Google Adwords is one of the most effective ways to promote your products or services to an audience, whether it’s tapping into new users, or retargeting those you already have.
But, Google Ads are not to be viewed as an isolated marketing effort. They are part of a greater ecosystem of online advertising, which increases its potential tenfold. And this also means it can be easily disrupted even by things you least expect.
Below, we will go through some of the most common things that can disrupt ads run on Google’s network.
How Does Google Ads Work?
First, it’s worth refreshing your understanding of how Google’s advertising platform works. In short, it is a pay-per-click service that allows you to tap into Google’s products (and massive reach) to promote your brand.
You can advertise on Google in lots of different ways, but the most common types of ads are those run in Google Search. These ads appear directly in the search engine results pages, usually above the organic search results. Search ads are marked as ads to increase transparency for the end-user, but they can do wonders for a lot of your goals, like increasing website traffic or boosting brand awareness.
You can advertise beyond the search results, and promote your ads on the Google Display Network, a collection of 2 million websites that gather 90% of global internet traffic according to Google.
Then, you also have the newer Shopping ads, Video ads, and app ads which are run on separate platforms like YouTube or inside mobile apps.
You create an ad or ad campaign, select the keywords you want to bid on or the target audience, set your budget, and you’re done. Google will then use your ad selection to deliver your content to the right audience, either based on the search terms used or the audience targeting.
Though it’s a straightforward system, it is part of a wider digital advertising landscape, which means you should always take a look at the bigger picture when running Google Ads.
Here are 5 of the most common disruptions Google Adwords can face:
1. Landing Page Quality
All the ads run on Google’s advertising platform will come attached with web pages, known as “landing pages.” The landing pages can either be necessary for the user to convert, meaning they need to click on the page to take your desired action, or they provide more information to help the user convert.
But Google cares a lot about the quality of these web pages. It’s not enough to optimise your targeting and create compelling ads. If the landing page is poorly designed or not performing well, Google will not deliver your ads the way you want – yes, even if you have a huge budget to spend!
Landing page quality directly ties into your ads campaign performance, as does the quality of your entire site. So be sure to improve the site quality, with a strong focus on:
● Loading speed
● Intuitive navigation
● Content relevance
● Website responsiveness
● Strong CTA that tells people what to do
2. Negative Keywords
When you’re targeting people in the search results, it’s really important to consider the negative keywords too, not just your target search terms. This is also possible for display ads when you target users based on interests and use keywords to deliver ads to keyword-specific sites.
Negative keywords tell Google when you don’t want to trigger your ads. For instance, if you are selling a service such as mobile phone repairs, you have lots of different search terms to bid on such as:
● Phone repairs now
● Phone repair Sydney
● iPhone repairs cheap
But, you likely have some search terms you’d like to avoid as well. For example, you might only offer your services, or a particular deal for iPhone users, in which case you can add “Android” as a negative keyword. This will essentially mean that every time a user types “mobile phone repair android,” Google knows not to deliver your ad.
Not using negative keywords can seriously disrupt your ad campaigns because you could potentially deliver your ads to the wrong people. And, those users still could click on the link, in which case Google will charge you, but you won’t score a conversion.
3. The Right Extension
A search ad doesn’t have to redirect users to a web page to score a conversion. Certain extensions can help a user convert right there in the search results, such as phone calls extensions.
If you have the kind of business that needs direct phone calls, this extension helps you run an ad only on people searching through a device able to make phone calls. Users can then tap directly on your number and get in touch with you.
Other Google Ads extensions can include:
● Price extension
● Location
● Affiliate
● App extensions, etc.
Using the right extensions refines your targeting even more, and gets you one step closer to a potential conversion.
4. Budget Optimisation
Google Adwords is considered a cost-per-click system, but that’s not the only way it will charge you. You also have the cost-per-impressions or cost-per-views. Depending on the type of goal you have in your ads campaigns, you need to choose the right type of charging.
Not only that, but it’s worth becoming more familiar with your billing section from the Google Ads account, and setting up exactly how and when you want to pay Google. The system allows you to stay on top of your ad spend and even set up daily budget limits to ensure you don’t break the bank with your ads.
5. Social Media Ads
This won’t disrupt Google Adwords per se, but it can affect your results. You should never put all your advertising eggs in one basket, but it’s worth talking about how social media ads can disrupt your Google Ads.
If you think of both as two separate efforts, there is a high chance of neither of them scoring the conversions you are looking for.
Balancing the two can bring much better results. When properly calibrated, Google and Facebook go a long way to helping a brand reach its goals.
For instance, you can run Google ads to get more website traffic, then use Facebook to create a custom audience to re-target these customers. You can also create a lookalike audience and target people similar to your shoppers.
Or, you can tap into all the user information Facebook can offer, and target your Display ads a lot better. There are a lot of ways of making Facebook and Google work together in your favour.
Final Thoughts
Google Adwords is one of the best ways to get your product or services to the right people and score conversions. But, the platform can experience lots of disruptions if you’re not careful.
Australian Internet Advertising is here to make sure that doesn’t happen. Reach out to us now to find out more about our Google Adwords services.
