Conserving Your Ads Budget
Google ads can be a great tool to drive traffic and awareness for your brand. However it is important to ensure that your ads aren’t just appearing in front of people but appearing in front of potential customers. We have laid out 5 key ways advertisers can make sure they aren’t wasting budget on impressions and clicks that aren’t valuable.
Limit Broad Match Keywords
Managing keywords effectively in Google Ads is crucial for maximizing your advertising budget and driving relevant traffic to your campaigns. Keywords play a pivotal role in determining when and where your ads will appear on the search engine results page.
While broad match keywords might seem like a quick way to capture a wide range of search queries, they can also lead to wastage of your budget if not managed carefully. Google tends to really push broad match keywords. If you haven’t noticed already, changing your keywords to broad match will likely come up repeatedly as a Google Ads recommendation. It’s okay to reject this recommendation because, while this can expand your reach, it can also bring in clicks from users who aren’t truly interested in your offerings.
Right off the bat some may be drawn to the broad match keywords because they tend to have a lower Cost Per Click (CPC). Clicks are great and clicks with a low cost are great, but if you are paying for clicks that are bouncing then the click has no value.
We recommend using Broad match keywords sparingly. For instance Using broad match keywords at the start of a campaign can be a valuable strategy to gain insights into the diverse array of search terms that potential customers are using to discover your business. However if you think you have a good handle on what potential customers are searching for, then jumping straight to exact match and phrase match keywords is the way to go!
Use Negative Keywords and Negative Keyword Lists
When managing a google ads campaign one of the most crucial things you can do to make sure you aren’t wasting money is to regularly review search term reports to identify new negative keyword opportunities. By analyzing the actual search terms that trigger your ads, you can spot terms that are consistently leading to irrelevant clicks or impressions. These terms can then be added to your negative keyword list, further refining your campaign’s targeting and preventing future wastage of budget on unproductive clicks.
The first method of negative keyword management is to add negative keywords directly to the campaign or add group. The second method is to add negative keywords to a negative keyword list that can be applied to multiple campaigns.
For example if you are running ads for your local restaurant and don’t want to appear when people search for competitor restaurants, we recommend creating a competitor negative keyword list. This way when you add a negative keyword to the list it will automatically apply to all campaigns that the negative keyword list is assigned to.
Same goes for when you start a new campaign. Instead of doing more work and adding negative keywords individually to that campaign, you merely add the negative keyword list! Boom, no money wasted on unwanted search terms!
Leveraging Ad Schedules
When starting off with google ads keywords and search terms are going to come in to play right from the jump but now let’s dive into more specifics.
Google ads allows users to control when their ads are displayed throughout the day and week.
Leveraging ad scheduling strategically can significantly contribute to preventing a waste of budget on clicks that don’t deliver value. By tailoring your ad schedule to align with your target audience’s most active and relevant periods, you can ensure that your ads are shown to users when they are more likely to convert.
Understanding your audience’s behavior and preferences is key to effective ad scheduling. If your business offers products or services that are more in demand during specific hours or days, adjusting your ad schedule to match those patterns can be highly beneficial.
For instance, a restaurant might want to increase ad visibility during lunch and dinner hours, while an online retailer might focus more on evenings and weekends when users have more time to browse and make purchases. Another example would be only running ads during business hours if your company primarily provides B2B services.
If you don’t know when your customers are most active don’t fret! You can always run your campaigns with no ad schedule and then after a few weeks assess the data and build out an ad schedule based on click through and conversion rates.
In the ads scheduling You are also able to make bid adjustments. Let’s say you don’t want to be bidding your full bid during off hours but you also don’t want to go completely dark. This would be the perfect case to decrease your bid by 50% or whatever feels comfortable for you.
Use Big Modifiers
Speaking of bid modifying, there is so much more than time based bid modifying that can be done in a campaign.
Utilizing bid modifiers in Google Ads can significantly enhance targeting precision, leading to more effective campaigns. Bid modifiers empower advertisers to adjust their bids based on specific criteria, allowing them to tailor their ad delivery to audiences that are more likely to convert. This approach maximizes the impact of your budget by focusing on high-potential segments while minimizing exposure to less valuable traffic.
Geographic bid modifiers, for instance, enable you to increase or decrease bids for users in specific locations. If your business has higher value in certain geographic regions, you can allocate more budget to those areas, ensuring that your ads are prominently displayed to audiences with stronger conversion potential.
Similarly, device bid modifiers help cater to users’ preferred devices. If your data shows that conversions are more likely to occur on mobile devices compared to desktops, adjusting your bids accordingly can optimize your ad delivery for higher-converting platforms. By prioritizing the devices that align with your audience’s behaviors, you channel your budget more effectively and reduce the risk of wasting it on less productive channels.
Separate Your Search and Display Campaigns
Alright folks this one is so simple but so tricky many veteran advertisers fall trap to it. All you have to do for this tip is Opt out of the google display network when setting up a search campaign.
Google is great when it comes to guiding advertisers through setting up a campaign. They have that step by step process down pat. Google asks you questions and most of the time you as the advertiser have to input information, ie budget, keywords, copy.
However when setting up a search campaign you will eventually hit the “Network” section. Google will automatically have the display network checked meaning that in your search campaign “ads can also appear on relevant sites, videos and apps across google”. This would essentially make your search campaign, not just a search campaign.
On the surface, this might seem advantageous – an automatic expansion of your reach! However, our strong suggestion is to consistently split your search and display campaigns, providing you with greater authority over:
Budget Allocation:
Dividing your campaigns allows for more precise budget management. You can allocate funds to each network according to their individual performance and importance.
Ad Placement Control:
With separate campaigns, you can have a say in where your ads appear. You can target specific placements on the Display network and maintain precision in your search placements.
Bid Adjustments for Search and Display:
Individual campaigns let you fine-tune your bidding strategies based on the differing user behaviors on the search and display networks. An actively engaged searcher has distinct conversion potential compared to someone casually browsing content.
It’s vital to distinguish between individuals actively seeking your offerings on Google searches and those who see your ad by chance on a blog post. By keeping these visitor categories apart, you ensure more effective targeting and a better return on your advertising investment, thus not wasting money.
Wrapping Up
Google ads has a plethora of features at advertisers disposal. So many features in fact, that it can be overwhelming for new advertisers when first starting out. But no worries! Leverage Google ad’s tools by following our key steps to best optimize your campaigns and budget. Remember that every campaign and company is different so what works for one might not work for the next! Take our tips as a jumping off point and see if they are the best fit for your business or decide if optimizing your campaigns looks different.