If you own a website, then you will definitely realize how important Google AdWords is to the success of your business. In fact, there are numerous case studies of businesses that have started with only a modest ad budget but ended up making millions by smartly utilizing AdWords. So, if you are just venturing into using Google AdWords, then the below tips will help you get the best results from your campaigns.
Know Your Audience
When you choose AdWords, you have an opportunity to test out various types of ads on different groups of people. And only through continuous and rigorous testing, you can perfect your ads to generate the best conversions. A good example is that of in-market audiences. This option allows you to target your ad campaigns to internet users who have displayed a heightened interest in purchasing the products or services in your niche. This is usually done after user browsing history has been thoroughly analyzed by Google to determine when they are likely to buy.
Make Your Ad Content as Detailed as Possible
Some people only fill in a few blanks of the information that needs to be entered in the ad unit. This is not the right way to do PPC. You have to fill every single field on the submission form. As far as AdWords is concerned, this includes things like headlines, description, URL, paths etc. Only by entering all the required information will the ad perform to its fullest potential. Do note that you might need to click on the ‘+’ sign or the ‘Advanced’ options in order to open up all the fields of the ad.
Match Type
One important aspect of Google AdWords you must know about is the ‘match type’ feature. There are four types of matches you can choose from – exact match, broad match, broad match modifier, and phrase match. If you select the exact match option, then your ads will only be shown if a user types in the exact keyword that you have specified. So, for a keyword like blue bottles, Google will only display your ads to users who search for blue bottles. If you choose the broad match option, Google will show your ads to users who search for terms which are similar to your product/services. So, if the keyword you have mentioned is ‘good shoes’, then Google will show your ads to people who search for ‘best shoes’, ‘shoes excellent’, and so on.
In a broad match modified option, your ads will only be shown if a user types in a query which has the words that you deem necessary. This is done by adding a ‘+’ sign before the necessary words. So, if you set the keywords as ‘buy black +bags’, then Google will show the ads to people who search for ‘black bags’, ‘bags new’, ‘buy the latest blue bags’, and so on. Finally, a phrase match will allow you to display ads only when a particular keyword you have mentioned appears on the user’s search query. As such, if you have set a phrase match of ‘purple bags’, then your ads will be displayed to people who search for ‘purple bags’, ‘buy purple bags’, ‘purple bags cost’, and so on. The ads will never be shown to users who have typed in ‘purple bag’, ‘bag purple’ etc.
Extensions
AdWords offer many types of extensions to its customers. You should try to utilize all such extensions which will help get the best response from the internet users. For example, the ‘review extension’ will allow you it display the reviews of your customers in the form of ratings. And if you have a large number of positive customer ratings, the user will see it on the search results page and will be more likely to your website. Similarly, ’structured snippets’ allow you to add a bit more information about the product or service. This extra information can also make the user feel interested in your website. And if you are planning to direct all users who click your ad to unique landing pages, and then try using the ‘sitelinks extensions’.
Good Agency
If you are planning to use a digital marketing agency to handle your ad campaigns, make sure that you only hire those who already have proven themselves to produce positive results. Check the number of clients they handle, the budget they deal with, and the conversions they generate, and so on. The better they are at generating clicks to the website through the ads, the more you can trust them to deliver results. As such, it is recommended that you consult experienced agencies like Falcon Digital Marketing PPC management services to handle your Google ad campaigns rather than dealing with newbies.
Conversion Tracking
Conversion tracking allows you to find out your best and worst performing ads, thereby allowing you to take the necessary action to achieve better results. Generally, there are three conversion tracking methods – phone call tracking, Webform tracking, and CRM tracking. Phone call tracking will allow you to find out how many calls were created as a result of your ad campaign. Google will also provide additional services like call analysis, recording etc. Webform tracking, as the name suggests, deals with tracking contact forms, appointment schedulers, and so on. You only need to add in the conversion code on the Webform page. Consequently, Google will track as to how many ads lead to generating a lead and will provide a report on such conversion statistics. CRM tracking is aimed at keeping track of the sales pipeline. Once you have a list of leads generated from AdWords, you only need to check at how many of these leads go converted into sales. Doing so will enable you to know whether the money you spend on AdWords campaigns is profiting you or losing you money.
Geo-targeting
One important feature that you must use in AdWords is geo-targeting. This allows you to target your ads to specific geographical locations while taking factors like income and so on into consideration. For example, if you are selling bikinis, then you are likely to get more interest and conversions by targeting the ad to places like Hawaii rather than letting the ad run in Alaska or some other freezing place. If you don’t mention the location of the ad, Google will simply run it everywhere (including Alaska), which will essentially be a loss of your ad budget. Now, you can also market the ad by things like seasons. So, if you see that the summer season is coming in a few states, and then you can set up the bikini ads to be displayed it such states while avoiding those where winter remains prevalent.
Negative Keywords
Many people who start out using AdWords tend to overlook the power of negative keywords. And that is quite sad since this is an extremely powerful feature that can save you from wasting tons of money on unresponsive ad clicks. When you set a negative keyword list for your ad, you are essentially telling Google to not show your ad in case any of the listed negative keywords appear in the search query of a user. For example, if you are selling luxury watches, then your target will obviously be people who have a good deal of money to afford such things. As such, users who search for terms like ‘cheap watches’ are clearly not your customers. And when you list ‘cheap’ as a negative keyword, Google will avoid showing your ad to users who search for ‘cheap watches’. As a consequence, you will end up saving a lot of money by ensuring that users who will have no interest in buying your product never click your ads.
Quality Score
When you run an ad campaign on AdWords, Google will provide a Quality Score that will show how well your ad will be ranked on Google’s search page, helping you determine the potential of the ad to generate user clicks. The higher the Quality Score, the lower will be your cost per conversion. As such, it obviously stands to reason that you should always aim to get the highest possible Quality Score. And this can be done by focusing on a few key areas. First, make sure that your landing pages are well optimized so as to have a better conversion rate. Next, ensure that all the keywords you use in the ad campaign are grouped on the basis of their importance. You should also test out ads by targeting to various user groups to determine the ads that give you a higher click-through rate. Finally, be sure to do a good deal of keyword research to find out which words you need to add in your ad campaigns to make to make it more effective. You can use Google’s own keyword planner or any other third party keyword research tool for this purpose. If you implement these steps, you are sure to see a jump in your Quality Score, which will eventually help you generate more conversions for less money.