Google AdWords is an invaluable long-term lead generation channel for many businesses and it’s also continually evolving. Each new feature and tracking tool is designed to provide you with greater insights and control, so it’s vital to keep up with the latest changes to maximise your return on investment.
Whether you’re running your own campaigns, or simply want to become better acquainted with your setup, take a look through our top five steps to getting the most out of your AdWords account.
We can’t stress this enough – connecting your Google Analytics to your Google AdWords account is essential in monitoring the true performance of your ads. The magic works both ways; Not only will your AdWords account show what converts on your website, but all the traffic sent from a paid click will also be tagged with keywords, ad groups and individual ad data on your Analytics dashboard so you can track how your pay-per-click visitors are behaving once they arrive on your site.
Your advertising is only as good as the results it really earns. By tracking your PPC conversions you can get to understand what works and what doesn’t. Conversions can include anything from website purchases to phone enquiries, newsletter sign-ups or app downloads. When set up correctly AdWords provides a veritable treasure trove of conversion rate analytics, which will enable you to increase the quality and quantity of ads that bring you the best return on investment.
Split-testing is a fast and easy way of improving the appeal and performance of your AdWords campaigns, and everyone should be using it. Within every ad group, you’ll want to set up two ads which feature different ad copy but lead to the same landing page.
Generally the highest click-through rate will be your winner, but ultimately keep your eye on the conversion rate of each ad as this will tell you which is bringing in the most revenue. Once you know, pause or delete the poorer performing copy, create a new copy based on your findings, and rinse and repeat at least monthly. Try focusing on different pain points for your audience to learn what receives the best response – for example, a personal trainer might create two ads addressing the perceived lack of time for workouts as well as the intimidation factor of big gyms.
Google AdWords now provides a number of ad extensions for your campaigns aimed at providing clearer information and calls to action for your potential customers. There are five automated extensions and six manual extensions which you can create and edit yourself. The best strategies for your business might include showing your location alongside your ads, adding a call button to make it easy to get in touch, or adding call-outs that highlight your free shipping or long open hours. You’ll want to keep an eye on your extension performance and focus on the options that work best for you over time. Ad extensions cost nothing to add to your campaign until someone interacts with the relevant button or link. Visit http://goo.gl/Y0vbwu to explore the options.
Adding negative keywords to your AdWords campaigns will help to minimise wasted clicks and impressions, and maximise your exposure to the right audience. For example, our personal trainer looking for clients wouldn’t want to show their ad to people searching for ‘personal trainer salaries’ or ‘personal trainer courses’.
Keep in mind that you’ll need to add plurals and even misspellings of any keywords you want to exclude, so it’s a good idea to start building your negative keyword list and adding to this in response to your statistics. Click here for a tutorial to get started within your account.
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