Google Ads: 5 Common Mistakes To Avoid
August 2, 2023 - Cassidy
August 2, 2023 - Cassidy
Advertising through Google Ads is one of the most effective and powerful ways to reach a target audience and drive both traffic and sales to a business. Google Ads is an online advertising platform created by Google where advertisers can place bids and budgets to place advertisements, videos, services offered, and more to users on the web. Even for experienced Google Ads users, the platform can be very complex. It’s easy to make a mistake, but starting to recognize common mistakes to avoid can make a huge difference in an account’s success. By avoiding some of the following pitfalls, return on investment will increase and account conversions, clicks, and impressions can improve.
In every Google Ads account, Google will provide recommendations to help improve campaigns and account optimization scores. Some of these recommendations include bid strategy adjustments, keyword suggestions, and more. Even though some of these recommendations may be helpful for the account, blindly auto-applying every single one can severely damage the campaign and its’ performance.
It’s important to consider the value that each recommendation might have based on the campaign’s specific goals and target audience. If they do not align with the overall marketing strategy, it’s best to dismiss the recommendations and reevaluate them if they repopulate.
Conversion tracking is a huge portion of the success of any Google Ads campaign. Without proper tracking, it can be difficult to gauge the success of ads or make data-driven decisions. Conversion tracking can measure things like purchases, form submissions, phone calls and more.
The information from conversion tracking is invaluable for determining how to allocate budgets, strategize, and optimize ad copy as well as other aspects of ad groups and individual ads.
Negative keywords often get overlooked in Google Ads campaigns. Negative keywords are keywords used in searches that marketers do not want ads to appear for because they are not relevant to the business and are likely to attract irrelevant audiences. By neglecting negative keyword lists, ad spend can get wasted and ad quality scores can drop to irrelevance.
It’s important to regularly go through individual ad groups’ search terms reports and add negative keywords from it to refine ad relevance. This can also help boost overall campaign performance.
Ad extensions are pieces of information that can be implemented at the campaign level, ad group level, and account level. They provide more information about the business that may not be included in ad copy. Some ad extensions include site links, callouts, structured snippets, call extensions, and image extensions.
Not using ad extensions can result in limited ad visibility which severely limits the chance of attracting customers. Ad extensions boost ad performance by providing more information regarding a business’s services and other vital information. It’s important to look through the full list of ad extension options and determine which ones are relevant to a business in order to increase clicks and conversions.
Location targeting is one of the most powerful tools you can use within a Google Ads campaign. Location targeting is a feature that allows a business to set a specific geographic area for where it wants its ads to appear. Additionally, location targeting can be used to exclude locations you do not want your ads to appear.
By not setting up location targeting, ads will show to users outside of the target audience. This can result in wasted clicks and impressions. Setting up location targeting will help ensure that ads are shown to users who are the most likely to convert when they view the ads. This will also help improve the effectiveness of campaigns.
By avoiding some of these common Google Ads mistakes, campaign performance can be improved, money can be saved on ad spend, and advertising goals set within the account can be achieved.
Evaluate recommendations, implement conversion tracking, set up negative keyword lists, make use of ad extensions, and set location targeting to optimize an entire account.
At Solution Agency, our team of digital marketers have years of experience and expertise when it comes to Google Ads optimization. We strive to help our clients avoid common Google Ads mistakes and maximize the potential return on investment for their campaigns. Whether you are brand new to Google Ads or just need assistance with an existing Google Ads account, the Solution Agency team can help.
Don’t let these common Google Ads mistakes hold back your success. Contact Solution Agency today to get in touch with our digital marketing team and discover our advertising services.
