7 Google Ads Mistakes That Could Be Hurting Your Campaign

I love Google Ads. In my opinion, it’s one of the best investments a small business can make because it can generate tons of leads that convert into sales. But, it’s also very easy to lose money if you mismanage your Google Ads account. Google Ads mistakes can be costly but are often easy to fix. Here are 7 of the most common Google Ads mistakes I see when working with small businesses.

 

 

Mistake #1: Using The Wrong Settings Setting up your campaign correctly is the key to success and if you’re using the wrong settings, you’re guaranteed to end up wasting money. For example, when setting up your keyword settings you can waste a lot of money on irrelevant clicks if you choose Broad match keywords instead of Exact or Phrase match. Choosing the right settings is easy if you know what to look for. Click here for more tips on choosing the right settings for your Google Ads campaign correctly.   Mistake #2: Using The Wrong Definition of Success In order to be successful, you must understand how to measure success with Google Ads. I’ve spoken to more than a few business owners about Google Ads, and when I asked how their campaigns were going they said “Great!” But when I asked, “How do you know?“ They say, “I’m getting a lot of clicks.” This is critical – clicks are the WRONG definition of success. Clicks do NOT equal customers! If you’re getting lots of clicks but no leads or sales, you’re losing money hand over fist. The only one profiting from that situation is Google. Instead of aiming for clicks, your goal is to attract new paying customers… and to earn a healthy return on investment (ROI) from your advertising. It’s very important to understand this difference when considering whether your campaign is performing successfully.   Mistake #3: NOT Tracking Understanding the definition of success is important, but unless you’re tracking the results of your advertising you’ll never know if your ads are profitable. Most likely, you’re losing money every month by not updating the campaigns that aren’t working. From what I’ve heard when speaking with small business owners, the vast majority of people are making this mistake and are NOT tracking the results of their advertising. The shame of it is, proper tracking isn’t hard. Click here for some tips to get you started. Make sure to always track your advertising. Even if your ads are generating an ROI, you should still be tracking so you can improve your ROI.   Mistake #4: Not Analyzing the Right Reports Once you set up tracking, it’s important to generate the correct reports. When you first log into Google Ads, you’ll see a list of all of your campaigns. It’s almost impossible to tell what’s wrong with a campaign by looking at these aggregate reports. You need to dig deeper and generate reports on individual keywords (for search) and placements (for display). But, running keyword and placement level reports, still won’t give you the entire picture because there are a LOT of factors at play. Segmenting your reports even further will give you more exact results. For example, your performance may vary across Google and the Search Partner network. In addition to segmenting by network, look at performance by time of day, the day of the week, geography, and device. You’ll likely find that performance varies by all of those segments and by reviewing them you’ll find ideas to improve your campaign.   Want to know the 3 other Google Ads mistakes? Click here to read the rest of the blog article

 

 

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