Optimizing Ad Performance

Doesn't that sound difficult to you? Optimizing your Ad performance takes a lot of work, and my challenges continue. I couldn't figure out why I couldn't see my keywords, and that was an easy solution, but once it was solved and I read on, I discovered other things I couldn't see. I think that my challenge is I don't see what the examples show me about how it should look. I pushed the keywords and saw some information but couldn't figure out if that was the information I needed. This class has been one hurdle after the other, but I refuse to let it get the best of me, and I will ask questions and keep trying. 

Thank you to Marsha, who sent me a youtube video that sounded good, but then I couldn't see what he said I should be seeing. I do appreciate the help, though, from my classmate. I see numbers, and I guess that is a good thing, but I am not sure if I should be running two campaigns cause somehow I have two now, and I currently have one paused while the other is working. So many questions and I wish I were technically competent, but that's not happening. I also thought that maybe my product is too expensive, but I'm not sure how you figure that out because my product is not like those I see online.

This week, the examples of understanding the numbers were excellent and will help me understand if my campaign is working and if it will be profitable. It's going to take some practice and constantly refer back to the examples, but I hope that it will help me understand my numbers better. I must say that I haven't gotten a good understanding of negative keywords, but I have a tutoring session, and I am writing down what I don't understand to ask her the questions I need to be answered. Anyways, I'm having challenges, it is true, but I'm learning at the same time, and that makes it worth it.

Relevance and a Quality Score

As stated on google, "The Quality Score is a diagnostic tool meant to give you a sense of how well your ads are doing in comparison to other advertisers." Relevance refers to how closely your ad matches what the users are looking for if they search for your site. All this stuff sounded great to me, but I had trouble linking it again because I think I might have already linked it but wasn't sure. When I got my tracking number, it was the same as what I already had, but it had the number 2 at the end. 

These processes have been challenging for me, but anything worth trying becomes worth it in the end. I tried to keep up with assignments with what I had found, but I am sure that there was so much more to it all. I have a zoom meeting request with my instructor, and I hope to get things resolved with her help. Don't get me wrong, the struggle is genuine, and I wouldn't say I like it, but it has forced me to look at what I was doing wrong and learn from it all.

I took pictures and made up a larger box for my friend's 79-year mother, who got married this weekend and is waiting for my website to go live. Another friend asked if I sold just the fruit without the chocolate cause she is allergic, so I decided to add those to my collection! I had a session with Shopify about filling the space next to my logo, and they suggested a new theme. I thought I had added it in, but I saw it, and then it disappeared; I couldn't understand what was going on, so I went back to the one I started with, the Simple theme.

I must put a plug in for my instructor. She has been amazing and has lifted my spirits on many occasions when I felt lost and ready to give up. My two friends have been my support and constantly ask to make sure that I am getting things done and help as they can. I may not be good at this, but I have a great support system through family and friends that encourage me to keep going. I don't think it's been a total bust this week, but I am grateful for the help I have received from various people along the way. THANK YOU!

My Reflection on writing Ads

Here we go, another week down, and I feel like I'm running on the back burner in trying to catch up. This week I am out of town and so studying and reading and trying to get things done while away is not always easy. Can you still visit with friends and attend activities, be social and still manage to do what is needed to get assignments done? Yes, I can, and I'm grateful for the support of friends who gave me ideas while doing my ad for my website, even though it didn't end up looking the way it was supposed to, but I didn't realize that until after the fact.

I'm hoping to get things sorted out this weekend and get up to date by Monday. Thank you for the support of classmates who are using the same platform and who have been able to point me in the right direction and give me a better understanding of my website. I feel incredibly grateful for that support because I can look at their website, and she can help me know what I need to fix, which gives me hope.

I know that I can do this; I know my Heavenly Father has allowed me to learn, so I'm taking this opportunity to develop my web creation website.

I am also very grateful for the Shopify and HostGator support team working on getting things working for me.

The LORD is at the HELM of this ship

This class has dealt me some massive blows, but it's due to my choice. I didn't figure out why I couldn't get my Google ads linked up to my new website, it just wouldn't link, and the support people at Shopify were clueless as to why the link was not working. I have been plodding along just trying to get my assignments done and thinking, why is this class pushing me through the wringer? I am learning that God is at the helm of the ship that I am on. He knows so much more than I do and so roll with the punches and know that He's got you're your back.

At the start of this semester, I signed up for two classes; I'm generally not very good at keeping an eye on my classes until the semester begins. This year, for some reason, my other class disappeared off my list, and so I figured that I'd take the one class because I'm not very tech-savvy and would need lots of extra time to get it right. I did not know then that there was a purpose to this incident; the Lord knew what would be happening in my life.

The family business that I work for lost the head of its household, which was a significant blow for our business. I spent many nights at their home, comforting the kids and trying to help his wife, as well as trying to keep working at the business. Luckily, we were only working three days because of Covid, and the travel back and forth from Gilroy and San Jose put some significant miles on the work vehicle that usually stays in town. Taking only one class made this event so much easier to work through and get things done; even when my assignments were late, they got done.

There have been many challenges in this class with technical challenges and not understanding how to do things, but I have great friends, and they worked with me and helped me push through the challenges the best that I could. This week an answer came to me through a fellow student as we are now working together as groups using the same platform. I couldn't link google to my site, and she said that I might not have a domain because it should work. She suggested that I buy it, but I swore that I did buy one when we were doing the lesson on getting a domain name. She had me looking for the receipt from that purchase and nothing, but I swore that chocolatedrift.com was my domain, and I didn't want to sign up for another one. Then a thought came into mind that I had signed up with a hosting group when we did that lesson, so I went back to the lesson and went through the steps, and there it was it had me signing up with HostGator the payment wasn't in my email, but I did have a PayPal receipt.

I contacted Shopify asking what I could do, they suggested transferring the domain name, I went to HostGator to see how I could transfer it, and they gave me a particular number. So back to Shopify, and I had help trying to do it, and guess what I couldn't because it is a new domain, and I would have to wait for 60 days. The next suggestion, have HostGator point the domain name to Shopify; then, in 60 days, you can transfer it.

HostGator had me verify my email address, and then I had to wait for 24hrs to point to Shopify. 

Can you believe all this stuff? No, but the Lord is at the helm of this ship, and He knows what I need to learn. HostGator and Shopify have fantastic customer support; both groups are incredibly willing to help me get my website running correctly to do what I need to for my website assignments.

Today I get to play with the keywords on google ads that I never got the chance to previously; actually, I'll probably get better keywords since I made those up. A fellow student helped me find my mistake, and in the process, I gained some insight into things that might work for our family business and its current website. There is always a purpose to the things that happen in this life, and I learned this week in my self-reliance class that the Lord knows who I am and loves me. He is in the details of life, and things happen for a reason. This week started hard but has ended well, and I did okay in my website assignment; with a few tweaks, my website will be a good one. Yay!!