Each day, over three billion searches occur on Google, and the amount continues to increase year-over-year. The number of people using Google to find answers and products grows every day. This makes Google Ads one of the most effective marketing tools in the modern era.
Our team of specialists at BCI Media contends, when correctly used, Google Ads can increase revenue, foster brand awareness and improve SEO. But if you aren’t careful, it’s easy to make Google Ads mistakes that cost you revenue. Every year thousands of business owners use Google Ads without a true understanding of the fundamentals. In fact, studies show that small businesses unnecessarily waste as much as 25% of their PPC marketing budget. Other companies using Google Ads unknowingly spend more money than necessary, too. Our experts at BCI outlined how to avoid some of the most costly commonly overlooked mistakes.
Neglecting Negative Keywords
Negative Keyword lists is a term that Google Ads users have likely seen in the past. Never place the negative keyword lists on the backburner. With Google Ads, users can control specific words and phrases that show their ads. Users can also control what words and phrases do not show their ads. These are called negative keywords. For example, if you own a bakery and you want your ads to show for “fresh bread,” but not for “fresh bread recipe.” Adding “recipe” as a negative keyword will tell AdWords, “Hey, DO NOT show my ad for this word/phrase.” The goal here is to utilize your budget to its full potential and receive the maximum return on investment, or ROI. Failure to address negative keywords can result in a large chunk of wasted budget. To target keywords, it’s a good idea to use phrases or long-tail keywords and put your settings to exact keyword match types. This can help you control costs.
Searching Your Own Ads
It’s tempting to search your won ad. Everyone wants to see exactly what the ad looks like “in the wild.” Avoid the temptation, because this can harm the ad position, quality ranking and even damage SEO. Every time a user searches for their own ad and then fails to click on it, they lower the click-through rate. Google presented the ad, but it wasn’t clicked on. That indicates to Google that perhaps the ad isn’t high quality, so it lowers the overall ad position. The moral of the story is never search your own ad. Use the Ads dashboard and Google’s Ad Preview & Diagnosis tool to find your placement on the search results page. Users can see the exact same results as a Google search but it won’t affect the performance stats by accumulating unnecessary ad impressions.
Not Using Extensions
Ad extensions allow users to use site links as well as call and location extensions to enhance the ad. Extensions add extra pieces of information or links to the ad giving customers more reasons to click through to the landing page. These extensions help customers take action quickly without navigating to the post-click landing page. But there’s another practical benefit of using ad extensions; they make the ad bigger. The more real estate the ad covers on the search results page, the higher the odds are of attracting attention and clicks.
Choosing Too Many Keywords
Did you know that nearly 80% of conversions are created by just 20% of keywords? Irrelevant or unproductive keywords, and keywords with a low search volume, are a detriment to a quality score. These keywords can rapidly deplete a monthly budget with no tangible ROI. Finding the most effective keywords can be as simple as using the conversion tracking tool. Conversion tracking can help users identify keywords that cost money so that they can pause or remove them.
Ignoring Conversion or Call Tracking
Conversion tracking is a free snippet of code that you place on your website so Google can track which keywords attract customers. This lets you bid more for the keywords that create conversions and pause the ones that don’t. If you aren’t tracking conversions you won’t be able to tell what’s working and what’s not. Call Tracking increases sales and revenue while allowing the opportunity to improve how phone leads are handled. In addition, it can help users discover which ads, campaigns and keywords are driving phone call conversions. Take advantage of Google’s built-in tracking to maximize the investment and improve ROI.
Don’t Let Mistakes Overwhelm You
Google Ads can offer a big payoff for generating revenue and sales for a business. But if handled improperly, it can do the exact opposite. Running Google Ads campaigns isn’t difficult, but it can be tricky and time-consuming. Avoid these common mistakes and learn to navigate an incredibly powerful marketing tool. However, if this is all too daunting, the professionals at BCI Media will be more than happy to handle the heavy lifting for you and your business. After all, most entrepreneurs have their hands full with day-to-day operations. Finding additional time for Google Ads, SEO, Facebook, Instagram and other marketing channels can feel unattainable.