Achieve a higher level of performance with these Google Ads do's and dont's.
Are you starting out on Google Ads or want to optimise your existing campaigns?
We’ve created a great list of tips that can help you maximise revenue and reduce wasted ad spend.
To ensure your campaigns are performing well, there are a number of different metrics that you’ll need to consider when planning and measuring your campaigns.
The basic ones, such as clicks, impressions and click-through rates, are essential, but there are other metrics you need to be looking at.
In this blog, we breakdown the additional metrics to watch - these include:
- Conversions
- Keywords
- Ads
- Time
We also reveal the do’s and don’ts for each.
CONVERSIONS
The conversions metric offers a clear indication of how well campaigns are performing and provides solid granular insights.
This metric can be used to measure a wide range of Google ad products, from Search Ads to Shopping and Performance Max campaigns.
Do
Create conversions with valuable actions.
If you have an e-commerce site, then tracking transactions is essential. Other conversion metrics that aren't transaction based but still offer great value for businesses are ones like phone link clicks, form submissions, and email link clicks. Gathering this data early on will support a campaign's long-term success.
Don’t
Measure irrelevant conversions.
Page views might be great to evaluate website performance, but a user viewing a contact page and doing absolutely nothing might not mean anything to a campaign and its performance.
KEYWORDS
We understand that businesses want to be found from as many relevant keywords as possible at any given time.
The reality is very few businesses have an unlimited marketing budget to achieve this, so it is not always a realistic strategy.
If you give your campaigns a bit of time, you can easily see that some keywords perform better than others.
Do
Routinely check on keywords and their performance.
Get rid of keywords that don’t bring in conversions. If you’re adding keywords (through search term reports or Google recommendations), keep an eye on them and give them time to perform. If they don’t, send them to the bin.
Don’t
Horde keywords.
Holding on to underperforming keywords on campaigns in the hopes that they might convert later is a waste of time and money. Stagnant keywords will be eating the budget without producing any results.
ADS
Ads are a representation of your business on a Google Search, so you want to make sure they look the part.
Using old ad formats like expanded text ads won’t cut it (as of July 2022, you don’t even have the ability to make changes to these ads).
Give your ads the best possible chance to perform with the help of machine learning via Responsive Search Ads (RSAs).
Do
Get creative with the headlines and descriptions.
- There are multiple opportunities to add them
- Use keywords from respective ad groups
- Add different calls to action
- Add more information in the description fields
- Aim to get your ad strength to ‘Excellent’ (or at least ‘Good’) and monitor the results.
Make sure you check your headlines and descriptions periodically, as they may need to be updated for performance.
Don’t
Wait to update your existing ads or not update the ads to the new RSA format.
Do it now.
RSAs give you the opportunity to add multiple headlines and descriptions to a single ad. Google’s Machine Learning then rotates these inputs and serves an ad with the winning combination.
Over time, we have found that RSAs perform better than traditional expanded text ads and have better click-through rates and higher conversions.
TIME
Give new and mature campaigns as much time as they need.
As anxious as we may be for campaigns to perform, it’s also important to wait and collect data so that you can identify trends and adjust campaigns accordingly.
Time was a huge contributing factor in the success of the Sproutwell Greenhouses and Decor Campaigns.
Do
Give the data time to grow.
Once you have created a new campaign or made major changes to an existing campaign, give it time to grow. This will help you accurately identify and evaluate trends instead of outliers.
You don’t need to stick to a daily or weekly time frame. Use Google’s date range to compare months of data to give you a clearer picture of what’s working and what isn’t, and then make changes accordingly.
Don’t
Be tempted to make changes too soon.
Don’t jump in and make changes as soon as a campaign is live or constantly chop and change elements of your campaign if it’s not having the desired effect.
ATTRACT. CONVERT. RETAIN.
Performance Marketing is a foundational digital marketing tactic that can drive growth for your business. Our approach is suitable for young brands who are ready to take the next step in scaling performance and established brands with a market reputation who want growth and haven't found it from current strategies.
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