We get to audit a lot of AdWords accounts. As a consequence we get to see a lot of the mistakes that people make when using AdWords.
Here are some of the most common ones:
1. Poor campaign structure
How you set up your AdWords campaign will determine your success or failure as an advertiser. Unfortunately, most campaigns we see are poorly set up.
A poorly setup campaign is one where there is only one adgroup and that adgroup has lots of keywords. Ultimately, it means that you will not be able to have as much control over your ad copy.
And you definitely want control over your ad copy, because the objective is to show users the right ad when they search in Google and then direct them to the right page on your website.
if you don’t do this, you are providing the end user a bad user experience which will not only hurt your conversions it will also ensure you pay a lot more per click than some of your competitors due to a poor quality score.
2. Settings set to both search and display
A big mistake a lot of new advertisers make is keeping their campaign set to show ads in both Google Search and the Google Display network.
It’s important to have a different campaign for search and a different campaign for display. The reason for this is that these channels work completely differently.
How they are set up is also completely different.
For search, you are adding keywords that you think a user might use to find you in Google.
However, for display you are trying to use keywords that match the context of the types of websites your target audience is visiting.
For example, in search if you sell golf products, you are most likely going to bid on different types of golf gear – like golf bags, golf balls etc.
However, if you use the display network you need to use theme related keywords like breaking golf news, golf player rankings, golf news, golf news headlines etc. The key difference is that for a search campaign you would never bid on those keywords, however for a display campaign you might.
So our tip, have one campaign for search and one campaign for display. Or just start with search and learn to master one beast before you move to display.
3. Not setting your location or language correctly
While most advertisers correctly set their target country, they often target several different countries within one campaign. This is a big mistake.
If you set up your campaign to target people in the US, Singapore, Japan, Brazil, Germany and China, then you will not be able to control your ad copy to show the right users, but also the right ads in the right language.
You will also have less visibility into which locations are working and you will not be able assign different budgets to each country.
If you are only targeting one country or even one state and you are not in the travel industry, make sure you check the advanced location setting feature so you target only people in your targeted location. The standard default setting is to target people in, searching for or viewing pages about my targeted location.
What this means is that your ad could be triggered when someone in another country searches for your service.
So if you are a locksmith and you only serve people in Melbourne, you might want to stop your ad from being triggered if someone from the US or India types in the phrase Melbourne Locksmith.
Sure there may be a valid reason for someone in another country to look for you but there is also the possibility that they are searching for you to sell you their services.
We made this one little change in our account and reduced the number of cold calls from SEO and web development companies in India trying to sell us their services dramatically. We also found we got less calls from US based telemarketing companies.
So our advice is to try this setting out for yourself – especially if you only service local customers and your business is not reliant on travel or tourism. You should also remember to add in negative keywords for locations you don’t want to service.
4. Not enough negative keywords
Most advertisers know that they can put their keywords into Google so that their ad will be found.
What many don’t know is that they can also put in keywords that will stop their ad from being triggered. This is known as a negative keyword. This is extremely important to know because it helps to make your advertising campaign more effective.
So how does this work:
Imagine you are jewellery store owner and you want to advertise your pendants in Google Search.
If you have keywords like “heart shaped pendants” and “jewellery pendants” but do not add the word “light,” ‘Lighting” or “lights” as negative keywords, then your ad is probably going to show if someone types in the phrase “light pendants.”
If you are a jewellery store owner, getting a few hundred clicks on your ad when someone wants to buy light pendants will mean your campaign will not be very effective and you will spend a lot of money on wasted clicks.
So our tip is this – brainstorm as many keywords as you can and add as many that you don’t want your ad to be triggered for. Check out this post for some tips about negative keywords to get your started.
5. Poor ad copy
Believe it or not, your ad copy can make or break your campaign. A good ad has a strong call to action and has the targeted keyword in the ad copy.
The reason is simple. If someone types in that keyword into Google Search and the keyword is your ad copy, then ad text is bolded which helps make it stand out more.
Incidentally, we see a lot of ads in Google. Many ads look amazingly similar and this is not a good thing!
Ideally you want your ad to be unique. The role of the ad copy is to help a user to make the decision to click on your ad and not your competitors.
So try and avoid copying your competitors ad and then rewriting your ads. Have a long hard think about your business and understand it’s strengths.
Capitalise on your strengths, highlight your own special offers and have some unique (and valued) points of difference in your ad.
6. Not testing different ads
Most campaigns we audit only have one ad per ad group or even worse one ad in the whole campaign.
The idea is to have at least two ads in each ad group so you can see not only which ad gets the best click through rate but also which ad has generated more conversions. The idea is to improve your campaign as much as you can over time.
You can also use the different ads as a way of doing simple (and low cost) market research so you can understand what types of language and offers resonate with your target market.
Once you get enough data on your ad performance, ideally you should pause the least effective ad and write a new one that you can test against your strongest performer.
7. Sending users to the home page or worse a broken link
Many advertisers send people to their home page but that is often a mistake.
If your campaign is well set up, then you will not only be able to control the ad copy but also the destination URL.
Your job is to send users to the most relevant page. That means if you are selling jewellery and someone is looking for bracelets, you send users to the bracelets page, not your general home page.
Your ad should not make people work too hard to find you. Sure you might have a fabulous range but you can try and up-sell prospects once they have found what they are looking for (not before).
Remember to check your links often. Its amazing how many times we see a campaign where the website has been revamped and the page no longer exists.
8. Bidding on mobile when your website is not optimised for mobile
One of the first things we will do when auditing an AdWords account is look at a website and assess how well it is optimised for mobile.
The fact is that a lot of AdWords traffic comes from smart phones. If your website is not optimised for mobile, you will find conversions hard to come by.
Investing in a good landing page that is optimised for mobile is worth it or making your existing website mobile responsive is worth it.
By default, when you set up your campaign you will automatically bid on mobile. Consider adjusting your bidding settings to -100% if your website is not easy to view on a smart phone.
9. Not bidding high or low enough
When you start a new AdWords campaign its a good idea to bid high initially.
Not only does this improve your click through rate (and quality score and cost per click), it will also help determine very quickly how well the campaign is performing.
Once your account is established, it is also worth bidding down and seeing if having your ad show in different positions actually improves your conversion rate.
Sitelinks do not cost you anything extra and they give your ad more real estate. Make the most of it and make your ads stand out.
10. Not putting anything in place to measure the campaign
It’s hard to manage anything you can’t measure.
The key to making AdWords a success is understanding which keywords generated sales or leads.
Understanding this aspect of a campaign means you can refine your campaign and put your scarce advertising dollars into the areas that are working and stop the areas that are not.
Fortunately, there are a number of different ways to measure your campaign’s effectiveness.
You can use Google’s AdWords conversion tracking script, Google Analytics or even phone call tracking. What’s important is to understand your goals and then put the measures in place before you commence your campaign.
We highly recommend tracking your campaigns. If your business is reliant on leads from phone calls, it is definitely worth the extra expense of implementing phone call tracking. If you don’t, then it will cost you more to spend money on advertising that may not be working.
11. Not using ad extensions
Yes I know I said ten common mistakes but here is one more.
A little known feature in AdWords is the ability to extend your ads and give your end user more information.
There are several types – call extensions, location extensions and site-link extensions.
Using call or location extensions will help users see how they can contact you easily and will give your ad more real estate. Using sitelink extensions will enable you to show extra links to your website if you are placed in any of the top 3 ad positions.