You’re Not a Google AdWords Expert

Google AdWords is a powerful tool for driving current and new customers to your website. However, AdWords can quickly become expensive and incredibly ineffective if not handled correctly.

It is important to have a properly managed AdWords campaign in order to see a return on your investment. We are a Premier Google AdWords Certified Partner at Big Marlin Group. We believe this partnership gives us the ability to show our clients the positives and negatives of utilizing AdWords in your marketing strategy.

Here are a six of the most common mistakes we see:

Inaccurate Landing Pages

Sending traffic to an inaccurate landing page is like eating a cheeseburger and fries on your way to the gym. You are sabotaging your own efforts, forcing yourself to spend and work harder to see a return on your investment. If your landing page is your website home page, but the ad is promoting a sale on certain items then there will be some issues in terms of conversion rate. It’s not enough to simply make sure your ads reflect your most current discounts, incentives or programs; you must also send visitors to the most appropriate pages of your website. A poorly performing landing page impacts your Google Ad Ranking.

Not Grouping Keywords Correctly

An ad group should be a concise collection of keywords matched up with a couple ads that are targeted and focused around those keywords. For instance, say you own a boutique clothing company that sells dresses, shoes and jewelry. When setting up an AdWords campaign, you’ll want three different ad groups with your keywords aligning with each specific ad group. That way when a customer searches for shoes, they won’t get ads promoting a sale for jewelry. Even though this may seem self-explanatory, you would be surprised how many marketers and business owners make this mistake.

Not Using the Right Keyword Matches

AdWords allows you to add keywords to a campaign three ways (broad match, phrase match or exact match) and this can help you control which searches trigger your ads. In general, the broader the keyword matching option, the more traffic potential that keyword has. However, if you are seeing a lot of impression on a certain ad but very few conversions, it may time to try a new ad with narrower keyword matching option. As a result, you’ll be able to compare which one is creating more conversions for your business!

For instance, if you have an ad promoting a sale for running shoes, but have the general keyword ‘shoes’ then anyone who searches the term or a phrase with ‘shoes’ could potentially see your ad. However, if you used the phrase match keyword option then those with the search terms that include ‘running shoes’ will show up. If a customer searched ‘running shoes for sale’ then your ad would still have the possibility to be seen. Using the right keyword match is a great way to optimize your ads so they show for the right customers.

Not Knowing Who You Are Competing Against

One of the most common mistakes for companies is not knowing or understanding their competitor’s strategies, from a strategic level as well as a marketing level. If you create an ad that focuses on the same thing all of your competitors are promoting, because of the auction style bidding, your ad may never show or your costs may increase significantly.

Let’s use an example! Creating an ad promoting ‘AC repairs’ in Arizona, will likely be very expensive if it’s not promoted correctly. There are strategies that we can use to drive the cost down while maximizing your conversion rates. Understanding what your customers are looking for and being able to create an ad to solve their problems is crucial. From a strategic level, researching your competitor’s ads to know what they are promoting and where their landing pages take you will be helpful in creating your ad.

Not Using Negative Keywords

Using negative keywords can provide a significant benefit to your AdWords campaign if you aren’t see the results you want. This allows you to maximize effectiveness of your ad for it to focus on those customers you are targeting. One of the best ways to find out which negative keywords to use is by examining actual user query data based on how people search. You can find this in the Search Terms Report and Keyword Planner as well as in Google Analytics. Be careful not to add negative keywords that are part of a long-tail keyword you want to target.

Not Utilizing Conversion Tracking

Knowing how to create effective campaigns is the first step in being successful in AdWords. However, you then have to be able to optimize them and that requires understanding performance data. If you are managing an AdWords account, make sure you activated the AdWords Conversion Tracking and Google Analytics. These tracking systems let you see where your traffic comes from and how it tends to convert on various pages on your website. Be warned! If you set this up incorrectly, you may be misled about the performance of your ads and keywords.

We know this is complicated, which is why our entire digital team is a Premier Google Partner and certified in Google AdWords and Google Analytics. Setting up your Google AdWords campaigns, ad groups, and conversion tracking can prove to be challenging. Let us handle your digital campaigns while you get back to business. Contact us today!