The Free AdWords Credit That Came in the Mail

A coupon with a deadline

A letter arrives with a printed code for a credit toward a first AdWords campaign. A new hosting account's welcome email can carry the same offer.

It looks like free advertising, and January is quiet for many trades. The owner opens an account one afternoon, enters the code and accepts the settings the screens suggest.

A few weeks later the credit is used up, the card on file is being charged, and nobody has looked at what the clicks actually were.

What the offer usually requires

The terms are printed on the back of the letter or behind a link, and they vary. Most share three conditions.

The account must be new, usually one that has never run an ad. The code must be entered within a set number of days of the account starting.

And the account must first spend a set amount of its own money within a set time. Only then is the credit applied, as a balance against later clicks.

Some offers also limit the credit to a first campaign or expire after a set date. Keep the letter until the credit has actually been applied.

Defaults that reach too far

A campaign created by accepting each suggested setting tends to look like this:

• Locations: a whole country, or more, rather than the area you serve.
• Location option: people searching about your area from anywhere, as well as people in it.
• Networks: search partner sites, and with the suggested campaign type, ads on other websites too.
• Keywords: broad match, showing ads for searches loosely related to your words.
• Schedule: every hour of every day, including nights nobody answers the phone.
• End date: none, so the campaign runs until someone stops it.

Each default suits somebody. Together, for a local service, they spend money on people who could never become customers.

Why the reach costs money

Every click is paid for, whoever makes it. A click from a province where the business has never worked is charged in full.

Broad match widens the net further. A service business's ads can appear for searches about buying equipment, renting it, training for the trade or finding a job in it.

The credit is spent on those clicks first. When it runs out, the same clicks go on the card.

Settings to change first

Set the locations to the towns you actually serve, or a radius around your base. Then choose to show ads only to people in those places.

Choose search only, with search partners off at first. Ads on other websites are a different job and deserve their own campaign and budget.

Use phrase and exact match for the services you offer. Add negative keywords for searches you do not want, such as for sale, rental, used, jobs and training.

Limit the schedule to hours when someone answers the phone, and add the office number to the ads with a call extension.

When the credit runs out

The campaign does not stop when the credit is used. AdWords keeps showing the ads and charges the card on file as costs build up.

Set an end date in the campaign's settings when you create it, a few weeks after the start. The campaign then stops on its own unless someone decides to continue it.

Book a review for the week before that date, to look at the searches, the locations and the calls before any more money is spent.

A worked example

A sewer camera inspection service with two vans works across the three municipalities of the Comox Valley. It inspects drain lines for homeowners, for buyers before a purchase and for plumbers wanting a second look.

The owner received a credit letter in the mail, opened an account and accepted the suggested settings, with keywords such as sewer camera and drain inspection.

Three weeks later, the searches behind the clicks included sewer cameras for sale, pipe camera rentals and inspection jobs. Many clicks came from other provinces, and some ads had appeared on home renovation websites.

The credit was used up, and the card had already been charged twice since.

The campaign now covers the three municipalities and shows ads only to people in them. It runs on search alone, with phrase and exact match for inspection services and negatives for sales, rentals, jobs and training.

Ads run during office hours and on Saturday mornings with a call extension, and the campaign has an end date with a review booked before it.

The ads now reach people in the service area who are looking for an inspection, at hours when someone can answer. And the card stops on a known day.

What the clicks actually were

AdWords lists the actual searches that led to clicks, and where the people clicking were. Reading both after the first week shows what the settings let through.

Add any unwanted search as a negative keyword, and check that clicks come from the area you serve. A campaign that still reaches too far after that needs its settings looked at again.

The counter-case

A business that really does sell across the country, such as an online shop shipping anywhere in Canada, may want the wide reach the defaults suggest.

Someone who already manages AdWords campaigns can treat the credit as a fair discount on spending they would make anyway. The credit itself is not a trap.

The defaults are simply generic. With the settings matched to the business and an end date in place, the credit pays for an honest test rather than weeks of clicks from nowhere.

Before the code is entered

1. Read the terms on the letter or behind its link.
2. Note the deadlines for entering the code and spending first.
3. Choose the towns you actually serve.
4. Show ads only to people in those places.
5. Run on search alone, with phrase and exact match.
6. Add negative keywords for sales, rentals, jobs and training.
7. Set an end date and book a review before it.

Step seven protects the card. A campaign with an end date stops on its own. Carrying on then becomes a decision made with the searches and calls in front of you, not a charge found later.

Setting the website budget for the year ahead gives advertising its own line among the year's website costs, with a spending limit and a review date.

Frequently asked questions

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.