Google is making a whopping revenue of more than $79.4 billion from its advertising program, Google AdWords. This figure certainly reveals that Google advertising is a billion dollar industry and is only growing stronger with revenues up sharply. In fact, it reflects the marketers and companies trust in Google ads power to connect with today’s audiences so as to scale up their businesses and turbo charge results.
So, it’s no surprise why people flock to Google AdWords ads to see if it works for them. But unfortunately, many of them often end up blowing marketing budgets out of the water and fail to achieve good conversion out of their Google ads. And if you’re also riding on the same boat, then this post is for you and you don’t need to stress anymore. Because, in this post, I am going to discuss few simple solutions for some common problems you might be facing with your Google AdWords ads.
And, of course, now I need to address these common problems at first to get things going…
1. Higher CTR but lower or no conversions
Is nobody converting on your Google ads? It’s possibly due to a combination of important factors like setting up conversion tracking incorrectly, ad extensions not tailored to each ad, not structuring the ad groups right, ineffective keyword match types, poor landing page selection, etc. So, these might be the trap your ads have fallen into. Thus pushing you to pay for clicks or higher click-through-rates that are not even converting.
2. Ads not showing on top search results
If you find yourself asking, “why aren’t your ads showing on top search results of Google?” it can be challenging to determine exactly what’s the cause of a problem. Since there can be so many reasons for the same. And that reasons or errors probably keeping you to miss out on a lot of potential traffic,
3. Irrelevant responses to your products & services
Your ads are getting irrelevant responses or impressions to your products or services. Of course, these irrelevant ad impressions are from those people who aren’t interested to buy your product or service. So, they can never be actually good for you.
First things first, if you are facing the similar issues, then either you are trying to run away from yourself or by an amateur agency that you’ve been using to run your AdWords campaigns.
Tips for Highly Converting Google Ads
Trust me! Getting started with AdWords is pretty easy, but generating qualified leads and sales without wasting your time and money is really hard. Yes, I know this very well, as I do it every day. But, I also know how to overcome these common problems, which is why my clients are happy. My clients apparently, understand that they are getting the value and results out of my work. And here’s how I do it and would also suggest you to follow them.
1. Optimizing AdWords Campaigns
If you’re spending money for those clicks, then you deserve to earn money back from them as well. This is why it is not wise to increase the budget just for the sake of getting higher clicks or impressions. These clicks cost you a lot and are of no use if not converting well. So, in this point, I’ll reveal some quick steps that you should follow to turn clicks on your Google ads into higher conversions. And hence, your ads will start to show to everyone of your potential prospects that can generate ready-to-buy leads for you.
Use the right keywords: It can be little challenging to choose the right group of keywords. The keywords that will drive relevant traffic and close your leads. So, always use a Keyword Planner Tool to review search data based on audience preferences. And then run different keyword match types to find what works best for your business.
Group keywords correctly: It is better to split your Google ads and keywords into themes. Because the more you break your keywords and ads into different ad groups, the less complicated it will be to monitor and optimize your ad campaigns. Try to follow the principle- lots of ad groups with few keywords. The good approach is to use less than 20 keywords in one ad group. So, if you don’t break up your keywords into different ad groups, you’ll lump everything together under one ad group.
Test ad copy variants: Don’t fall in love with one version of your copy. Choose your best 2-3 ad variations and then test them to find the one that is getting the highest conversion rate or lower cost per acquisition (CPA). Do not trust your creativity more than the numbers. Always, let the data guide you and then watch how it can lead to doubling your conversion rate and halving your CPA.
To get more information on specific optimization activities you can perform on your account I would suggest reading my old post on learn how to Increase Google AdWords conversion rate.
2. Tracking Metrics and Performance
It is important to track your conversion metrics and performance when you are running a business. This can eventually help you save money when you know what conversion rate will earn you profit. Here is a basic formula to calculate the profit or ROI on your Google ads campaign:
[(Revenue per click X margin)] X clicks – (CPC X clicks)/Total costDon’t forget to set up AdWords conversion tracking for calls, filled forms, E-commerce for purchases. Also, make sure to link your AdWords account with Google Analytics to compare your conversion data with other channels. Additionally, it is also vital to have a good knowledge of your competitor landscape if you want to stay one step ahead of them. So, I’ll suggest you to periodically run auction insights from Google to compare your performance with competitors. The auction insights report will help you make more informed decisions about budgeting and bidding. Hence, tracking is definitely one of my best practices that help me reach my specific goals.
Conversion metrics and performance is highly dependent on ad position, negative keywords, landing pages, and ad extensions. I would highly recommend taking note of these small but important things, which is why I’ve added them in next few points.
3. Targeting Right and Relevant
Ad extensions – Ad extensions should be relevant, related to your ad and must add value to the user journey. Like, if you don’t want to target the local audience, then you need not add your business address. Or else, it will negatively impact your ad conversions. Google offers various campaign ad extensions that include-
Review extensions – Reviews are one of the few key things that customers want to look at before purchasing something. So, these extensions if tailored, doesn’t only aid the user process but also provide social proof and increase conversions.
Sitelink extensions – You can take advantage of sitelink extensions to your products, services and price plans. Thus, providing your prospects a quick and easy way to find their specific interests.
Location extensions – It offers an option to dynamically attach the local address of your multiple outlets/offices in ads to increase regional uptake. You can even add a map to your location, or a distance to your business to help people find your business.
Call extensions – You can add call extensions to your ad. This will allow people to tap or click a button and call your business directly. Which gives more opportunities to you to target the right people who are willing to buy your product or service.
It is important to set them up manually if you don’t want to miss out on the most useful extensions.
You can activate this feature under the “Ad extensions” tab in AdWords. Once the feature is activated, you can follow the directions to set up each extension.
Landing pages that convert: Unfortunately, landing page experience is directly linked with non-converting ads. So, you should also focus on reviewing your Google ads and landing page together. A perfect alignment of look, feel, intent, keyword, value proposition and expectation should be present between your ad and landing page. Your landing page should reflect the target keywords and strong call-to-action to motivate your prospect to visit your site. It is considered as a great factor in improving quality score of your ads. And if it is low, you can only expect less traffic and more expansive conversions.
Use Negative Keywords: Negative keywords help prevent ads to show up on the searches that are not a good match for your product. So, it is good to add negative keywords to your ad group. It will can help lower your spending on clicks for keywords and increase your ROI. To put simply,
Negative keywords = Good quality score & position + lower cost + Higher revenues
When you target a keyword like “online programming courses,” the people searching for that keyword may be looking for some free course versus a paid one. Therefore, adding the word “free” to your negative keyword list will keep those people away who are probably not interested to join a paid course. This is vice-versa.
Dig into Google Analytics rather than Google AdWords to find detailed information about specific keyword searches.
So, this is how I manage Google ads campaigns and create a sound experience for users to from search to conversion and everything in between. If you need more help to set up high converting ads or to improve your Google AdWord campaign performance, you can reach me via email on my website.