You are new to Google Ads and have created your first set of campaigns; from beginning to end.
Now comes plenty of emotions; feelings of accomplishment, anxiety, nervousness, and to some extent fear. Fear of not achieving your goals, spending money efficiently, reaching the right audience, etc., all tied to a fundamental fear that you made mistakes in your campaign setup.
If it turns out that you made some mistakes, it means that you are just like the other 7.53 billion people on earth… you are human!
Everyone wants to be the best version of themselves and we try our best to avoid mistakes, especially when it comes to Google ad campaigns.
From beginners and all the way to management, I have seen “rookie mistakes”.
Fortunately, many of these mistakes are easy to fix and can be the foundation of successful campaigns. In this article, I’ll share seven of the most common Google Ads mistakes, along with how you can avoid them.
1. 100% broad match keywords
Here’s how it starts, you perform your in-depth keyword analysis and feel that you have the perfect amount of relevant, high-volume keywords that drive not only clicks but ultimately conversions.
The campaign runs for a week and you see the expected high volume of impressions, but you also notice an inconsistent cost per click (CPC) and click-through rate (CTR). Also, conversions are few and far between.
So what is going on?
You decide to perform a search term report review and notice that you’re picking up everything between heaven and earth that is mildly related to your keywords. The answer is that all keywords are set to broad match.
Keyword match types are a fundamental factor for an effective campaign. If you do not manually change the match type, they will be set to broad match.
Broad match allows your ads to appear on a wide range and variations of your keywords; synonyms, possible misspellings, plural and singular forms, related searches and other variations.
Although this is the default match type, this match type can cause your ad to appear on very loosely related queries. It puts the focus on quantity rather than quality.
There are a few cases where a broad match can be beneficial, but mostly you want to make sure your keywords are in exact match, phrase match, or modified broad match.
The more specific the keywords are from the start, the cheaper your CPC will be (due to increased relevance between ads and keywords) and the higher your CTR can be, ultimately leading to higher conversion rates.
2. Not using extensions
Most beginners are aware of the sitelinks that allow people to click through to specific pages on your site.
It is usually the most widespread and noticed extension, simply because it has the potential to take up the most space.
There are quite a few ad plugins available to use.
In short, ad extensions are features that allow extra business information to appear in your ad and make specific actions easier to complete.
This information can be a phone number, an address, a store rating, or even more website links (for example the above sitelink extension) Below are some benefits of implementing popular extensions:
Sitelink extensions
This add-on is a link placed below your ad, with which you can direct users to different places on your site. Measure clicks to specific pages on your website, so you can learn more about your customers’ preferences.
Callout extensions
Are descriptive and short sentences under your ad. Perfect for USPs and specific offers to users (eg free shipping or 24/7 support).
Call extension (call extension)
With this extension, your phone number appears next to your ad and allows users to call your business directly from the ad.
Promotion extensions
Lets you highlight your current campaigns and sales.
Review extensions (seller ratings extensions)
This is an automated add-on that displays a company’s rating, as long as the aggregate rating is 3.5 or higher.
Having the right combination of relevant ad extensions can improve CTR, have lower average CPC and improve ad rank. My advice is to create a template for all possible extensions and use the ones that are relevant to your campaign.
As you can see, extensions are very beneficial for your ads and despite the visual and technical benefits of extensions, they are also an intricate factor in your ad rank (Ad rank).
3. To use only one ad variant for each ad group
It’s easy to believe that you have an ad that will crush the competition and outperform Google’s Ad Rank algorithm.
Your ad can have all the keywords for the ad group beautifully interwoven with the most compelling message. But the reality is that in marketing, testing is the key to success.
By creating several ad variants, you increase the chances of “getting it right.”
I’ve found it best practice to produce three ad variations per ad group:
- General (e.g. Visit our car dealership)
- Product category – specific (eg see our full range of luxury SUVs)
- Product specific (eg our Volvo XC 90 is in stock)
Once you’ve created three ad variations, let them run for about four weeks, and after enough data has been collected, review the ads and determine which ones performed best.
By doing this you will be able to;
- Remove the low-performing ad variants.
- Build on the high-performing variations by creating new variations with subtle changes (you always want three ads and create a routine that ensures you repeat this process).
Once these high-performing ads are determined, you should build other variations similar to them with minimal changes and run them for a predetermined amount of time, or until the performance begins to decline. Then repeat the process.
Remember that testing does not have an end date. Ad fatigue is a real phenomenon that newbies are usually unaware of.
This brings me to the fourth rookie mistake…
4. Set and forget
It can be so easy and tempting to think that all the time and effort you put into your ad will be enough to get a successful ROI.
There are many newbies who think that all it takes is checking off a Google Ads list or guide and then they can sit back and let the keywords, ads and bids do their magic.
This is wrong.
Now is the time to really show off your skills. This is where analytics and optimizations take over.
Now I’m sure you’re thinking – automation, automation, automation – and you’re right.
Automation allows, to some extent, the flexibility to set things and forget. But that doesn’t mean you should skip optimizing.
Especially at the beginning of a campaign, you should make it a habit to check your account for red flags such as:
- Keywords with abnormally high CPC
- Keywords with low CTR
- Irrelevant search queries in the search terms report
The earlier you catch these “red flags”, the faster you can make your campaigns work effectively.
5. Not using negative keywords
It’s easy to forget about negative keywords until they start costing you money for irrelevant search queries.
Negative keywords are keywords and phrases that you don’t want to trigger your ad.
For example, if you use “insurance” as a negative keyword, you are telling Google not to trigger your ad for any search query that contains the word “insurance”.
If you advertise for cars, your ad will be shown to someone searching for used cars, but it won’t be triggered if someone searches for car insurance.
Choosing keywords is relatively easy.
The part that is easy to forget, is to actively add negative keywords that stop irrelevant search queries that lead to unqualified leads. This is where the search terms report provides additional insights to help you succeed with your Google Ads campaigns PPC.
Again, by adding negative keywords, as in the example above, you will use your budget more efficiently and eliminate unqualified leads.
Being proactive can often help you avoid some of these rookie mistakes
All of these mistakes are easy to make, while also being easy to learn from. I have many antalya escort bayan times.
Use my advice as guidelines to improve your ad performance and be proactive to avoid these common mistakes.
There will always be some sort of caveat to every “best practice.” Ultimately, you have to determine what works for each particular situation and that can be done with testing, testing, testing.
Contact us if you want help with Google Ads
