Google Ads is the right platform to take your business to the targeted users, but it could prove to the mixed bag of clicks and conversions. There’s tremendous potential in the paid ads, especially at a local level, but AdWords provides overwhelming options of tools to make your ads work for your business.

Usually, businesses forget using Google Ads features after setting their ads. Also, Google is content with AdWords account owners running their ad campaigns with a few keywords and daily budget. But it doesn’t work for a long time. But most small and medium businesses operate in a very casual manner.

Google AdWords 2020: A complete guide for beginners

Google has Smart Campaigns (AdWords Express / Google Ads express) for those that are unable to understand the complexity involved with a regular Ads account. The advantage of Smart Campaigns (AdWords Express / Google Ads Express) is that it simplifies things by removing the elements that could create an unnecessary hassle.

If you want to do better in Google Ads, then you should look for ways to optimize your campaigns.

Here’re 10 proven tips for optimizing your AdWords campaigns.

1. Clicks VS Conversions

Google Ads is cost-per-click. It charges for clicks, but you should pay for conversions. It should be cost-per-conversion like a phone call, a contact form fill, or booking an appointment. If you study the conversion data, you will find that some of the targeted keywords are converting into leads, but others are only costing you money. But all the keywords are costing you the same price.

With this insight on keywords, you can remove the poor keywords and boost the performance of those that are converting clicks. There are two ways of counting conversions – Google Analytics and built-in conversion tracking feature of AdWords.

• Google Analytics tracks every visitor coming from AdWords and organic traffic. It’s good for tracking the full-flow of traffic to your site.

• AdWords conversion tracking considers the traffic coming from paid ads. It’s good for tracking conversions only.

You can choose any approach, but it would be better if you could have all your conversion data into Google Analytics and then import it to AdWords. It is easy and simple, and it would save you from working on additional tracking codes like AdWords tracking codes.

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2. Call Tracking

A phone call is a hot lead that filling a form. And it could be from your website or a paid advertisement. It could be a definite lead depending on your industry, but most local businesses have little idea on how many calls they’re getting from their online efforts.

Google Ads allows call tracking in two ways:

Third-Party Call Tracking

Using a third-party call tracking service is easy to use and affordable to set up. It tracks calls from all sources into paid ads, and finally, the call data can be transported in the Analytics. If calls make a significant number of your leads, then you should track the calls in Analytics and import the data in Google Ads for clarity.

Google Ads call-forwarding feature

Google Ads has a call-forwarding feature you can insert in your campaigns. It is easy to install, but it works only for Ads calls. But it is better than having nothing. You’ll get the call data available in Google Ads.

Google Ads call forwarding works well with Call Extensions that receive calls from the extensions in the SERPs. These are the calls you won’t track with your website Analytics.

3. Ad Extensions

Using ad extensions like Sitelink Extensions, Call Extensions, Location Extensions, and Review Extensions is useful because they capture more SERP space to create more productive advertisements by adding extra elements to engage searchers. Adding extensions is easy, and it costs nothing in monetary terms.

4. Campaign Type

Search Network gives better results than Display Network that is more useful for running awareness campaigns. But Search Network is a better choice for primary campaigns. If your objective is to generating more leads then you should try keeping your eyes before the targeted audience. Search Network will prove to be more effective than displaying your ads on the sites loosely related to your business.

If you want, you can use both Search and Display networks by separating the ads into both the networks. Dividing the campaigns would help in tracking and measuring performance of individual campaigns.

5. Granular Location Training

You provide service in a specific area hence want your ads to show up in the targeted area or the locations surrounding the targeted area. But when you want to target more granular areas, you should see which areas are doing good and try adjusting bids in favor of high performers.

6. Optimized Landing Pages

Most businesses have their landing pages pointing towards their homes but sadly their home pages are more like mixed bags than specific. Its good to receive your visitors on your home page, if it features awesome content and large call to action buttons.

A tailor-made landing page that is more specific to the ad is suitable for landing visitors. The home page of your site would have mixed information about the products and services available on your site. Having a dedicated landing page would have a positive impact on the Quality Score and conversion rate.

Your ad is about roof repair but your homepage is about general construction service. Since you are a contractor, you have a site offering general building work. If you direct the visitors that require roof service towards the homepage with content regarding general service, it would affect your Quality Score. The visitors would check roof service on the homepage and click back on finding little information.

Having a landing page with relevant content and visible call to action tabs would boost the Quality Score of your ad and its performance. The visitors won’t need digging deeper to find information after landing on a dedicated page.

7. Keywords Match Type

Broad Match Type is the default setting that directs every campaign towards a wide array of keywords matching with the business to be promoted. It could be devastating especially for small companies that work with limited budget. But it can do magic for a business when used with negative keywords.

Google Ads keywords match typs 

• Broad
• Broad + Modified
• Phrase
• Exact
• Negative

The best type match can be decided after studying individual campaigns but Broad Search could be quite beneficial in achieving success in paid marketing. For example, if you check different match types of your business, you will find that there are many search queries on which you won’t want to spend your budget. You need to stick to as close as possible to Exact Match.

But you shouldn’t stop at Broad Search and move on the negative keywords to make suitable combination to avoid.

8. Negative Keywords

AdWords would ask you to notify the keywords you don’t want your ad to show to. You could start with a couple of negative keywords but you can add more keywords to your negative list. And you should maintain a comprehensive list of negative keywords to run your AdWords campaigns. While getting the right traffic isn’t in your control but you can at least stop draining your budget.

9. Click to Call only for Mobile Customers

If phone calls are the leads you are looking for then you can try mobile only click to call. The ad would display your phone number and prompt the viewer to dial the number instead of visiting your website. Visitors would find your phone number in their mobiles instead of downloading your website link.

10. Remarketing

There’s no reason for turning down the request of remarketing to stay connected with potential customers that have visited your site. In Remarketing, your ads would be shown on Display Network to users that have already visiting your site.

Advantages of Remarketing

• Users familiar with your website and offers form the best group for remarketing. They are more likely to convert than the first-time visitors.

• Google Ads Display Network is everywhere – YouTube, The Guardian, The Forbes, eBay, CNN and so on. And displaying your ads on these platforms would boost your success rate.

• In Remarketing, you would target only a small group of audience that would keep your ad budget low.

• Remarketing would remind the potential users about your business and if the users have visited your site in the past and compared your offers with others then the remarketing ads can do magic for you.

Finally, you should keep an eagle eye on your Google Ads campaigns and tweak the budget according to the performance of ad groups.

Conclusion

Small and medium businesses especially startups make big mistakes while setting their AdWords campaigns. And they wakeup only after draining lots of money on the clicks that don’t convert. Google Ads provide total control in your hands, if you are capable enough to understand how to optimize your ads for better performance.

The above-mentioned 10 points could help in steering your Ads campaigns clear of obstacles. You need to focus on conversions and take advantage of call tracking feature on your ads. Develop landing pages for every advertisement and select right match keywords to highlight your ads. With negative keywords you can strengthen position of your ads. Finally, you can start remarketing to remain before the eyes of potential customers.

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