7 apocalyptic Google Ads mistakes that will break you (and how to fix them)
Google is an America-based technology MNC that specializes in Internet-related services and products, which include a search engine, cloud computing, online advertising opportunities, software and hardware.
Out of all these services, the search engine is the most commonly used tool. It is used for searching text in publicly accessible documents offered by web servers, as opposed to other data, such as images or data contained in databases.
With the corporate world and it’s clients shifting to the online platform, advertising on the internet has become a necessity. Google Ads is an online marketing platform curated by the digital giant Google, where advertisers bid to have brief advertisements, service offerings, product listings or videos displayed to the web users. It can place your ads strategically in both the search engine results as well as non-search websites, such as mobile apps. This platform is an affordable form of marketing that you can use to promote your business, sell products and services, increase brand awareness and drive traffic to your website. It allows targeting qualified, in-market prospects, which if managed with precaution, can deliver strong ROI and be instrumental in increasing your sales. Since they are completely digitalised, you can create or change your campaign at any time, including the write-ups, displays, settings, budget etc.
It works faster than SEO and has a superior reach. Using Google Ads, you can measure your performance consistently, reconnect with people who may have visited your site previously and tackle your competition better.
Not only can business houses (of any size) advertise to millions of people, it is extremely pocket-friendly too. The fact that companies can start, stop and adjust their bids at any point of time gives them huge flexibility.
While the process may be fairly straightforward, it is not that easy. Google Ads management takes time to master and most corporates end up losing money on them, because they are not patient enough to wait for the results their pay-per-click strategies will inevitably bear.
While there are a lot of agencies offering PPC services in India, Socio Labs is undoubtedly the best PPC company in Delhi.
If you are not hiring PPC consultants for your company, read on to find some areas which you may overlook while drafting your strategy. It is essential that it is ironclad in nature, to ensure that your hard work yields proportionate results.
It is human nature to seek the most out of all our efforts. So if you have a wonderful marketing strategy, but have neglected Google AdWords PPC ads to help you drive traffic to the target pages, you are essentially cheating yourself out of a bucketload of opportunities.
Keyword made in Heaven
Every Google Ads user should be familiar with the following three types of keywords.
Google allows you to run your ads in any of these matches. It is upto you to decide which one would prove to be most beneficial for your marketing campaign.
When you use broad match keywords, your ads will pop up when people search for the given keywords, regardless of the order of words. Never underestimate the power of a broad match. Even when your prospect is not interested in buying your product, but is searching about something related to your products and services, which has similar keywords, your ad will show up. To enter a broad match keyword, just add it, without any punctuation marks. When you target phrase match keywords, your ads appear when people search for your keywords in the exact same order or related keywords, where the words are still in the same order. To use these, add double quotation marks. In the exact match keyword, your ad will only be displayed when the exact same keyword has been typed out in the search box. A simple squared bracket [] is used to enclose this keyword. While the average monthly exact keyword searches are not as high as the broad searches, it has the highest conversion rate. For best results, combine the three matches and use a cascading bid.
Ad writing
Mastered your keyword but the results can not be seen?
Most likely due to un-optimized Ad mistakes. Grave error, but can be rectified. With ad extensions, you can use sitelinks, call and location extensions to enhance your ad. Your Ad extensions tab in your Ad account will help you adjust your settings to yield the best ROI. In layman language, you will be adding extra information to your advertisement to give them more reasons to click on it.
While the right extensions will increase the click rate, the challenge is to ensure that your landing page is high-converting and when the visitors reach it, they find what they’re looking for easily. Writing an ad is similar to writing a title, you got to figure out what makes it tick and how you can compel the audience to click on it.
Profit Margins (not marginal profits)
When you are running a business, it is but obvious that you keep a constant check on your conversions and profits, to improve revenue.
A similar philosophy applies to your PPC ads. You can actually save a lot of money and time if you already have an idea of the profit you are likely to make and the conversion rate needed for it. Profit margins differ industry to industry. Familiarize yourself with your niche and do not hesitate to explore. Having an estimated profit margin is a good way to set up a winning Google Ads campaign.
The curious case of negative keywords
Google processes over 6 million keywords each day out of which at least 15% are brand new. This means that some of these keywords will be high-quality, while others will be detrimental to bid and target. By using a negative keyword, you can exclude keywords that are not beneficial for your ad. Doing so can lower your cost and increase your revenue. Negative keywords are the easiest way to reach the most targeted customers, reduce your costs and boost your ROI. It also helps you increase your Google Ads quality score.
Bidding on your brand
Bid on your brand name keywords, to help increase conversions. Pay attention to your brand value. Researchers have proven that more than 50% of customers are willing to spend more on a product if the company has a reputation of delivering positive customer experience. This experience can be achieved through SEO and PPC marketing. Use every opportunity to show your brand in the spotlight, because the brand is you. When you bid on your own brand it promotes your business and encourages engagement. The game is not always about clicks and traffic, it is majorly about revenue.
Know your CLV
The CLV of your customers is basically how much money a customer is expected to generate over the lifetime of their engagement with your brand. This determines how much you can spend to recruit customers on the long term, keeping in mind the return purchases of the customer. The lifetime value of a customer is much more complex than ROI (return on investment). But, they are dependent on each other to grow your revenue and your business. When you’re aware of the customer lifetime value, you can easily adjust your campaigns and bid on the strategic keywords that will drive the right prospects and customers to your landing page.
Position Testing
If you bid more than other advertisers who are targeting the same keywords, your ad’s more likely to appear at the top, assuming you both have the same quality score. The quality of your ad is largely dependent on the quality of your keywords, click rate and targeted keywords. That score determines where your ads get placed.
According to WordStream, position #1 may not always be the best position. It’s true that higher ad rankings tend to get the most clicks, but they don’t get the most conversions. You don’t have to rank #1 for your ads to start generating quality clicks. If your goal is branding, then it makes sense. But, if you want to get results (quality clicks, traffic & conversions), being in position 3-5 works best.
Your ads must reach the right people at the right time. That is the best sure-shot way to increase your traffic, generate better leads and increase sales. Effective Google Ads boil down to targeting the right words (in part through match type), reducing your cost per customer acquisition and driving potential customers to your site where you’ve set up a well-crafted funnel that will improve conversions.
While this is a nuanced and complicated process, there are a lot of performance marketing agencies in India which help you create the perfect marketing strategy for your brand.
