Google AdWords advertising allows you to show your ads to people who are most likely to be interested in your products or services, while filtering out those who are not.
You can track how many people your ad was shown, how many of those people clicked on your ad, and more by integrating your account with Google Analytics. By measuring your ads, you will quickly see where to spend your budget and increase your return on investment.
AdWords is most commonly based on a cost-per-click system, where the cost-per-click is the minimum amount required to outperform a competing advertiser. Using a very simple example, if a competing advertiser’s budget per click is $ 1 and yours is $ 5, you will only pay $ 1.01 for that click.
When you start using AdWords, it can be a bit overwhelming. Google AdWords itself is huge and every slip can ruin your budget. I know quite a few people who have gotten burned from trying AdWords without really understanding it.
To help you get started, I have created some helpful tips that I have learned over the years.
Starting
Create your Google AdWords account
Google has put together a 7-step start-up guide to creating an account that covers the basics, such as creating a login, setting up billing information, and a daily budget.
Resist the urge to activate your ads yet
Google’s goal at this point is to encourage you to maximize the amount you are spending on advertising. This is the first cheat for beginners. You will enter a few keywords, Google will suggest many more keywords that are mostly useful, but the next thing you know, you have spent $ 150 in one day with no sales or leads.
Research your keywords
Thorough keyword research is very important to the success of your AdWords advertising; If you target the wrong keywords, you can be almost certain that your advertising will not be profitable. Start with your website to create a list of relevant keywords, look for the main words that describe what you do, your products and your services. Align the structure of your AdWords account with your website.
Use the Google keyword tool
Once you have your keyword list, you can use the Google Keyword Tool to find related words and phrases for a comprehensive list of potential keywords. People can use different words or phrases when searching for your products or services.
The tool will then show you the average search volume per keyword (there is no point bidding on keywords that no one searches for) and the average cost per click so that you better understand the required budget and what you can afford.
In my experience, the lowest cost per click I’ve seen is around $ 0.80c and the highest was $ 16. So choose wisely. Choose general and specific keywords and group similar keywords into ad groups (target 5-20 keywords per ad group).
Choose keyword match types
This is another trap for beginners. Google’s default setting is “broad match,” which allows you to reach the most people, but provides the least control over when your ads are shown.
For example, if I were a personal trainer and offered “personal training” to attract new clients through broad match, my ad would show to people who are also searching for “personal training courses”, “personal training certification” and “personal training. “. salary. ‘Clearly, none of these people are looking to hire a personal trainer. Either I would get a lot of irrelevant clicks wasting my budget, or no clicks, which is so bad because Google will punish me with a low quality score and I will have to pay more.
Basically, the higher your Quality Score (on a scale of 1 to 10), the less you have to pay per click. Relevance is the key. New keywords will be assigned a quality score within a day or so.
Keyword match type options
Broad match – The broadest possible search that includes a number of keywords that may not be relevant to your business, for example “Women’s hats” may match searches for “Buy women’s hat.”
Phrase match: A more specific option that will match people searching for the keywords you have specified, for example “women’s hats” can match searches for “buy women’s hats.”
Exact match – The most targeted option that will match people searching for your keyword, exactly as you typed it, for example ‘Women’s Hats’ can only match searches for ‘Women’s Hats’.
Negative match: Using negative keywords can greatly reduce wasted clicks by excluding keywords that are not related to your business, for example, if you sell reading glasses and use “glasses” as your keyword, your ad will be will show people searching for “wine glasses” too. ‘, adding’ wine ‘as a negative keyword would eliminate this problem.
Campaign types
It is important to understand the differences because they work very differently.
Search Network only: Target your ads to people who are actively searching for your products or services. This is recommended for beginners.
Only on the Display Network: Target your ads to people browsing websites that contain content related in some way to your products or services. From my experience, this is effective for short-term campaigns for specific promotions, for example an online pet store ad with free shipping for the next 7 days may appear alongside an article on managing puppy aggression.
Search and Display Networks: It’s a combination of the two, I personally prefer to keep campaigns separate for more effective performance monitoring.
Shopping – A must if you sell products online and requires the creation of a Google merchant account and some setup to create a product feed. This allows your products to appear visually with text search results.
Writing your ads
Explain why a potential customer should buy your products or use your service instead of a competitor. Include your keyword to attract attention. The character limit is strict, but do your best to differentiate yourself from other ads.
Google has strict advertising guidelines to ensure that the ads are of good quality, but I have seen unreliable grammar. “I will provide you with the best advice” will dissuade people who know the difference between advice and advice.
A call to action is also important for potential customers to understand what action you want them to take and to filter out people who are not ready to take the desired action, for example buy now, call today, request a quote, get more information, browse now.
The page you link to on your website is also important, create a custom page if necessary to match your ad. If your ad is promoting a 20% discount on toasters, make sure your ad targets the category of toasters with a banner that highlights the 20% discount. Make it easy for people to do the action you promised in your ad.
Link to Google Analytics for conversion tracking
Access to analytics is essential for managing AdWords efficiently; Without it, there is no way to know if you are achieving your goals, or which campaigns, ad groups, and keywords are successful and which are not. When you create a Google Analytics account, you will need to add a small tracking code to your website and then you can link the accounts.
Conversion tracking provides important data related to what a person does after clicking on your ad. Do they buy, send an inquiry, download your app? This information helps you determine your success.
AdWords is not a “set and forget” platform and should be carefully monitored and managed, especially when it starts.
I generally recommend running AdWords for at least 2 months and committing to doing a weekly follow-up to determine if it’s right for your business. You need time to give yourself the best chance of success.
Where to learn more
I can’t cover everything about AdWords. I spent 3 weeks studying around my job full time for the Google AdWords Fundamentals, Google Search, and Google Display certification exams to make sure my knowledge is up to date.
I recommend that you read at least the Google AdWords Basics Study Guide to understand more about your account structuring, bidding strategies, Quality Score, and geographic targeting.
Once you’ve triggered your ads, I recommend checking progress every day for the first week to understand how fast your budget is being spent and what is the bounce rate for your keywords. A high bounce rate generally indicates that your web page is not relevant to search, try adjusting the keyword, match type, or just pause.