Google Ads is the world’s largest and most widely used online advertising platform. It has helped millions of advertisers reach new customers and grow their businesses.
In spite of all this ease and accessibility, many new paid users find themselves disappointed with the results of their campaigns.
Why?
Because of the lack of correct optimization of their Google Ads account.
Google Ads account optimization is very easy. All it needs is a little planning and preparation, as well as following some well-established PPC practices.
Google Ads Account: Structure Optimization
The most important element of the account that needs optimization is its structure. Poorly structured accounts can lead to a number of problems like lower Quality scores and the higher costs incurred as a result, fewer or irrelevant clicks and much more.
The key to an optimally structured Google Account is organization. You will have to spend a little time on properly structuring the elements that make up your Google paid search account. That will put you in great shape to start reaching prospective customers with your ads.
An optimally structured account has the following four main elements:
- Campaigns
- Ad groups
- Ads
- Keywords
A single Google Ads account can have multiple campaigns active at any one time.
Say, your account has two campaigns, Campaign 1 and Campaign 2.
The first campaign might be a search campaign, which typically means text-based ads served to Google users who are searching for things using Google, whereas Campaign 2 could be a Display campaign, which favours more visual ads such as banners across a vast network of sites almost spanning the entire web.
You could structure your account more neatly by moving down to ad groups. Like Campaign 1 could have two ad groups, which you could label Ad Group 1a and Ad Group 1b, while Campaign 2 can have Ad Group 2a and Ad Group 2b.
As the names imply, these ad groups are groups of ads that have been organized and categorized by semantic relevance. This means that your ad groups’ keywords must be organized by their meaning. Each Ad Group has its own keywords, as well as two individual ads that feature the semantically related keywords of that ad group.
The following image will explain this structure:
What benefits does this kind of structure have?
This approach makes managing your account easier and ensures that your ads and their related ad groups are as relevant as possible. This means that your ads will be shown to the right people, at the right time and in the right place.
There are numerous other considerations to be taken into account besides account structure when it comes to the visibility of your ads, such as bidding strategies, keyword match type, and other targeting parameters, but structuring your account logically and semantically should be the first step in any Google ads optimization workflow.
Optimization towards Lower Costs
You can control your Google Ads cost in the a number of ways, such as:
- Negative Keywords
In spite of what the name might suggest, negative keywords are not words with negative connotations. Rather they are keywords which an advertiser may not want their ads to appear alongside in user searches.
For example, say you run a gardening supply store. You’re planning your first campaign, and it’s time to select which keywords you want to bid on. A common folly to make here would be thinking that any keyword with the phrase ‘garden’ is relevant.
What about an informational search for trivia about the 2004 romantic comedy movie, Garden State? Or searches for music by ‘90s pop band Savage Garden? Or a navigational search for the customer service department of Better Homes and Gardens magazine?
Quite logically, none of these searches would have the chance of converting customers for our garden supply store. So, such keywords should be excluded from your campaigns as negative keywords.
Since advertisers are charged a certain amount of money every time somebody clicks on an ad (hence the name “pay-per-click advertising”), it’s vital that advertisers exclude irrelevant search terms from their campaigns, or they’ll end up paying money for clicks that will never convert.
- Targeting Parameters
One of Google Ads’ greatest strengths is the depth with which advertisers can target prospective customers. However, as powerful as Google’s targeting options are, they require care and attention if your ads are to be seen by the right people.
Although Google Ads’ primary targeting option is keywords, there are many other parameters that advertisers can use in their campaigns:
How to Optimize Your Geolocation Settings
The first parameter is optimizing your geolocation settings. Google Ads allows advertisers to refine the areas in which their ads are shown. This doesn’t mean ads’ location or position on the search results, but rather where the prospective customers are in the real world at the time of conducting the searches.
Let us assume you run a business in Boston. The primary area of operation is the greater metropolitan Boston area, which encompasses other towns and cities beyond Boston’s city limits. Given the local focus of your business, you need to set your geolocation targeting parameters to ensure that only prospective customers located in or near Boston are shown your ads alongside relevant search results.
To do access your Campaign Settings. Go to Location & Languages and then open the Locations tab.
From here, you can specify the locations in which you want your ads to be served. You can target entire states or provinces, individual cities, specific zip and postal codes, and even certain individual airports.
You can also target specific locations via radius targeting. This allows you to specify that your ads be shown to users within a specified radius of a certain point i.e. within a 20-mile radius of a specific city.
Businesses operating in specific regional markets or individual cities must ensure their geolocation parameters are set correctly in order to maximize the impact of their campaigns.
How to Optimize Your Dayparting Settings
In addition to location parameters, you can also optimize the days and times during which your ads will be shown to prospective customers.
To check the views, clicks or click-through rate for any specific time, go to the Dimensions Tab at the campaign level. By navigating to View > Time > Day of the Week or any specific time, you will be able to see which days of the week are most active in terms of Clicks, Impressions, Click-through rate, Average cost-per-click, and Cost.
To change the dayparting settings, navigate to the Settings Tab in the Campaign view. Then select “Ad Schedule”. Now simply click the red “Ad Schedule” button, then choose the days of the week and times of day you wish your ads to be displayed.
Combining dayparting settings with geolocation targeting parameters can be an immensely powerful way to refine where and when your ads are shown to prospective customers.
Bid Optimization
Google’s bidding options are highly nuanced, allowing you to exercise a great deal of control over how and when you bid on the most valuable keywords for your business.
It is crucial to adjust your bidding settings carefully since your bidding strategy will have a direct impact on your ad budget is allocated and spent.
Bidding in Google Ads can be handled manually, but it can also be automated by using Google Ads scripts, which are small snippets of code typically written in JavaScript that perform specific tasks automatically, and conditional triggers i.e. bidding more on keywords targeting mobile traffic or certain kinds of mobile devices, bidding less on keywords during specific times, and dozens of other parameters.
As important as bid management is to any Google Ads optimization workflow, it’s important to note that utilizing the right bidding strategy isn’t just a way to ensure your ad budget is being spent wisely – it’s also important from a performance standpoint.
For example, let us say you have a locksmiths business and you want your ads to be shown to people searching for locksmiths after finding themselves locked out of their homes. This type of query has a very strong commercial intent, so you would want to prioritize targeting these prospective customers over others because these searches have a much higher chance of conversion.
You can adjust your bidding strategy by bidding more on keywords like “locksmiths near me” or “locksmiths near my location”. These keywords are potentially much more valuable than queries with less commercial intent, so it makes sense that we would bid more on these keywords.
You could also set higher bids for searches containing these keywords performed on a mobile device, as this also signifies strong commercial intent.
Optimizing Ad Text and Landing Pages
The final element of Google Ads optimization is among the most important: optimizing ad text and the ads’ accompanying landing pages.
Optimizing ad text can be challenging, particularly for large campaigns featuring dozens of ad groups. To complicate things, ads need to be optimized for both desktop and mobile campaigns, including which extensions should be used.
There are as many ways to write an effective text ad as there are businesses advertising on Google Ads. However, the best Google Ads all share several qualities.
The best text ads:
- Include a relevant keyword at least once, especially in the headline
- Effectively convey your business’ USP, or the reason why prospective customers should choose your business over a competitor
- Feature a compelling call-to-action (CTA) that tells the prospect what to do and what to expect when they click on your ad
- Feature-Driven Ads vs. Benefit-Driven Ads
Including the aforementioned elements in your ads is an excellent step in the right direction. But this alone isn’t enough. You have to focus on how you frame your ads.
You can frame your ads in primarily two ways: Feature-driven or Benefit-driven
Although feature-driven messaging has been effective in certain circumstances, generally benefit-driven ads tend to perform more strongly. This is because benefit-driven ads appeal to the consumers’ main desire: to solve a problem.
Such ads often use connecting language such as “us” and “we” to create and reinforce a relationship with the prospect. They use aspirational, evocative language so that the customer can visualise how much better off they could be by using those products and services.
- Using Active Language in Text Ads
Regardless of what way you position your ads in, the actual language you employ should create a dramatic impact on the performance of your campaigns. Using strong, active words will make your ads more compelling. If your ads are struggling to achieve results, you could try rewriting your old ads and checking their performance again.
We hope this article will help you increase the success of your ad campaigns and while Google Ads Account optimization can be a daunting task, it will be well worth it.