdWords in 2020: 50 Tips to Increase Clicks

How to Get Your Google Ads Approved (Fast)

How to Write the Best Google Ads Copy (Best Practices)

Landing Page Best Practices

Complete Guide to AdWords Geotargeting and Local PPC

Unbounce Conversion Resources Library

Customers Still Need You: Here’s How to Start Your Online Business Quickly

How We’re Working for You During COVID-19

What is a PPC Landing Page?

from Marketing https://unbounce.com/ppc/google-ads-basics/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

[jjonassevilla]

Google Ads Basics: A Guide to Setting Up Your First Google Ads Campaign

Google Ads are to online marketing what the “pizza move” is to beginner skiers—once you get the hang of the basics, you’ll start seeing results straight away (and likely be keen to learn more, more, more). But that initial learning curve can be a little daunting, especially if you’re still learning about online marketing in general, and all the tactics, tools, and strategies that come with it.

Since Google is basically synonymous with the Internet, Google Ads are worth getting friendly with. Not only will they get your business, product, or offerings in front of a lot more of the right eyeballs, they can help build good credit within the Google ecosystem to bolster your organic ranking efforts.

But you’ve gotta crawl before you can walk, so I put together a step-by-step guide to creating and setting up your first Google Ads. Full disclosure—I’m pretty new to setting up Google Ads myself, in the interest of taking a genuine, no-foolin’ beginner’s approach. I’ve also included all of the awesome resources I used in my research at the bottom of the post, so you can explore advanced strategies at your leisure. Now let’s tackle this bunny hill together. 

Why Should I Use Google Ads?

Google Ads put your offers in front of a super-targeted audience that is—in many cases—actively looking for exactly what you’re offering. Beyond the pay-to-play power of advertising your business on the world’s most-used search engine, Google Ads can be your portal to building a high Quality Score that reflects on your business overall.

Quality Score is a measurement of relevance through an assessment of click-through rate, ad relevance, and landing pages experience. It’s a way for Google to calculate which advertisers are creating honest, well-targeted, and useful ads versus ones that are… not.

You know those clickbaity, keyword-dense ads that send you to a mystery website or page with a million different products? Their Quality Scores are probably in the pooper—and that sh*t has consequences, like:

Which ads are eligible to run

How eligible ads are ranked in search results

CPC (cost-per-click) you’ll pay as an advertiser

What Google’s really looking at is the experience you’re providing to people searching for those keywords. Your Quality Score gets better the more relevant your keywords are to your offer, the more targeted your ad messaging is, and the better your landing page matches your ad—so visitors get exactly what they’re expecting when they click through. This also translates to increased ad opportunities, higher ad rankings, lower costs-per-click, and more return on your ad spend. 

Expert tip from Andrew Miller, Co-Founder of Workshop Digital: “Ad relevance is extremely important but don’t underestimate visitors’ experience on landing pages. Advertisers can improve Quality Score by creating landing pages that load quickly, look great on mobile devices, and provide users with a sense of trust that their data will be protected.

I recommend running all landing pages through Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool to find opportunities to speed things up. Be sure to test your landing pages and website on a variety of devices and operating systems to make sure all visitors can get what they need. Finally, make your privacy policy and data protection policies are transparent and visible.”

Terms to Know

Pay-per-click (PPC): The general term for paid online advertising, in which you’re paying by the number of clicks on your ad.

AdRank: A value assigned to your ad position in relation to other ads. Essentially, when there are several ads showing up at the top of a search engine results page, this is where you show up in the queue.

Bidding: The highest amount you’re willing to pay for an ad click.

Click-through rate (CTR): The number of clicks your ad receives divided by the number of times your ad is shown, as a percentage.

Cost-per-click (CPC): What each individual ad click costs.

Conversion rate: The average number of conversions on your ad, as a percentage. A conversion is the action you want visitors to take after they’ve clicked the ad—a sale, call, signup, etc.

Keywords: Words or phrases describing your product or service that you choose to help determine when and where your ad can appear.

Quality Score: Google’s assessment of the quality of your ads, keywords, and landing pages.

Search volume: The number of searches expected for a keyword within a certain time period.

What Type of Ads Can I Run With Google?

In the spirit of tackling the basics, we’ll just be covering Search Network ads in this post. But there are several options to explore with the world of Google Advertising.

Search Network: Text ads shown next to search results when a query is typed into Google.

Display Network: Visual ads shown to prospective customers wherever they may be on the Internet (relevant websites, blogs, etc.) within the Google Display Network.

Video: Video ads shown on YouTube and other video partner websites.

Search Network with Display: You guessed it—a combination of search and display ads. 

Shopping: Designed for physical products, these ads are shown at the top of search results and give detailed descriptions of your item.

Universal App: Promotes your app across Google Play, YouTube, Google Display Network, and Google Search.

Ad Extensions: A feature that shows extra information about your business, like a phone number, address, store rating, or additional website links.

Remarketing: Displays your ad to people who’ve visited your site already, wherever they may be—like the Display Network—by using cookies.

Which Keywords Should I Bid on?

You can use Google’s Keyword Planner to research keywords, discover new ones, and get estimated bids on ones you’re planning to go after. While you’ll need a Google Ads account to access the Keyword Planner, you don’t need to have any ads running yet. Signing up is totally free.

SEO expert Brian Dean has an excellent beginner’s guide to using the keyword planner. Check it out for thorough, step-by-step instructions to getting the most out of your keywords. But a few things to keep in mind when choosing:

Think of search intent, not simply descriptions. Put yourself in the mind of your customer—which terms would they be searching for that your product or service could be the solution to? For instance, if you’re selling grass skirts for cats, you may want to explore terms like “funny cat outfits” or “novelty cat clothing” (or “nearest hospital” for the eventual aftermath).

The more specific your offer, and the more specific your customer, the more specific your keywords should be. Say you’ve got a surplus of women’s Nike runners in size eight you need to sell. Your ad will likely be just what someone searching for “women’s size eight Nikes” or “women’s Nike running shoes on sale” is looking for. Note that getting too specific may narrow your search opportunities, so you’ll have to find the right balance between being super-targeted and using terms with enough search volume to get in front of people.

Bid on broader keywords if you want to reach more people. If your ad is more general, it can apply to more people and be relevant to a more general search. Keywords with higher search volume have tougher competition and can be pricier to bid on, though, so play around with broad keywords that are both relevant to your offer and give your ad a decent chance to be noticed.

If you’re into outsourcing to robots, Google offers a tool called Smart Bidding that uses machine learning to bid on keywords and optimize your ads for conversion.

Expert tip: “Keyword research is not a “set it and forget it” exercise. It’s a continual process of expansion (finding more keywords to test) and refinement (culling keywords that underperform) that requires attention on a regular basis.

Google Keyword Planner is great for medium-to-high volume keywords, but niche targets may require a little more digging: Google Search Console for organic search queries, interviews with current customers, sales teams, and industry experts, Competitive intelligence tools such as SEMRush or Spyfu, and Google Trends data.”

Setting Up Your First Ad

Once you’ve got your keywords sorted, you’re ready to set your ad up. 

Luckily, Google makes it a pretty straightforward process. You may already have completed some of these steps when you signed up to access the Keyword Planner. 

Step One

Log into Google Ads to enter your business name and the landing page you want to send your ad visitors to. For example, I’ve chosen to create an ad for the video recap page for our most recent Call to Action Conference for this example. (Shameless plug alert: the videos are free and have tons of expert marketing advice!)

The reason Google (and Unbounce, naturally) emphasizes using a landing page as your PPC ad destination instead of your homepage or website is because they’re inherently more targeted. They can be fully customized to match each ad, providing a more focused and relevant experience to the visitor with a single call to action. And, at its core, what makes Google happy—and Quality Scores and ad ROI go up—is relevance.

If you don’t have a landing page yet, we’re offering free use of the Unbounce platform to those in critical services like healthcare, education, nonprofits, and government for three months from your initial sign up date. Learn here how to get a professional landing page built, designed, and published in no time. For more tips, Landing Page Basics and the Conversion Resources Library have everything you need to know to create a high-converting page.   

Step Two

Select your conversion goal based on the call to action you’ve added to your landing page. In this case, we ask people to sign up for access to the CTAConf 2019 videos. The conversion goal is how you can really measure the success of your ad.

Step Three

Choose the location(s) you want your ad to appear in. The audience tally in the right corner will automatically adjust as you add and remove location options so you can gauge whether your audience size is too small to bother with, or too large to allow for an impact. 

The landing page I’m promoting is applicable to more than just British Columbians and Albertans, but for this particular ad I want to keep the audience at a manageable size and not go so broad that it shows to 50 million people at once and gobbles up my budget like a 2 am Big Mac.  

If you’re keen to take your geographic strategy a step further, WordStream’s Erin Bell has written a comprehensive guide to Google AdWords geotargeting. 

Expert tip: “The “perfect” audience is the right combination of quality (likelihood to convert) and quantity (number of potential customers), which will vary for each business. Consider your budgets and risk tolerance when selecting your target audiences.

If you have a smaller budget or are just getting started with Google Ads, I recommend starting with a very focused audience of your most likely customers. It is easy to spend more when you find a combination of keywords and locations that balance quality and quantity. It can be difficult to identify high-performing keywords and audiences if you cast too wide a net.”

Step Four

It’s keyword time. Add in the keywords and terms you want to target. Like it did with audience location size, Google will adjust your monthly reach potential as you add and subtract keywords. It’ll also suggest related keywords to boost your efforts, if needed. 

Step Five

Write your ad! The copy should mirror the messaging on your landing page to create the most cohesive ad experience possible, get those precious relevance points with the Google overlords, and most importantly, convert more click-throughs. Get tips on how to write the best, most compelling Google Ads copy here. 

Expert tip: “Every ad should reinforce the keywords or search intent, highlight your value propositions or differentiators, and include a strong call to action with an offer or incentive.

Try to identify where each searcher is in his/her journey. For example, are they able to articulate the problem(s) they are trying to solve? Are they already aware of solutions and/or brands that can help them? Are they aware of your brand? Your ad copy will likely need to change at each stage of the customer journey to move people closer to finding a solution to their problems.

You can also use Google’s Responsive Search Ads to provide multiple headlines and descriptions at one time. Google will automatically test and rotate the ad variations for you. With enough data, Google can start to optimize the ads to show the best combinations to each search.”

Step Six

Set your budget—or bid—to let Google know how much you’re willing to spend per day on your ad clicks. The amount of clicks that will get you depends on your cost-per-click, which depends on your keywords, audience size, and ad quality. Once you’ve gotten enough clicks to reach your daily spend limit, Google will stop showing your ad until the next day. You can take Google’s suggestions or enter a custom amount based on your budget allotment. 

Expert tip: “I always recommend a starting budget that allows you to buy at least 300-500 clicks. Cost Per Click (CPC) is going to vary depending on your industry and competitors so your budget should be high enough to afford this initial testing period.

The first 300-500 clicks will give you enough data to measure the outcomes (phone calls, transactions, lead form submissions, etc.), determine a baseline, and project ROI. If you are happy with the results from the first few hundred clicks, step up your budget in comfortable increments until you find a point of diminishing returns, then look for other keywords or audiences to continue your expansion. If the initial test does not meet your expectations, revisit your assumptions, change a variable, and test again.”

Once you hit “Next,” you’ll be taken to a page to review your Google Ad and campaign parameters. Then you’ll be asked to enter your payment information before finally submitting your ad.

You won’t be billed until after the ad has run its course, since Google won’t know how much your ad truly costs until all of the click-throughs are accounted for. Payments can be done automatically once the ad campaign is finished or as a monthly invoice. And be sure to grab your $150 USD ad credit for Google Ads first-timers.

Now you’re done! Well, almost. After you’ve submitted your ad, Google will process it and let you know whether it’s approved or denied. Don’t fret if it doesn’t go through the first time—you’ll be told exactly what needs fixing and be able to resubmit.

Optimizing Your Google Ads

Marketing never sleeps—there are always ways to tweak and experiment with ads to get the most conversions. Be sure to check on your campaigns and look for ways to optimize both your ads and their respective PPC landing pages to plug any conversion leaks and make the most of your ad spend.

A/B testing, which involves running multiple pages within the same campaign to test different messaging, design, and calls to action, is one of the most effective ways to see what’s resonating with your audience (and what’s not).

If you’re building Unbounce landing pages, Smart Traffic can also run these experiments for you, using machine learning to send visitors to the most relevant page variant based on individual attributes. Learn how to use Smart Traffic to convert more clicks with the almighty power of robots. 

Expert tip: “Some of the biggest wins come from helping your ad stand out from the crowd. Here are some easy ways to dress it up a bit:

1. Use as many ad extensions as possible to help your text ads stand out on a search results page. The most common ad extensions are “click to call” buttons/links, location/maps information, and sitelinks that highlight other content on your website. There are several others so be sure to test as many as possible.

2. Create mobile-specific ads to customize the experience for users on the move. This may include a different set of calls to action or offers. For example, offer driving directions or click to call/text options that minimize the number of clicks required to engage with you.

3. Promote a compelling offer that helps your ad stand out from others. Consumers are conditioned to look for discounts, free shipping, and fast delivery.”

Further Reading

I hope this was helpful to you in getting your first Google Ad out in the wild! There’s tons to learn, explore, and fiddle with as you become a Google Ads pro. As promised, below are the resources I used to study up and link throughout this post to get you on your way there. Good luck and happy advertising!

2020 Google Ads Guide

How to Use the Google Keyword Planner in 2020

6 Easy Steps to Get Your Google Ads Ready for 2020

The Beginner’s Guide to SEO: Keyword Research

What is Quality Score and Why It Matters

How to Create Landing Page Variants & Optimize with AI

What is A/B Testing?

Sloppy PPC Landing Pages Hurt Your Ad Spend. Here’s How to Fix ‘Em

How to Optimize for Google AdWords in 2020: 50 Tips to Increase Clicks

How to Get Your Google Ads Approved (Fast)

How to Write the Best Google Ads Copy (Best Practices)

Landing Page Best Practices

Complete Guide to AdWords Geotargeting and Local PPC

Unbounce Conversion Resources Library

Customers Still Need You: Here’s How to Start Your Online Business Quickly

How We’re Working for You During COVID-19

What is a PPC Landing Page?

from Marketing https://unbounce.com/ppc/google-ads-basics/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

[reviewandbonuss]

Google Ads Basics: A Guide to Setting Up Your First Google Ads Campaign

Google Ads are to online marketing what the “pizza move” is to beginner skiers—once you get the hang of the basics, you’ll start seeing results straight away (and likely be keen to learn more, more, more). But that initial learning curve can be a little daunting, especially if you’re still learning about online marketing in general, and all the tactics, tools, and strategies that come with it.

Since Google is basically synonymous with the Internet, Google Ads are worth getting friendly with. Not only will they get your business, product, or offerings in front of a lot more of the right eyeballs, they can help build good credit within the Google ecosystem to bolster your organic ranking efforts.

But you’ve gotta crawl before you can walk, so I put together a step-by-step guide to creating and setting up your first Google Ads. Full disclosure—I’m pretty new to setting up Google Ads myself, in the interest of taking a genuine, no-foolin’ beginner’s approach. I’ve also included all of the awesome resources I used in my research at the bottom of the post, so you can explore advanced strategies at your leisure. Now let’s tackle this bunny hill together. 

Why Should I Use Google Ads?

Google Ads put your offers in front of a super-targeted audience that is—in many cases—actively looking for exactly what you’re offering. Beyond the pay-to-play power of advertising your business on the world’s most-used search engine, Google Ads can be your portal to building a high Quality Score that reflects on your business overall.

Quality Score is a measurement of relevance through an assessment of click-through rate, ad relevance, and landing pages experience. It’s a way for Google to calculate which advertisers are creating honest, well-targeted, and useful ads versus ones that are… not.

You know those clickbaity, keyword-dense ads that send you to a mystery website or page with a million different products? Their Quality Scores are probably in the pooper—and that sh*t has consequences, like:

Which ads are eligible to run

How eligible ads are ranked in search results

CPC (cost-per-click) you’ll pay as an advertiser

What Google’s really looking at is the experience you’re providing to people searching for those keywords. Your Quality Score gets better the more relevant your keywords are to your offer, the more targeted your ad messaging is, and the better your landing page matches your ad—so visitors get exactly what they’re expecting when they click through. This also translates to increased ad opportunities, higher ad rankings, lower costs-per-click, and more return on your ad spend. 

Expert tip from Andrew Miller, Co-Founder of Workshop Digital: “Ad relevance is extremely important but don’t underestimate visitors’ experience on landing pages. Advertisers can improve Quality Score by creating landing pages that load quickly, look great on mobile devices, and provide users with a sense of trust that their data will be protected.

I recommend running all landing pages through Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool to find opportunities to speed things up. Be sure to test your landing pages and website on a variety of devices and operating systems to make sure all visitors can get what they need. Finally, make your privacy policy and data protection policies are transparent and visible.”

Terms to Know

Pay-per-click (PPC): The general term for paid online advertising, in which you’re paying by the number of clicks on your ad.

AdRank: A value assigned to your ad position in relation to other ads. Essentially, when there are several ads showing up at the top of a search engine results page, this is where you show up in the queue.

Bidding: The highest amount you’re willing to pay for an ad click.

Click-through rate (CTR): The number of clicks your ad receives divided by the number of times your ad is shown, as a percentage.

Cost-per-click (CPC): What each individual ad click costs.

Conversion rate: The average number of conversions on your ad, as a percentage. A conversion is the action you want visitors to take after they’ve clicked the ad—a sale, call, signup, etc.

Keywords: Words or phrases describing your product or service that you choose to help determine when and where your ad can appear.

Quality Score: Google’s assessment of the quality of your ads, keywords, and landing pages.

Search volume: The number of searches expected for a keyword within a certain time period.

What Type of Ads Can I Run With Google?

In the spirit of tackling the basics, we’ll just be covering Search Network ads in this post. But there are several options to explore with the world of Google Advertising.

Search Network: Text ads shown next to search results when a query is typed into Google.

Display Network: Visual ads shown to prospective customers wherever they may be on the Internet (relevant websites, blogs, etc.) within the Google Display Network.

Video: Video ads shown on YouTube and other video partner websites.

Search Network with Display: You guessed it—a combination of search and display ads. 

Shopping: Designed for physical products, these ads are shown at the top of search results and give detailed descriptions of your item.

Universal App: Promotes your app across Google Play, YouTube, Google Display Network, and Google Search.

Ad Extensions: A feature that shows extra information about your business, like a phone number, address, store rating, or additional website links.

Remarketing: Displays your ad to people who’ve visited your site already, wherever they may be—like the Display Network—by using cookies.

Which Keywords Should I Bid on?

You can use Google’s Keyword Planner to research keywords, discover new ones, and get estimated bids on ones you’re planning to go after. While you’ll need a Google Ads account to access the Keyword Planner, you don’t need to have any ads running yet. Signing up is totally free.

SEO expert Brian Dean has an excellent beginner’s guide to using the keyword planner. Check it out for thorough, step-by-step instructions to getting the most out of your keywords. But a few things to keep in mind when choosing:

Think of search intent, not simply descriptions. Put yourself in the mind of your customer—which terms would they be searching for that your product or service could be the solution to? For instance, if you’re selling grass skirts for cats, you may want to explore terms like “funny cat outfits” or “novelty cat clothing” (or “nearest hospital” for the eventual aftermath).

The more specific your offer, and the more specific your customer, the more specific your keywords should be. Say you’ve got a surplus of women’s Nike runners in size eight you need to sell. Your ad will likely be just what someone searching for “women’s size eight Nikes” or “women’s Nike running shoes on sale” is looking for. Note that getting too specific may narrow your search opportunities, so you’ll have to find the right balance between being super-targeted and using terms with enough search volume to get in front of people.

Bid on broader keywords if you want to reach more people. If your ad is more general, it can apply to more people and be relevant to a more general search. Keywords with higher search volume have tougher competition and can be pricier to bid on, though, so play around with broad keywords that are both relevant to your offer and give your ad a decent chance to be noticed.

If you’re into outsourcing to robots, Google offers a tool called Smart Bidding that uses machine learning to bid on keywords and optimize your ads for conversion.

Expert tip: “Keyword research is not a “set it and forget it” exercise. It’s a continual process of expansion (finding more keywords to test) and refinement (culling keywords that underperform) that requires attention on a regular basis.

Google Keyword Planner is great for medium-to-high volume keywords, but niche targets may require a little more digging: Google Search Console for organic search queries, interviews with current customers, sales teams, and industry experts, Competitive intelligence tools such as SEMRush or Spyfu, and Google Trends data.”

Setting Up Your First Ad

Once you’ve got your keywords sorted, you’re ready to set your ad up. 

Luckily, Google makes it a pretty straightforward process. You may already have completed some of these steps when you signed up to access the Keyword Planner. 

Step One

Log into Google Ads to enter your business name and the landing page you want to send your ad visitors to. For example, I’ve chosen to create an ad for the video recap page for our most recent Call to Action Conference for this example. (Shameless plug alert: the videos are free and have tons of expert marketing advice!)

The reason Google (and Unbounce, naturally) emphasizes using a landing page as your PPC ad destination instead of your homepage or website is because they’re inherently more targeted. They can be fully customized to match each ad, providing a more focused and relevant experience to the visitor with a single call to action. And, at its core, what makes Google happy—and Quality Scores and ad ROI go up—is relevance.

If you don’t have a landing page yet, we’re offering free use of the Unbounce platform to those in critical services like healthcare, education, nonprofits, and government for three months from your initial sign up date. Learn here how to get a professional landing page built, designed, and published in no time. For more tips, Landing Page Basics and the Conversion Resources Library have everything you need to know to create a high-converting page.   

Step Two

Select your conversion goal based on the call to action you’ve added to your landing page. In this case, we ask people to sign up for access to the CTAConf 2019 videos. The conversion goal is how you can really measure the success of your ad.

Step Three

Choose the location(s) you want your ad to appear in. The audience tally in the right corner will automatically adjust as you add and remove location options so you can gauge whether your audience size is too small to bother with, or too large to allow for an impact. 

The landing page I’m promoting is applicable to more than just British Columbians and Albertans, but for this particular ad I want to keep the audience at a manageable size and not go so broad that it shows to 50 million people at once and gobbles up my budget like a 2 am Big Mac.  

If you’re keen to take your geographic strategy a step further, WordStream’s Erin Bell has written a comprehensive guide to Google AdWords geotargeting. 

Expert tip: “The “perfect” audience is the right combination of quality (likelihood to convert) and quantity (number of potential customers), which will vary for each business. Consider your budgets and risk tolerance when selecting your target audiences.

If you have a smaller budget or are just getting started with Google Ads, I recommend starting with a very focused audience of your most likely customers. It is easy to spend more when you find a combination of keywords and locations that balance quality and quantity. It can be difficult to identify high-performing keywords and audiences if you cast too wide a net.”

Step Four

It’s keyword time. Add in the keywords and terms you want to target. Like it did with audience location size, Google will adjust your monthly reach potential as you add and subtract keywords. It’ll also suggest related keywords to boost your efforts, if needed. 

Step Five

Write your ad! The copy should mirror the messaging on your landing page to create the most cohesive ad experience possible, get those precious relevance points with the Google overlords, and most importantly, convert more click-throughs. Get tips on how to write the best, most compelling Google Ads copy here. 

Expert tip: “Every ad should reinforce the keywords or search intent, highlight your value propositions or differentiators, and include a strong call to action with an offer or incentive.

Try to identify where each searcher is in his/her journey. For example, are they able to articulate the problem(s) they are trying to solve? Are they already aware of solutions and/or brands that can help them? Are they aware of your brand? Your ad copy will likely need to change at each stage of the customer journey to move people closer to finding a solution to their problems.

You can also use Google’s Responsive Search Ads to provide multiple headlines and descriptions at one time. Google will automatically test and rotate the ad variations for you. With enough data, Google can start to optimize the ads to show the best combinations to each search.”

Step Six

Set your budget—or bid—to let Google know how much you’re willing to spend per day on your ad clicks. The amount of clicks that will get you depends on your cost-per-click, which depends on your keywords, audience size, and ad quality. Once you’ve gotten enough clicks to reach your daily spend limit, Google will stop showing your ad until the next day. You can take Google’s suggestions or enter a custom amount based on your budget allotment. 

Expert tip: “I always recommend a starting budget that allows you to buy at least 300-500 clicks. Cost Per Click (CPC) is going to vary depending on your industry and competitors so your budget should be high enough to afford this initial testing period.

The first 300-500 clicks will give you enough data to measure the outcomes (phone calls, transactions, lead form submissions, etc.), determine a baseline, and project ROI. If you are happy with the results from the first few hundred clicks, step up your budget in comfortable increments until you find a point of diminishing returns, then look for other keywords or audiences to continue your expansion. If the initial test does not meet your expectations, revisit your assumptions, change a variable, and test again.”

Once you hit “Next,” you’ll be taken to a page to review your Google Ad and campaign parameters. Then you’ll be asked to enter your payment information before finally submitting your ad.

You won’t be billed until after the ad has run its course, since Google won’t know how much your ad truly costs until all of the click-throughs are accounted for. Payments can be done automatically once the ad campaign is finished or as a monthly invoice. And be sure to grab your $150 USD ad credit for Google Ads first-timers.

Now you’re done! Well, almost. After you’ve submitted your ad, Google will process it and let you know whether it’s approved or denied. Don’t fret if it doesn’t go through the first time—you’ll be told exactly what needs fixing and be able to resubmit.

Optimizing Your Google Ads

Marketing never sleeps—there are always ways to tweak and experiment with ads to get the most conversions. Be sure to check on your campaigns and look for ways to optimize both your ads and their respective PPC landing pages to plug any conversion leaks and make the most of your ad spend.

A/B testing, which involves running multiple pages within the same campaign to test different messaging, design, and calls to action, is one of the most effective ways to see what’s resonating with your audience (and what’s not).

If you’re building Unbounce landing pages, Smart Traffic can also run these experiments for you, using machine learning to send visitors to the most relevant page variant based on individual attributes. Learn how to use Smart Traffic to convert more clicks with the almighty power of robots. 

Expert tip: “Some of the biggest wins come from helping your ad stand out from the crowd. Here are some easy ways to dress it up a bit:

1. Use as many ad extensions as possible to help your text ads stand out on a search results page. The most common ad extensions are “click to call” buttons/links, location/maps information, and sitelinks that highlight other content on your website. There are several others so be sure to test as many as possible.

2. Create mobile-specific ads to customize the experience for users on the move. This may include a different set of calls to action or offers. For example, offer driving directions or click to call/text options that minimize the number of clicks required to engage with you.

3. Promote a compelling offer that helps your ad stand out from others. Consumers are conditioned to look for discounts, free shipping, and fast delivery.”

Further Reading

I hope this was helpful to you in getting your first Google Ad out in the wild! There’s tons to learn, explore, and fiddle with as you become a Google Ads pro. As promised, below are the resources I used to study up and link throughout this post to get you on your way there. Good luck and happy advertising!

2020 Google Ads Guide

How to Use the Google Keyword Planner in 2020

6 Easy Steps to Get Your Google Ads Ready for 2020

The Beginner’s Guide to SEO: Keyword Research

What is Quality Score and Why It Matters

How to Create Landing Page Variants & Optimize with AI

What is A/B Testing?

Sloppy PPC Landing Pages Hurt Your Ad Spend. Here’s How to Fix ‘Em

How to Optimize for Google AdWords in 2020: 50 Tips to Increase Clicks

How to Get Your Google Ads Approved (Fast)

How to Write the Best Google Ads Copy (Best Practices)

Landing Page Best Practices

Complete Guide to AdWords Geotargeting and Local PPC

Unbounce Conversion Resources Library

Customers Still Need You: Here’s How to Start Your Online Business Quickly

How We’re Working for You During COVID-19

What is a PPC Landing Page?

https://unbounce.com/ppc/google-ads-basics/