1. Are you
targeting buying-intent keywords?
One of the biggest
mistakes with Google advertising is targeting research-intent keywords.
When prospects are doing research, then they aren’t ready to make a
purchase so the vast majority of your ad budget will be wasted when you
target research-intent keywords.
Instead, focus on
buying-intent keywords where you know the prospect is searching in
Google in order to make a purchase.
2. Are your
keywords grouped into Ad Groups of similar phrases?
The purpose of
organizing your keywords into Ad Groups is not to make your campaign
look neat and tidy. Keyword organization actually plays a critical role
in a Google Ads campaign because every keyword in a particular Ad Group
will use the same ad copy. That means if you have many different
keywords in the same Ad Group, then your ad copy will not make sense
for all of them (unless of course, you draft a boring, generic ad, but
you know that’s not going to work).
3. Are your
keywords Broad Match, Phrase, or Exact?
By default, Google Ads
will set your keywords to broad match. That means your ads will be
displayed on any keyword Google considers relevant to your keyword. Did
you know that? You would assume if you add the keyword “leather
journal” that your ads would only display when someone searches
“leather journal.” But that’s not the case unless you use the Exact
match type!
Phrase match keywords
allow Google Ads to display your ads for any search that includes your
keyword phrase. Clearly, it’s important to review your match types to
make sure you’re ads are displaying on the right keywords.
4. Are there any
negative keywords?
Unless every keyword is
using Exact match type, you’ll need to add negative keywords. Negative
keywords specify words or phrases that you do not want to target with
your ads. For example, if you add “free” as a negative keyword, then
your ads would not display for searches that include the word “free.”
5. Are your ads
100% relevant for all the keywords in the Ad Group?
This is marketing 101 —
match your message to the market. If your prospect is searching for a
“leather journal,” then your ads should focus on your leather journal
products. As mentioned in question #2, your keyword organization plays
an important role in whether or not your ads will all be 100% relevant.
First, organize your ads into Ad Groups of similar phrases and then
you’ll be able to draft ads that closely match your keywords.
6. Is the core
keyword used in your ad copy?
This should be fairly
obvious after the previous question, but it’s worth clarifying. Review
your ads and make sure the core keyword phrase that you’re targeting in
the Ad Group is in at least one of your ads. This will help your
relevance score, which leads to a higher Quality Score, and it tends to
also increase your ad click-through rates.
7. Do your ads
include a compelling offer and call to action?
Search in Google for
your target keywords to see what your competitors are offering. Then
put yourself in your prospect’s shoes and honestly consider which ad
you would click on based purely on the ad copy. Would you really click
on your ad or would you click on one of the other more compelling
offers? If you struggle with that question then chances are good your
prospects are not going to find your ads compelling either.
8. Are all
appropriate ad extensions set up?
This one is easy.
Simply check to see if all of the following ad extensions are set up:
- Location
- Call
- Sitelink
- Callout
- Structured
Snippet
In some cases, one of
the above will not make sense for your business, but whenever possible
set them all up. Ad extensions tend to increase your click-through
rate, which leads to higher Quality Scores, which leads to a better ad
position for less cost.
9. Is your
landing page 100% relevant for the keywords and ads?
First of all, are you
advertising to your homepage? If yes, then create a dedicated landing
page ASAP. Even if it’s a duplicate of your homepage, it’s important to
have a dedicated landing page because you need the freedom to make
edits to improve conversion rates. Plus, your homepage is rarely the
most relevant page for all of your keywords.
10. Does the
offer on the landing page match the offer in the ads?
Often when I review an
ad campaign, I’ll notice one of two things:
- The
offer promised in the ad is nowhere to be found on the landing
page
- The
offer on the landing page does not match the offer promised in the
ad
Both cases will hurt
sales conversions, but they are easy to fix.
11. Do you have
separate Search vs. Display campaigns?
This is another easy
one to answer. Check to see if any of your campaigns are targeting both
the Search and the Display network. If you’re not sure about the
difference between these two networks, then click here to learn more.
Each network behaves quite differently and requires a separate campaign
to properly optimize your ads.
12. Are you
targeting mobile traffic with a mobile landing page?
We all know more and
more prospects are turning to mobile to surf around, and even buy
online. That’s why Google by default will enable all of your ads to
target mobile devices.
The problem is that
many businesses do not have mobile-friendly websites. That means you
may be spending precious ad dollars to send prospects to a website that
is nearly unusable on a mobile device! To prevent this, make sure you
turn off mobile targeting until you have mobile-friendly landing pages.
13. Is all the
appropriate conversion tracking set up?
Finally, this list
would not be complete if we didn’t touch on conversion tracking. Even
the best set up campaign will need ongoing tweaks to keep the ads
running smoothly and profitably. That means you must set up conversion
tracking. Without tracking there is simply no way to optimize your ad campaign
because you’ll be flying blind. Here’s the list of all the conversion
tracking you should set up:
- Webform
conversion tracking to measure how many forms are submitted on
your website as a result of your ads
- Website
call conversion tracking to measure how many phone calls are
generated from your website as a result of your ads
- Ad
call conversion tracking to measure how many phone calls are
generated from the number displayed on your ads
- GCLID
conversion tracking to measure offline sales (phone calls or
in-person sales) generated as a result of your ads
Congratulations! By
making it this far you now know how to ensure your Google Ads campaign
is set up properly. The next step is to take action and fix any issues
that may have been highlighted by walking through the 13 questions
above.
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