Google Ads is one of the most widely used advertising platforms for millions of advertisers. Businesses rely on Google ads to promote their products or services and help them grow. Google AdWords can help you reach your potential customers, who are looking for the type of products you sell. Setting up your Google ads campaign is an easy first step, once the ads are active you will need to maintain and monitor them.
Many advertisers do not get the results they desire after publishing their ads. The reason for that is because their ads need optimization. If your ads are not properly optimized, then there will be little to no progress. Optimization can increase your ad visibility and ranking, which can get you more clicks and impressions. Google ads optimization can seem difficult but paying attention to small details can make significant improvements to your campaigns. In this article, we will discuss which areas you can focus on to make it easier for you to start optimizing your ads. You can apply these techniques to your existing ads or use them to build new ones.
Here are some of the areas you need to focus on for your google ads campaign optimization.
Keywords
Keywords are words or phrases that match your ads with the terms that people are searching for. This is one of the areas that you can focus on optimizing. When you create your campaign, you can start by using a small list of keywords. Later you can monitor how these keywords are performing. Keywords always need to be changed as their popularity keeps changing. You should bid on keywords that your audience is searching for. You can make changes in the keyword list or add new keywords. This will make sure that your keywords are updated and refined.
The keywords you pick should be relevant to your ad groups and landing pages. This will improve the Quality Score and lower the Cost Per Click of the keywords. If the keywords don’t match with the landing pages or ads, it will have poor quality and low conversions. Your audience should find your ads relevant to their search queries.
Match Types
Another good practice is to use different keyword match types. This can give you more control over how closely the keywords can match the search terms so that your ads can show up. Don’t just use broad match keywords but include exact match and phrase match. Exact match keywords can only match searches that are similar to your exact keyword with close variations. The Phrase match will match close variants of the Exact match and can include additional words. These match types are more targeted compared to the default broad match keywords.
Use Negative Keywords
These match types also include negative keywords in your campaigns. Negative keywords are keywords you don’t want your ads to show up for. This can help you improve the quality of your traffic and only bring in relevant searches. For example, if your business is selling a certain software for businesses and it does not include any free trials, you can add “free” to your negative keyword list. This way your ad won’t show up for any searches that include the word “free”. Advertisers use negative keywords to save costs on irrelevant searches and make their campaigns more targeted.
Planning to launch your own Google Ads campaign? Here is Everything You Need To Know About Google Ads Campaign.
Ad Extensions
Ad extensions are additional information that expands your ad and gets more people to click on your ads over other competitors. These extensions have the potential to increase your ads click-through rate. These extensions can include call buttons, location, discounts or promotional offers, specific pages on your website, and more. Google Ads picks which extensions to show that is relevant to the individual search on Google. Hence, it is important to use extensions that align with your business goals. Extensions can help you maximize the performance of your text ads.
With extensions you add more content to your ad which gives your ads more visibility and a better position on the search results page. It can give your audience additional information as well as make it easier for them to locate or reach you. Some extensions are added automatically by Google Ads and you can also add some manually. Google Ads will only show extensions if they can help you improve your performance.
Location Targeting
Location targeting enables you to choose target locations in which you want to reach out to your customers. It targets users who are searching from these particular areas. You can specify which location you want your ads to be shown. Depending on your campaign types you can choose your location as an entire country or narrow it down to cuties, territories and also use radius targeting for specific areas.
You can also exclude certain locations in your campaigns if you do not want your ads to show up in those areas. Location targeting can help you focus only on those areas where you can find your target customers. This can help you increase your profits.
Bidding
Google Ads has several bidding options that can give you more control when you bid on your keywords. Bidding strategy affects your ad budget and ranking; hence it is important to choose your bidding strategy wisely. In AdWords, you can set your bidding strategy manually or you can also choose automated bidding. In automatic bidding, Google Ads can automatically help you manage your cost per click. On the other hand, if you want more control over your budget you can use manual bidding. With manual bidding, you can make adjustments to your bid amounts for keywords.
Bid adjustments enable you to show your ads more or less frequently depending on where, when, and how users search. If certain keywords are performing better, you can increase your bid on them. You can make adjustments to your bid amount based on location, hours of the day, days of the week, age and gender, etc. For example, if you learn that your campaigns are performing better on mobile devices then you will increase your bid amount for searches on mobile devices. There are multiple options you can choose from based on the requirements of your campaigns. Use bid adjustments to optimize your campaigns by focusing on more successful areas.
Ad texts
Your ad text invites your potential customers to click on your ad. The ad text should be impactful and relevant to the keywords you have set in your ad groups. It should deliver the right message and include a strong CTA or Call to Action, that will encourage the users to click on it. If your title and description include the benefit your customers will get when they invest in your product or service. Capitalizing the first letter of every word in your title can help increase your click-through rate. Keep the message in your text concise, informative, and relevant.
As discussed above include ad extensions to enhance your ad. Take advantage of seasons or holidays to put various deals, discounts, and offers in the extensions to entice customers. One of the most important aspects in an ad is the landing page. The landing page is the final destination page where your customer will be taken to after they click on the add. This the page that they will convert on. Include the right landing page in your ad text. Ensure that the landing page is relevant to the keywords and provides the customer with what they are looking for. Your landing page must include the right keywords, or it will lower the Quality Score of your ads.
To run a successful ad campaign, you must monitor your ads. Once you start monitoring, you will come across all the areas that you can improve. Optimizing all the areas we discussed above can help you improve the quality of your ads and drive more conversions. Keep these areas in mind if you are setting up a new campaign. Ensure that you constantly make the required changes in your ads to keep it updated.
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