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www.greenmediaonline.com Business Planning Guide November 2014 29 to setting your daily budget, you can set the maximum amount you are willing to pay for someone to actually click on your ad — a good starting place for most dealers is 50 cents per click. You'll set that in the "Set Your Bid" section, but keep in mind that the keywords in the highest demand cost the most, so don't be surprised to see single words bidding out at $1-$2. Your tarGet audience Location: While you may decide to experiment with national campaigns to drive e-commerce sales, the majority of your customers likely come from a 25-mile radius around your dealership. Google gives you the ability to zero in on exact radius. From the Locations tab, select "Let me choose" and click "Advanced Targeting" to arrive at the page shown in Figure 2. Select "Radius Targeting," enter your city and state or zip code, and select your target radius. Networks: You're automatically opted in to the "Search Network," which includes Google and other smaller search engines it controls. You also have the option to add on the "Display Network," which is Google content sites and non- Google partner sites that display ads. If you're just starting out, we recommend sticking with the Search Network exclusively. Keywords: As the name implies, Google AdWords uses specific keywords to match your advertising message with prospects that are actively searching for your products and services in your area. You'll want to develop a list of 15-20 keywords for your campaign. While you may think targeting branded keywords like "Cub Cadet" or "John Deere" is a good strategy to capture the largest audience possible, these branded terms as a general rule just don't work for dealers. Why? Good old supply and demand. The companies themselves, Cub Cadet and John Deere, are going to outbid you for their branded keywords every single time. In order for you to win at the AdWords game, experiment with developing long-tail keywords that are extremely relevant to your dealership's offerings. So while the keywords "Cub Cadet" won't work, you could try: Cub Cadet zero-turn mowers Replacement parts for Cub Cadet Series 1000 garden tractors While there is definitely some trial and error involved in developing keywords that deliver results, Google's Keywords Planner takes a lot of the guesswork out of the process. Among other features, the tool allows you to see historical performance of your desired keywords to gauge the potential future performance. Get started with Google's Keyword Planner at http://bit.ly/1liOZmG. Set Your Bid While Google recommends that you allow it to automatically set your bid, as we discussed earlier, to be on the safe side we recommend that you keep tabs on your maximum bid from the onset. Set your bid manually at 50 cents to start, and tweak from there. Write Your ad The goal of your content is to entice online shoppers to click through to a specific page on your website. Are you having a service special? Use specific and actionable content to direct people right to your service page, fast-tracking them to the deal your ad promises. Following is a sample ad: Lawn Mower Service (Headline, 25 characters) 25% Off Tune-Ups through July 5! (Description Line 1, 35 characters) Schedule Your Service Today (Description Line 2, 35 characters) www.xyzope.com/repair (Display URL, 35 characters) Figure 2 The AdWords marketplace is an auction where keyword ad placement is offered up to the highest bidder every time a customer conducts a Google search.