If you find yourself looking for help with Google ads, you’re not alone. Google has been constantly upgrading its advertising platform. Most of the updates have been for the better. But it’s not getting any easier if you are a small business. You most likely self-manage your ad campaigns. Meanwhile, you also have to focus on your core business. To top it off, some of Google ads new features have a steep learning curve.
This is what usually happens in such situations. Businesses end up trying to juggle one task too many. In the process, they cannot focus on their core competencies. To make things worse, their Google ads campaigns are half-baked. This increases their ad-spend. But conversions are meagre. They keep draining their limited ad budget. We’ve seen this unfold a million times already.
Help With Google Ads – Top 8 Tips!
Here’s an eye-opener. 72% of marketers on the Internet are using Google ads. That’s because the reach is unparalleled. But so is the competition. If you are looking to run a laser-targeted campaign, you cannot afford to make mistakes. That’s why we have curated this list. These are 8 tips that will help with Google ads in 2024.
#1 – Design a campaign on paper
Never build an ad-hoc Google ads campaign. Instead, design the campaign on paper. What are your different ad groups? Which keywords will you target for each ad group? Have you planned separate campaigns for search and display networks? What about remarketing ads? Are you using exclusions? Do you know what Google ads extensions to use? What about negative keywords? We will touch on most of these individually.
But before you begin, jot it all down. Make a flowchart on paper. Visualising a campaign helps you avoid common mistakes. Besides, you are less likely to miss out on a crucial component. You will need less help with Google ads if you structure the campaign beforehand. An added benefit is that you can curtail unnecessary ad spend.
#2 – Understand different Keyword match types
You need to know about the different keyword match types like the back of your hand. If you do not know this, then you have no reason to be running google ads campaigns yourself. Keyword matches are crucial. They can increase conversions. At the same time, they can help reduce your ad spend. Most businesses are aware of ‘exact match’ & ‘phrase match’. But do you know that there are modifiers too?
The ‘+’ modifier is very effective. At Rockstar Marketing, we use it frequently with ‘broad match’ keywords. This makes the keywords more effective by preventing wastage. If you do not know how to use modifiers in your ads, seek help with Google ads campaigns from a skilled PPC agency in Birmingham.
#3 – Weed out spammy apps for help with Google ads
Google display campaigns can sometimes show up on spammy mobile apps. We hate these for two reasons. They rarely convert. And they eat up into your advertising budget. It’s extremely easy to prevent this though.
Just go to ‘Google Ads Manager’. Login to your account. Open the campaign. Now, look for “Keywords and Targeting”. Under this, select “App Categories & Negative”. Once you do this, right-click and then click “New”. Now select “All Apps” and click “Ok”. That’s it.
Your ads will no longer show on mobile apps. We don’t recommend this if your ad placements in apps are converting.
#4 – Tweak the Default settings
Google has some great automation features that you can use. That said, we never like giving too much control to Google. It’s like asking the fox to guard the chicken coop. A case in point is some of the default settings on Google ads. One of the first things we do for our clients is checking all the default settings. Then we tweak them as necessary. Here are a few of them that can help with Google ads.
- Check the location targeting setting. The default for new campaigns is set to ‘In, regularly in, or show interest in your targeted locations.’ This can quickly eat into your budget. Let us explain how. Let’s say that you have a plumbing service in Putney, London. An Australian in Perth has been watching a lot of YouTube videos on the London suburbs. There’s a possibility that he can see your ad. Just out of curiosity, he may click on it too. Will he avail your service? Not likely. Change this setting to ‘People in, or regularly in your target locations.’
- Check the default setting in your remarketing display campaigns. This is usually set to ‘Targeting Expansion’. It is a setting that allows Google to create a similar audience to your remarketing list. In theory, that sounds great. But alas, it rarely works. At Rockstar Marketing, we have found that this setting severely skews ad spends.
These are just two of the default settings that you need to tweak. There are more such pesky defaults that can work against your goals.
#5 – Use user profiles for help with Google ads targeting
Facebook was the first ad platform to incorporate user data into ad targeting. But Google has quickly caught on. This is a terrific addition to an already effective toolkit. You can use it to target ads by user profiles.
What are user profiles? Google can provide you with tonnes of actionable data. There’s information that the user declares. The time and location of their internet presence. Data can also be acquired from their previous search queries. All of this will help create user profiles.
You can segregate your most converting audience into a specific user profile. Similarly, find the audience that’s eating into your ad spend. Adjust bids accordingly.
#6 – Understand how bidding works
We have met so many businesses who do not even understand how bidding works. What are the different bidding strategies? How can you use them to minimise ad spend? Here’s a brief explanation. There are two bidding strategies. Manual bidding allows you to set your max bids. Automated bidding allows Google to use historical data and machine learning to bid for you.
Manual bidding does not sound fancy. We agree. But at least you have control over your ad spend. That’s why we use this for all our clients. We use manual CPC and start with low bids. This allows us to keep a tight leash on the ad budget. At the same time, we monitor results closely. When we have more data about the clicks and conversions, we shift strategies. Depending on the results, we may choose Maximise Conversions or Clicks or Target CPA.
We don’t intend to demonise the automated bidding strategies mind you. Our team has used Target ROAS for our e-commerce clients with great results. We also use Target CPA for one of our affiliate marketing clients. Machine learning is incredibly effective at noticing patterns. Google can automatically raise bids at times when your ads are likely to convert. But if you are looking for help with Google ads, get started with manual CPC. It’s a no-brainer.
#7 – Use the hour of the day report for help with Google ads
Do you know the time of the day when your ad clicks are most likely to convert? As we mentioned above, Google automatically adjusts the bids at this time if you select automated bidding. But you can also do this manually. Check the ‘Hour of the day’ report.
This report shows you when your ads are receiving the most clicks. You can narrow this down to the exact minute. Assuming that you are tracking conversions, correlate the two data sets. This shows you the average time of the day when most of the clicks are converting into sales. You can then schedule your ads to show up at these times. For example, some campaigns convert well on weekends, post office hours. Others may convert well during office hours. You can schedule ads to run during those precise hours. This prevents you from exhausting your ad budget on clicks that are less effective.
As always, this requires careful monitoring and tiny tweaks. Best carried out by a skilled PPC marketing team who can help with Google ads.
#8 – Use Auction Insights to stay ahead of the competition
In case you’re unaware, every Google ad is an auction. You bid for a top spot on Google search for a specific keyword set. The auction insight report is terribly underrated. This is a critical tool that shows you how your ads and bids are performing against your competition. There are six key data points.
- The Impression share your ads received
- The Overlap rate – How often a competitor’s ad got an impression in the same auction
- Position above rate – How often your competitor’s ad shows above yours
- Top of page rate – How often your ad showed at the top of the page ad slot
- Absolute top of page – How often your ad got the #1 position
- Outranking rate – How many times your ad outranked a competitor’s ad
We use auction insights to keep track of our competition. At the same time, it shows us how effective our bidding strategy is. Sometimes we need to increase our daily budget to outrank a competitor. At other times, we just get an insight into what ad copy works best.
Speak to a Skilled PPC Marketing team for help with Google ads
Google ads is an effective marketing tool. It works phenomenally well for diverse industries. But it’s crucial that you understand the many tools it offers and how to use them. Speak to our PPC marketing team now to understand how we can craft the perfect ad campaign for you.
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