Making it in business requires courage, patience, and an instinct for jumping on the right opportunities. This includes having a well-executed pay-per-click (PPC) campaign that can help you increase brand awareness and conversions.
Running PPC ads can play a huge part in growing your business. It can get your name out there with highly targeted campaigns, provided that you have something worthwhile to offer, of course.
However, that isn’t all you’ll need. If you want to get positive ROI from your Google Ads campaign, get acquainted with these five Google Ads tips to make your work more effective and fruitful. But first…
Some Google Ads Basics
Google Ads has a very clear and logical hierarchical structure for your account, which contains your billing information, different ad campaigns with their own budgets, and specific settings for each campaign. Each campaign may also contain ad groups that are essentially groupings of related ads based on unique keywords.
This allows you to run several broad campaigns and keep track of smaller groups of ads.
For example, ads targeted for the keywords “women’s summer dresses,” “girl’s tops,” and “women’s fashion accessories” would be part of the same ad group for a women’s apparel website. These different keywords will enable you to target your audience in different ways or target different demographics.
When it comes to billing and where the ads will appear, you have several options:
- Getting more clicks – This is the standard PPC method where you pay for a certain amount of clicks per day based on the cost per click (CPC) of the specified keywords
- Getting more impressions – This option is only available for display ads. It is more about getting your company’s name and logo out there and spreading awareness. You pay for the number of times an ad is shown, but how many people have actually clicked on it is not a factor. You typically pay a specific amount for every 1000 impressions on websites since these ads won’t appear in search result pages (SERPs)
- Getting more conversions – A conversion is when a visitor engages in an action on your website (e.g. signing up for your newsletter or making a purchase), which means a visitor has been converted into a paying customer or a fan of your brand. You can decide on a budget by looking at the cost per acquisition (CPA). Although you still pay for each click, your ads will be set up to ensure that most of the visitors are converting. You’ll also need to have a conversion tracking tool set up.
It’s a good idea to get familiar with these terms and get better acquainted with proper tactics for effective Google Ads campaign management before diving into your first campaign.
5 Effective Google Ads Tips
1. Set an objective for each ad campaign
Think of the big picture first. What do you want to achieve after running your ad campaigns? Do you want to get more visitors to your website? Do you want to get more calls to your business? Once you are clear on what you want to get from PPC, you can determine the metrics of success and finally decide on your action plan.
A few important questions you should consider include the following:
- What are your marketing objectives?
- Who are you planning to target?
- Why are you running this campaign?
- How will you measure performance?
- What will you do if the results aren’t optimal?
2. Learn how potential customers search the web for what they need
Every ad group will consist of several ads, and each of these ads will have different keywords associated with them. These keywords need to be the same words or phrases that your potential customers are likely to use when typing in the search box.
Don’t just go for generic terms off the top of your head. Avoid broad keyword terms that might be too expensive to run. These general terms are typically not targeted to your market, so you can be wasting money on useless clicks.
Go for more specific, longtail keywords instead. You’ll need to do a bit of research to find out what your target market is searching for, how they phrase their queries, and so on.
The simplest way to do this is to put yourself in your customers’ shoes and do some online searches yourself. Understand your audience and the way they conduct online searches. This way, you’ll pick up on popular lingo and learn what keywords your audiences and competitors could be focusing on.
You can even start a small Google Ads campaign to get enough of a traffic boost that will allow you to run some tests and find out which keywords bring in the most traffic. An example of this is a simple A/B split test between two variations of a keyword. By identifying which keyword yields better results, you can avoid wasting money and enjoy better ROI.
3. Make a good sales pitch
A good sales pitch is concise and captivating. You need to state the most important benefit and tell your potential customers why you are their best choice among many others. What makes your offer so unique and valuable? What do you bring to the table that no one else does?
When creating an ad, keywords are not the only thing you should choose to target. You should also consider the format of the ad that fits how you would like to convey your sales pitch and ensure that it captures your target audience’s attention.
You have several formats to choose from, including:
- Text only – This is a standard ad with the keyword, link to your website, and a short description.
- Text with extension – This is the same as the basic text-only ad, only you get a short extension in the form of additional links and information, such as an address and contact number.
- Images – This type of ad will appear on websites across the web. However, it does not appear on SERPs. It’s a great way to draw attention and provide potential customers with visually stimulating information.
- Videos – With videos, you get to go into more detail and create a great sales pitch. Videos are the format many people prefer consuming since it is both visual and auditory.
- Product listings – This is an excellent choice for eCommerce websites as it allows you to showcase multiple products, complete with small images, short descriptions, and prices, leading people directly to the purchase page.
There should also be a clear call-to-action thrown in to inspire people to take the next step.
There isn’t a whole lot of space to work with, so you need to make every word count.
4. Set a realistic budget
For businesses, this should go without saying, but it’s a slippery slope when you become too eager and miscalculate. Know how much money you have to work with before making any decisions.
This is a matter of finding the balance between your current needs and the price you’ll pay. You don’t have to do and achieve everything right off the bat. Start off small at first until you’re certain which keywords work best. As your business grows, you can add more to your Google Ads campaign budget.
5. Measure and record everything
Always keep an eye on your analytics to see what works and what doesn’t. Your analytics have all the data you need to be able to measure whether or not your campaign is a success and identify what patterns occur.
Digest this information, find time to analyse it, and use it as a foundation for your next ad campaign.
Google Ads can be a great way to increase brand awareness and let more people know about you, boost your web traffic, and ultimately grow your business. But you need to make sure that you understand how your customers think, how you can stand out from the competition, and how you can leverage your analytics tools to see what works and what doesn’t.
Level Up Your Search Engine Marketing
Google Ads can help you execute highly targeted and cost-effective marketing campaigns on the web. Show up in front of your customers every time they search for you online, so make sure that you get familiar with and master these Google Ads tips.
Here at Digital Animals, we have Google Ads experts that can help you grow your brand the right way.
Let’s talk about your search engine marketing needs and what we can do to optimise your Google Ads campaigns.