Google ads are extremely effective ways to generate leads and sales. With a wide range of features, customization, and targeting options, there are a plethora of reasons to choose Google ads. However, the factors that led to the success of these ads are the very reason why it can hinder your ROI.
The default recommendation that Google suggests to set up a campaign, can be a significant mistake. These are the features that you should avoid. There is a basic conflict of interest. The agenda of your business is to generate sales while the agenda of Google is to generate clicks.
Sometimes the useful features are so well-hidden that you miss them out. Once you learn to identify these mistakes, you will be closer to your final goal – to drive more traffic to your site and boost your marketing efforts.
Mistake 1: Going all in – too fast
There is an existing misconception among the majority of marketers or businesses that they need to go big or go home. It is not true at all. Don’t fall into the trap of this mindset. If you try to go big without a proper strategy to fall-back, chances are, you will end up blowing your budget.
Google ads can be unpredictable sometimes. Advertisers need to run split tests to evaluate what should be the strategies, audience targeting, and keywords that work best. Understand the specific circumstances where it works.
If you go all-in right from the beginning, it will not offer you enough room to experiment to know what works. Thus, you won’t get the chance to optimize your campaigns.
Even if you get okay-ish results, you will miss out on a lot of opportunities on keywords, copy, and bidding strategies, to enhance conversion rates and increase return on ad spend.
Mistake 2: Not following your competitors’ campaigns
It is a great idea to create campaigns, set up reasonable bids, and get results from our ads. But that is not how Google Ads work. The results we drive are directly affected by the actions of our competitors. Google Ads work on an auction system.
This is exactly why we need to follow the campaigns of our competitors as well. Research on the market. Look around what are your bidding ranges and what are the bidding ranges of your competitors. Check what they say about the keywords in their ads, it will help.
Mistake 3: Not looking at the bigger picture
Don’t succumb to the initial benefits of immediate results. A short-sighted view makes you lose sight of the bigger picture. This can happen in two ways:
- Accessing the lead-value accurately
- Attribution
Lead-Value: While creating the ads, a lot of marketers/advertisers think that they can afford to spend a certain amount (for instance, $2.00) and still profit from a minimum sale. But you need to consider the fact that a lot of users will click but not convert.
Also, customers who purchase once will purchase from you multiple times. You need to assess the estimated lifetime value of customers that come from Google Ads. Thus, adjust your bids accordingly because conversion rates can be on the lower side.
Attribution: You have to consider the attribution. Suppose someone clicks on your ads and you pay for that click and sometimes they don’t convert right away.
If the attribution in Google Ads is focused on a broader look instead of a last-click attribution model, you will find someone discovered your business by clicking your ad and then came back through a blog post several weeks later and converted.
Think about the bigger picture here. A lot of customers need to interact with multiple touchpoints before they convert. Consider such an attribution model that will take those points into account.
You can use a linear or time decay model that will offer a complete picture. To change the attribution model, look for “tools” in the Google Ads dashboard and then “search attribution”. You shall see the option to choose the attribution model.
Mistake 4: Getting too involved in your brand
Do not be too involved in the brand. Choosing keywords is a tricky option. Our initial impulse tells us to bid on the keywords that will get us to rank in a position that will get the clicks. This is a major mistake that people make while creating the first campaign.
Niched-down keywords are the way to go because they make sure you are creating relevant and targeted messages with keywords that are aligned to the search intent. For instance, if someone is searching for SEO services, and see that an agency has advertised on PPC services, they will not be interested.
The agency does offer SEO services. Since they didn’t properly advertise it, the customer assumed it was not a good fit. The smaller your keyword group is, the easier it is to create ad copy that matches the search intent and the requirements of the user.
It is easy to send users a relevant landing page. All of these together mean a better quality score, higher ad rank, and percentage of the impression share.
Mistake 5: Ignoring what comes next
This is where most of the advertisers and marketers get stuck in a bubble. It is important to make sure that the Google Ad campaign is strong if you want to get ranked well, get clicks, and increase conversion.
But when they click, they are redirected to somewhere else. If the rest of the funnel is not strong enough, then the results will not be either.
This is why a lot of people see tons of clicks on the ads, but there are no conversions. So they think it is a waste of money. If you are also experiencing something of that sort, you will need to tweak the targeting of your landing page.
The landing page needs to be perfect. It should address the search intent and give the necessary information to the users to take the next step.
Mistake 6: Thinking that all the campaigns are equal
While planning out your campaigns, there will be certain campaigns that you want to prioritize more than other campaigns. For instance, you might think that remarketing a campaign will be profitable because you are targeting high-value audience members. There will be some campaigns that are worth more than others.
Someone who is searching for “cheap kickboxing classes” might not be a high-value individual as someone who is searching for “one to one kickboxing training”. The latter is willing to pay a premium price and get long-term lessons.
Google Ads has massive potential in digital marketing. Since it is a platform that requires a strategic financial investment, you have to make sure that you are optimizing your campaigns correctly from top to bottom.
