Okay, so here is you are. You started a business, Google reached out to you and said to advertise with them; they even promised to help you set up the campaign. So, what do you do?
Well, I have some good and bad news for you! First, the good. Google is a great place to advertise! These ads are by far the leading place for your digital advertising platform. These will help grow your business and make you money. Now, the bad. Google reps won’t really do a lot for you when it comes to building out your campaign. So… They may help you do an initial build but are these of high quality? The answer usually is, no. So, let’s go in and look at the biggest mistakes you can make with an AdWords campaign.
Ad Groups Need Groups
Alright, so, this may seem obvious, but I can’t tell you how many campaigns I have gone into and have seen 1 ad group. For example, I have gone into many medical practice campaigns and they have one ad group entitled something like, “New Patients”. Okay, now, if this is you what most likely happened is the Google rep said something like, what is your goal? And you told them to get new patients. Wham! There is the Ad Group.
The key with Ad Groups is to build them around the topic or focal point of the campaign. So, if I were you I would go through in my head what types of pages they are going to land on and build them off that. For example, as a dermatologist, if I wanted to push for more mole removals, eczema, acne and tattoo removal. I would build 4 ad groups to get those types of new patients. This is a more targeted approach and will help your ads perform better.
Using the Proper Match for Keywords
So, the next thing the rep is going to ask you is what services or keywords that you want to target. So, let’s use the example of dermatology again. So, you use the above list again (mole removals, eczema, acne and tattoo removal). The rep then says that we should make some keywords that involve “near me” and stuff. So, then they go into the campaign and add the following keywords:
Mole removal
Mole removal near me
Removing a mole
Eczema
Eczema help
Eczema help near me
Acne help
Acne
Acne near me
Tattoo removal
Tattoo removal near me
After setting this portion up, you will be so excited because you think that this professional just set your account up perfectly. Once your ads start up and go live, you will start to see a lot of traffic going to your site, but your conversions will be extremely low. If you go and check the search terms you will see that multiple different terms that you have zero interest in are coming through like “do it yourself tattoo removal, fake zits prank, dry skin lotions amazon, free mole removal, beauty marks on celebrities”. Then you start to question what is going on.
So, how do you help with this? You use match types for keywords. Here are the types you can use:
Broad Match
Broad Match Modified
Phrase Match
Exact Match
The types of keywords listed above are broad match. This is the widest range of keyword matching. Thus, anything that Google thinks is relevant to your keywords, your ads show up. This is a massive waste of money. Broad match modified is very similar but you ad a modifier to the keyword. So, for example, you can change the keyword acne help to +acne +help. This makes the keyword show up only when acne and help are in the search term. As an example, you could come up for, I need help with my acne. Phrase match is when only the phrase is within the search term. You can use for the keyword mole removal to “mole removal”. This makes it, so your ads only show up when those keywords line up directly within the search term. Here is an example of this keyword coming up, mole removal on my face. Exact match is written with brackets and it is one hundred percent only supposed to come exactly as you write it. Then you can use the keyword of tattoo removal near me to [tattoo removal near me].
To get your traffic to be better, you need to utilize these different types of keyword matches. This is essential for your campaign and is one that most of the accounts we audit do not utilize.
Negative Keywords are a Must
Okay, now let’s go back up to the search terms utilized above (do it yourself tattoo removal, fake zits prank, dry skin lotions amazon, free mole removal, beauty marks on celebrities). You don’t want to show up for any of those. How do you make your ads not show up for any of those searches? You can add these search terms to the negative keywords list.
I cannot tell you how many clients I have investigated their ads and see that they have zero negative keywords. This is a massive waste of money. If you are wanting to keep wasting money, then disregard this whole section.
Numbers Don’t Lie
Sometimes we fall into the issue of getting in our own way. For example, you may really love this ad that you wrote out. You feel like it is creatively the best work that you have ever done. This can really flounder your production if the numbers show that this ad is the underperforming ad. You cannot continue to run the ad that is underperforming. If you keep feeding the items that are underperforming, you will continue to waste spend.
Trust me, it sounds ridiculous, but this happens all the time. This is the issue with getting in the way. But, hey, you can do it and if you are struggling still, give us a call or fill out the form below and we can help you get the best bang for your buck.
