Many people think that working with Google AdWords is not that difficult. Anyone can create an account and set up a campaign. But what happens next? How do you ensure that the campaign achieves results or becomes profitable? What technical steps are taken for success? Google AdWords is a field where new developments are constantly taking place.
The tips & tricks below offer you the opportunity to optimize AdWords campaigns.
1. Test with multiple ads.
The well-known A/B tests. To find out which ad copy yields the best return, you must ensure that you use multiple ad copys. This way, you can test various messages with the target audience and ultimately use statistics to substantiate which ad copy resonates most with the target group. Based on these results, you can further optimize the campaign.
2. Use negative keywords.
Negative keywords are words that prevent your ads from being shown. They can help you reach the most interested customers. Additionally, negative keywords help you limit costs and increase your ROI. Negative keywords contribute significantly to the optimization of an AdWords campaign. By using these keywords, you avoid not only high costs but also irrelevant traffic.
3. Link Google AdWords with Analytics (measure = know).
Always link your AdWords account with Google AnalyticsIn this way, visitors arriving at the website via Google AdWords are also measured in Google Analytics. You can therefore see how many visitors come to the website via Google AdWords, which pages they visit, how long they stay on the website, and much more. Because this data is measured, the AdWords campaign can be optimized more specifically.
4. Logical campaign structure.
Before setting up an AdWords campaign, you should always ensure you use a clear structure. Organizing a campaign clearly makes it easier for the person managing it to optimize it. By using a good structure, you can more easily determine which parts of a campaign are valuable and which you should expand or limit.
5. Realistic daily budget.
It is important to know how much budget is available for the Google AdWords campaign.
This depends on the industry. If the average click price for keywords is €1 per click, €10 per day will be insufficient to run the campaign optimally in the short term. It will also take longer to collect valuable data to optimize the campaign. Therefore, before setting up a campaign, carefully check the Google Keyword Planner to get an indication of click prices and adjust the budget accordingly.
The available budget largely determines how a campaign performs. A campaign with a larger budget allows for a broader approach. With a lower budget, the campaign will need to be structured more specifically, otherwise too much budget will be consumed, resulting in limited ad visibility. Therefore, think carefully about the budget you intend to allocate to Google AdWords.
6. Use relevant landing pages.
When setting up advertisements, it must be indicated where users are redirected after clicking on the ad. It is possible to use the homepage, but this will not yield the maximum return. Why? Users would then have to search the website again for what they searched for on Google. Therefore, it is useful to assign ad groups a landing page that aligns with the goal of the advertisement. For example, if you are looking for red roses, you do not want to end up on a page of yellow tulips. You would then still have to search for the red roses.
7. Make use of ad extensions.
By using ad extensions, ads stand out more and take up more space, displacing the competition from the top positions. Deploying these extensions gives you the opportunity to add extra unique selling points to your campaign and better promote your website or webshop.
8. Use unique selling points in your advertisements.
To make your ads stand out, you should include USPs (unique selling points). But when is a USP actually unique? If you search on Google for inspiration, you will immediately find competitors claiming to have the largest assortment or the lowest price guarantee. Therefore, try to use actual USPs in your ads.
9. Pay attention to the quality score!
The Quality Score provides an estimate of how relevant the ads, keywords, and landing page are to a visitor. Google may assign a high Quality Score if they consider these three factors relevant to the visitor. It is an important tool for a Google AdWords campaign. A campaign with a higher Quality Score will lead to lower CPCs and a higher ad position. Consequently, you will pay less per click, which will have a positive effect on the return of the campaigns.
The quality score can be tracked by continuously adjusting:
- Ad copy;
- applying keywords in advertisements;
- relevant landing pages;
- impact of ad extensions;
10. Use different search types in your Google AdWords campaign
Many people starting to advertise in Google AdWords for the first time use only broad keywords. By using broad keywords, you increase the chance that irrelevant visitors will end up on the website. Because irrelevant visitors come to the website via AdWords, you also spend more budget that could be better spent. Therefore, it is better to work with exact keywords and phrases. You are being more specific and you also lower your CPC. Of course, with broad keywords you can find out how the target audience operates. However, be careful with this!