Today I wanted to share with you some tips and secrets I’ve learned over the past 4 years to help you get the most out of your Google ads account. If you read to the end of this article I’m going to show you the worst setting in your campaign that probably costing you the most money.
Change your dashboard to expert mode
Switching your dashboard to expert mode allows you to see every single aspect of your Google ads campaign. Don’t be intimitated, your current campaigns will not be changed in any way. The best part is you’ll be able to easily identify parts of your campaign where you are losing money because you get detailed reports.
Start off with the manual cost per click setting
I always advise people who are new to Google ads to start off with the manual CPC bidding strategy. This will help you get most out of your budget because you can limit what you are willing to pay per click. This will also give you the time to test out your ideas and ad copy to see what works and what doesn’t. After you find out what works you can then switch to an automated bidding strategy.
Use retargeting
Remember people don’t always buy the first time they land on your website. That means you have to make sure they see your ad again and again until they buy. Think about how someone becomes your friend you can have see the person more and more until a connection happens. Always try and retarget your website visitors as they have already been introduced to your brand. Do remember though you need to the following sizes to audiences to qualify for conversion tracking.
- Google Display Network must have a minimum of 100 active visitors or users within the last 30 days
- Google Search Network must have a minimum of 1,000 active visitors or users within the last 30 days
- YouTube must have a minimum of 1,000 active visitors or users within the last 30 days
- Gmail must have a minimum of 100 active visitors or users within the last 30 days in the Display Network
Hunt for negative keywords
Now that you are on expert mode you’ll be able to see of all your search campaign data. This means you will have access to the search phrases report. This will show you all the search phrases people have typed in that led them to click on your ads. You will instantly see that sometimes you appear in searches that you don’t want to show up for. These searches are usually unrelated to your niche. Make sure you add these as negative keywords so you don’t pay for unnecessary clicks. Make sure you check your search report often to make sure you are not losing money on unrelated clicks.
Remember Google has also started hiding about 28% of its search terms reports from the 1 September 2020. So you might not see all your search term data in the report.
Targeting for display ads
Now the best thing about Google ads search marketing is you can market to your prospect the exact time
Only market to people who can immediately afford your product. If you selling luxury cars there’s only a portion of the population who can afford those cars. So why spend your ad budgets on people who click you ads just to go window shopping. Always make your target market is reflected in your audiences. Ask yourself questions like
- Can they afford to purchase the product immediately
- Do they fall within this age range
- What recent life event would trigger this purchase
For example if your wedding photographer under the audience settings search for the wedding planning under the in market audiences. You ads will now only show to people who show a search history of actively planning weddings.
And the big one
A lot of people people who are new or just starting out with Google ads. See the maximum conversions setting in the bidding section. This can be a wonderful setting to use if you have good conversion data and you have a conversion tracking setup. However, the sad part is that most people don’t have a conversion tracking setup and don’t have that much conversion data.
If you have anything less than 7 conversions in the past month my advice would be not to use the maximize conversion settings on your campaign. The maximize conversion setting uses machine learning and previous conversion data to determine when a prospect is likely to convert and then increases your bid to get that click. So if you have limited data the machine learning doesn’t have much to go on so it bids high for no reason which ends up in you paying alot more per click.
If you would like to know more about bidding strategies here is a full guide
Consulting
If you need any help making sure you get the most out of your Google ads visit us on at www.neptunedesign.co.za so we can assist.
