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Google AdWord Analysis – Story of Lost Opportunities

Posted by vikram in Google Adwords on Jun 15th, 2011 | 0 comments

Colleges have started using Google Adwords extensively during admission season. In North India we have 3 big ad spenders from education sector

  1. Amity University
  2. Lovely Professional University (LPU)
  3. Sharda University

A brief analysis of their ad campaigns suggests there is no effort by these big spenders to optimise their Google Ad Word campaigns. An optimized ad word has 2 clear benefits:

  1. Reduced cost per click – substantial reduction in ad spend
  2. Ads appear at better rank

Google Ad Word optimization is done in 2 broad areas

  1. Optimization of ad copy – A highly optimized ad copy only can take quality score to the range of 5-7
  2. Optimization of landing page – Optimizing the copy of landing page can further increase the quality score to the range 7-8

It comes as a surprise then that these 3 big players are doing little in this area and majority of their Google ads are not optimized.

Ad Position Rank
Key Word Amity Sharda LPU No of Ads on Ist Page Ads in Top 3 Places
Engineering Colleges Not on first page 4 6 8 0
B Tech Delhi Not on first page 5 6 7 0
Mechanical Engineering Colleges Not on first page 4 12 9 0
Best Engineering College Not on first page 4 Not on first page 5 0
Engineering Colleges North India Not on first page 4 Not on first page 1 0

We conducted a small survey of “Ad Position Rank” for these 3 big universities. The result came as a surprise to us. The big daddies of education have got the plot of Internet marketing completely wrong. Amity is not advertising its engineering course on search engines (though it is using Google Adwords to show text ads on websites).  Sharda University is spending a lot of money – it is advertising on all the keywords we surveyed. But it is paying absolute disregard to quality score. For they key words we surveyed no advertiser is coming in top 3 positions. So even in absence of quality competition Sharda is coming at No:4. Sharda is throwing a lot of money but not getting the best bang out of it.

Efforts by LPU at Google Adwords can be termed amateurish at best. LPU which is located in Punjab positions itself as a prominent north Indian university. But look at the key word they are missing – “Engineering Colleges in North India”. Their average rank for the 3 keywords they are appearing is a pitiful No: 8.

Internet marketing campaigns are run by agencies which have no understanding of this medium. Till the time clients shift to agencies which understand this medium they will not realise the full potential of this amazing marketing channel.



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