We can have different objectives: generate interest in our company (branding), sell products (ecommerce), generate leads (contacts), lead potential clients to a specific campaign with a specific offer, etc.
It is essential to have a good account structure organised into campaigns, ad groups, ads and keywords. Having a well-designed account will allow us to:
- 1.See which adverts generate more traffic and conversions.
- 2.Improve the relevance of the ads.
- 3.Better control costs and budget.
- 4.Make campaign changes more easily.
How should I organise my Google Ads campaigns?
- Organise campaigns by theme: a well-designed Google Ads campaign is made up of thematic ad groups that focus on offering a single product or service.
- Create campaigns individually for each product or service line (depending on what you do).
- Each ad group should contain specific keywords and ads that relate directly to the product in the campaign. This increases the relevance of the ads considerably.
Campaigns with very specific ad groups tend to have a higher CTR:
- Avoid duplicating keywords in different ad groups.
- Make sure that keyword lists are excluded between the different ad groups, as this will allow us to control which ads are triggered by which keywords.
- Target your ads to the right locations and languages. Periodically check which placements are more profitable and which are less profitable. This way, you can focus on the most profitable placements.
If something is not working: modify, pause or remove it. It is important that you focus and concentrate your efforts on what is bringing you real benefit, so it is essential that you analyse, analyse and re-analyse.
Optimising effective keywords in a Google Ads campaign
The first thing we must do is identify which keywords are deteriorating our profitability:
- Keywords with a low CTR.
- Keywords with a very high cost and a low return.
- Keywords that generate few impressions and have a low level of quality.
What do we do with these keywords? We can directly eliminate the ones that we have no doubt are not good for achieving our objectives, and the rest we can move them to another ad group where they are more relevant, to see if their performance improves. Another option is to create a new ad group and reduce the CPC of each of them. In this way, we can see that at a certain CPC it can be interesting to keep them.
Now, we will identify the best performing keywords:
- We will make sure that our bid is adequate.
- That they appear in positions that tend to convert.
- That they are in a relevant and specific ad group.
- That the budget is sufficient to appear throughout the day, or at least in the highest converting time slots.
If a particular keyword performs well, add variants of that keyword. For example, and to continue with the example from the previous post:
If we have a keyword that is Garden Lamp, we can add the variants:
- Solar Garden Lamp.
- Garden lamp offer.
- Small garden lamp.
- Large garden lamp.
Use the tools that Google Ads puts at your disposal
Use the keyword suggestion tool, which is available in the Google Ads tools section. It can help you find variations for the same or related terms.
It is also very important to take into account the match type of each keyword. This can determine whether your ad is published or not. Check the match types in the post where I explain how to create a Google Ads campaign.
Optimising ad copy for your Google Ads campaign
It is important to test and experiment with different ad copy strategies until you find the one that works best for your campaign objective:
To increase traffic and CTR
- Include product descriptions.
- Include tangible benefits and offers of tangible value.
Match your chosen keywords as closely as possible to the ad copy to ensure relevancy, so it is advisable that the ad copy contains keywords.
Optimise the ad for branding
- Try various ad formats.
- Also use graphical ads for insertion in the Google Display Network. Graphical ads attract more attention and can make users more familiar with your brand.
- Identify and act. This is the way to get success in your campaigns.
- Identify the ads that are performing well and try creating another similar ad with a slight variation on the previous one, with a different message, or another landing page to see if it gets better results. Don’t settle, you can always achieve a little bit more…
- Identify poorly performing ads and consider removing or editing them to increase their performance.
Google Ads Ad Rotation
Go to the Settings section and under Advanced settings, we have the possibility to choose the way the ads are going to be published: ad rotation.
In this case, it is recommended that when creating a new ad group, we initially select the option to rotate equally, in this way, we will be giving the same opportunity to publish all the ads.
After a reasonable period of time, for example 30 days, analyse the results from the point of view of CTR and conversion. In this way, we can eliminate the ads that have performed worst, introduce variants of those that have worked best and mark the option in settings to optimise for more conversions, if the objective is sales, or optimise for more clicks, if the objective is to generate traffic to the site.
Another technique that helps to increase the relevance of the ad to the user is the introduction of keywords in the title of the ad. There is a function to enter the term that the user has entered in our ad dynamically.
If, for example, we put in the title of our ad: {keyword: garden lamps}. And we have a keyword associated with the ad: garden lamps in Madrid. And the user has entered in the Google search box: garden lamps in Madrid. The user will see the ad with the title: “garden lamps in Madrid”. That is, the code of the function {keyword: default text} will be replaced by the keyword that activated the ad.
In order to try to make our ads more interactive and get users to click on them, we must follow the following best practices:
- Define phrases that call for action.
- Make sure the ads lead to a landing page specific to the topic of the ad.
- Ensure that the ad text sets out the user’s expectations. Ambiguous or generalist ads may get a lot of clicks, but actually have a very poor conversion rate. It is much better to be more direct. In this way, we will avoid being clicked on by users who are not really interested in the product or service.
And remember, this is a matter of practice, experience and never losing sight of your goal. As long as you are clear about what you want, you will be clear about what you need to change or eliminate so that your ROI is satisfactory and so that you can have a successful campaign.
