Thoughtfully-created and well-managed Google Ads can easily generate a mass of valuable traffic to your business and have the power to transform your clicks into paying customers. As with most things in life, nothing worth having comes easy. The potential success of Google Ads is composed of equal parts risk as it is reward. Making a single critical mistake in your Google ads can transform them into money pits, providing no return on investment and wasting your ad spend.
If you’ve found yourself reading this blog chances are you either thinking of investing in Google Ads, or you have a slew of unsuccessful campaigns you’re desperate to turn around. Whichever boat you’re in, we have a range of helpful tips and tricks to ensure you are getting the best possible return on ad spend and maximising your conversions.
1. Not Using Single Keyword Ad Groups
Single keyword ad groups are one of the most effective ways to see a positive return on ad spend and have your conversions sky rocket.
Why are they so successful?
The more specific your ad groups and keywords in it are, the more relevant and targeted you are able to make your ads and landing page. Consistency is key when it comes to a successful Google Ads campaign. If a user searches a particular term only to have your ad appear about a different topic appear, you will see your quality score and conversion rate decrease rapidly.
Adding too many keywords (especially broad match keywords) greatly decreases your chances of delivering a relevant ad to searchers. If your ads are not relevant and specific to your particular search terms, you are wasting your ad spend.
Ensure there is consistency at every stage of your campaign. Your keywords should trigger the relevant ad copy, which will lead to a landing page containing similar information.
2. Send Ad Traffic To Your Homepage
A common mistake we often see in Google Ads is businesses directing ad traffic to their homepage. We understand the reasoning behind it, if a user is directed to your home page they are able to navigate your site and find the precise information they are after. Unfortunately, this logic is flawed.
Your ad is just a single step of a user’s journey and usually, it is your landing page which makes or breaks your conversion rate.
Even in times of social isolation and home quarantine, users still don’t have the time or patience to navigate through your website just to find the information they are after. Users are after a very specific and fast solution to their problems. Direct them to a non-specific, generic home page and they’ll click off your page faster than you can say “wasted ad spend”.
Direct your ad traffic to a custom landing page or to the most specific page of your website. If your Google Ads campaign objective is sales or leads it is crucial to have your landing page containing a call to action to allow users to complete the objective eg. ‘add to cart button’ or a lead submission form.
3. Incorrectly Using Location Targeting & Ad Scheduling
Even a seemingly perfect campaign will underperform if it fails to correctly utilise location targeting and ad scheduling. These 2 key features determine when and where your ads will be shown when triggered. Your campaigns should always utilise location targeting and ad scheduling.
Why is location targeting so important?
Location targeting allows you to show your ads to users in a particular geographical area. This can be by country, region, city, postcode and radius around a particular location. The business you are in will dictate which areas you should target. It is also important to note that different areas will require different marketing strategies. Consider the lifestyle, income, hobbies, interests, weather and economy of your potential buyers in different areas.
As a rule of thumb, it is best to create different ads for each major area you are targeting. For example: your business sells a range of different women’s clothing items and you are targeting countries all around the globe. Consider which areas are experiencing colder or warmer weather and create your ads based on that.
It is also important to adjust your bid strategy location to location depending which area has the highest demand.
Why is ad scheduling so important?
If you don’t want to waste your ad spend ensure you are only showing your ads when your target audience is actually online. If you are targeting ads to school students, consider what times they may be in class, when they would have free time and what time they are going to sleep for the night. There is no point spending your hard earned money to show ads at times your consumers just aren’t online.
To accurately set your ad scheduling, you must understand the lives of your target audience. What times do they work? What do they do on the weekend? When do they have down time?
Identify your target audience and schedule your ads to correspond with the time they are most likely to be online.
4. Not Adding Negative Keywords
If you have to ask yourself: “What are negative keywords?”, we have some bad news for you.
Negative keywords indicate to Google not to show your ads if a user searches using a particular word or phrase. Not utilising negative keywords may appear to increase your impressions as your ad is shown to a larger audience however it can drastically lower your click through rate and can drive the wrong traffic to your ads.
What is the wrong traffic? Anyone other than your target audience.
For example: A business offers laser hair removal services and have created a Google ad targeting the phrase: ‘laser hair removal’. A user is looking to purchase an at-home laser hair removal kit and searches: ‘laser hair removal at-home kit’. If the business has not incorporated negative keywords and the right match types to their campaign, their ads will be shown to this user with the wrong search intent.
Be sure to spend time identifying your negative keywords before you kick your campaigns live. If you’re unsure where to start, type your main keywords into Google and take note of the suggested searches that appear. Identify which options don’t align with your brand and add these as negative keywords in your campaigns.
Google Ads Done Right by Australian Experts
To understand how to make a killer Google Adwords campaign, you first need to understand exactly what NOT to do. If you’re new to the world of digital marketing you may see Google Ads as a guessing game, trying a random combination of actions and hoping you see your desired outcome. To create ads and campaigns that are destined for success it is crucial to know exactly what you should and should not do.
Do you need a little more help? Contact our Google Ads experts here at Australian Internet Advertising to find out how we can get you customers, not just clicks!
