Pay-per-click advertising can deliver tremendous results if used properly. With Google being the number one site on the internet, they have a ton of traffic available and clicks to be driven, being that they are a search engine with people looking for places to visit or products to purchase. At SEO Inc we offer Award Winning PPC Management Services.
With Google Ads, you only pay when someone clicks your ad. This means you won’t waste money on ad impressions that would otherwise not deliver traffic to your company.
Estimated reading time: 22 minutes
Keep reading if you’re looking for tips on maximizing your advertising dollars. We have compiled 106 tasks for a check-off list to increase your profitability and to sell more products and services.
- Choose the same campaign goals as your marketing goals: whether you are looking for traffic, leads, or sales, you’ll need to know your marketing objectives before starting.
- Start with a search campaign: there are two types of campaigns in Google Ads: search and display. Search campaigns show ads directly on Google. Display campaigns show ads on partner websites. You can only show image banner ads on the display network, and you can show text ads on both networks, though text ads typically perform better on Google. You should start with a search campaign because the campaigns can be laser targeted. You can display ads only to people searching for exact terms related to your product.
- Implement remarketing: by showing ads to people to have already shown interest in your company, you can target them further down the funnel. Since people that have already shown interest in your company are more likely to convert, you can increase your sales using this technique.
- Use a dynamic search campaign: dynamic search campaigns will automatically generate ad headlines and select landing pages for people searching for your company. If you have many offerings on your site, this is especially useful because you won’t need to create an ad for each keyword that people are searching for – ads will automatically be created with the search terms in the text.
- Use a call-only campaign: call-only campaigns are great if you want people to be directly connected to your sales division when clicking on an ad. They remove the step of them having to go to your website, then call. They also only show on mobile devices. For best results, only show these ads during your business hours.
- Use a branding campaign: branding campaigns are among the most effective types of campaigns you can create. If I already appear at the top of the search results, you may wonder why I should pay for an ad. The answer is that you’ll increase the chances that someone will visit your site. You may even have other competitors bidding on your brand, so you’ll be able to take clicks back from them.
You can also create an ad that shows precisely what you want to advertise to the user instead of having Google generate your search result. Bidding on your brand’s keywords are some of the most highly converting terms you can reach your customers with ads, so don’t miss out on the opportunity. - Show ads for your products and services: ads for terms related to your offer’s products and services. This is one of the most effective forms of advertising with Google Ads. You’ll be reaching people who are looking for the solution to the problem they have.
- Bid on competitor names: another highly targeted audience you’ll want to capture is customers searching for your competitors’ names. You can show ads to them by adding their names as search terms. You can’t, however, mention their names if they are trademarked in your ad text.
- Structure your ad groups: ad groups are containers for keywords that are inside campaigns. You’ll want to organize them well to increase conversions. Create ad groups that are related to the campaign they are in. This will help sort out which ads are running and to who.
- Show ads to the right people: make sure your ads are carefully structured around your ad groups’ keywords. By increasing your ads’ relevancy, you’ll get more clicks, conversions, and a higher quality score.
- Show ads at the right time: don’t show ads during times that aren’t relevant for your business. You can also increase the bids during specific times if you find that people are more likely to convert during those times. You can find this information out in Google Analytics. Creating a campaign with a goal such as a target CPA (cost per acquisition) will automatically adjust the bids based on the times.
- Use multiple keywords in ad groups: you don’t need a separate ad group for each keyword. You can group keywords into relevant ad groups and simplify the structure of ads in your account.
- Implement three ETAs and one RSA per ad group: Google will give you a higher quality score if you implement three expanded text ads and one responsive search ad per ad group.
- Make use of character limits: not only should you use all the headline and description fields available, but try to see if you can max out the character limits. This will effectively allow you to have a more prominent ad and take up more real estate on search pages, which will lead to more clicks and higher revenue.
- Use extensions: there are multiple extensions you can use in your ads, such as structured snippets, callouts, and site links. Use as many of these as you can, as they will also allow your ad to take up more space on search pages, and they can offer additional information for customers.
- Include exact numbers in ads: by including precise numbers in your ads, they will appear more believable. Use exact numbers whenever you can instead of rounding the numbers.
- Use keywords in your ads: by using keywords in your ads, not only will Google bold them whenever someone searches for the search terms, but it will also increase your quality score. The combination of these two things makes it a positive thing to try.
- Focus on benefits, not features: if your ad showcases the benefits of your product or service, people will be able to relate better and feel better about clicking your ad.
- Get local: people generally prefer local results, which is why Google factors that in when ranking search results. Get local with the text in your ads to show people that they are supporting their community when they choose you.
. - Don’t pin too many headlines in responsive search ads: by pinning headlines, you reduce Google’s ability to try out more variations of your ads. Don’t limit Google; let it function with a greater ability to find your best ad combinations.
- Use all the fields for responsive search ads: use as many fields as you can, if not all of them, as this, will increase Google’s ability to find ads that work better. It will provide more combinations of ads to try out.
- Only use relevant extensions: don’t overuse extensions as you want only to include those relevant to your business and not display ads that have no use for your company.
- Add extensions to the appropriate level: ad extensions can be added at the account, campaign, and ad group level. If you have an extension that applies to all your ads in your account, use them at the account level, and so on.
- Add relevant sitelinks: sitelinks can increase click-through rates by up to 30%, so make sure you employ them.
- Direct traffic to inner pages with sitelinks: make sure to use sitelinks to link internal pages on your site. This allows you to drill down on your focus for what people want to click.
- Add descriptions to your sitelinks: adding descriptions to your sitelinks increases their prominence and will lead to more clicks.
- Highlight selling points using callout extensions: callout extensions allow you to mention aspects of your business you want to highlight to visitors. Use them to garner additional attention to your ads and inform people about your business.
- Use structured snippets: structured snippets also allow you to provide more information to the consumer. Use them to inform people about other aspects of your business.
- Include call extensions: by providing your phone number directly in your ad, you make it easier for your customers to call you, which can lead to additional conversions.
- Use a local number in call extensions: by using a local number, you highlight how your business is relevant to the consumer because you are in their area.
- Use lead form extensions: it’s now possible to generate leads without a visitor having to leave Google. Lead form extensions are currently in beta, so you’ll have to reach out to your Google rep to use them.
- Setup a webhook to manage leads from lead form extension: instead of using a CSV, which gets wiped every 30 days, manage your leads with a webhook. This will alert you immediately when you get a new lead.
- Use message extensions: message extensions are in beta, so you’ll also want to reach out to your Google rep for them. They allow customers to contact you directly. Messages will be sent to your phone number or emailed to you. When you message back, the messages go to the customer’s phone number.
- Make sure you can receive text messages on the phone number tied to message extensions: you’ll want to use a phone number that can receive text messages, so don’t use a landline number.
- Turn message reporting on: to track data from the message extension, you’ll need to have this turned on.
- Link Google My Business for location extensions: to use the location extension, you’ll need to link it to your Google My Business.
- Take advantage of Google Maps ads: by linking your Google My Business to your account and enabling location extensions, you can now show ads on Google Maps. This is a great extra source of leads from people looking for local businesses.
- Clean up your Google My Business: ensure that your Google My Business information is up to date before linking to Google Ads and enabling location extensions.
- Show ads in the local 3 pack: to show ads in the local 3 pack, which is a Google map with 3 local businesses highlighted below it, enable the location extension.
- Set up price extensions: by using price extensions, you can let buyers know the price of your product or service before they click through. Here’s where having competitive pricing can help, as your ad may be seen as an apparent authority at lower prices.
- Use a price qualifier: you can say that your prices are “up to,” “from,” and “average” with a price qualifier. This may make it easier to price items from your company.
- Link price extensions: make sure to link your price extensions to the most relevant and optimized page for each price extension.
- Use promotion extensions: if you are running a promo, be sure to add a promotion extension. These will allow you to highlight the promotion providing promo codes, etc.
- Use promotion ads over updating ad text: promotion extensions make it easy to only run during the sale, so you won’t have to keep on top when the promo starts and ends and updating your ads.
- Create app extensions: if your business has an app that you want to promote, consider using an app extension. These will enable you to link directly to your app on an app store.
- Construct a high converting app page: you can use the same techniques you would for a landing page on an app store page. Make sure not to neglect your app store page as many conversions may come from there.
- Increase quality score by directing specific landing pages: by segmenting out keywords and directing users to specific landing pages, you can increase leads and your quality score. This will have a dual impact as you’ll be getting more leads for less money.
- Decrease intermediary pages: don’t drive users to generic landing pages that have multiple different topics. Decrease the amount of time it takes to get to their final destination by directing them straight there.
- Make your landing page local: it’s undeniable that local pages are a huge factor that helps visitors determine where they will end up shopping. Including the city name where a user is in your heading will increase your quality score and leads. You can also add a map with where you are located and a phone number with a local area code or images of that city.
- Keep the CTA above the fold: keep your call to action above the fold and in multiple places on the page if it’s long, so your user knows exactly where to go when they are ready to convert.
- Limit fields on forms: don’t ask for information unless it’s necessary. The more you can cut down on form fields, the better. It will increase your conversion rates.
- A/B test your landing pages: split test your landing pages to find out what is converting visitors the most. Then combine all those aspects into one landing page that converts exceptionally well.
- Make more relevant ads with keyword modifiers: try using keyword modifiers such as “near me” to find keywords with high volume that are relevant to your company. Then, bid higher on these keywords that are performing better.
- Review your search terms report: going through your keyword report will show you the exact terms you’re bidding on and is especially relevant for keywords you are using broad match or phrase match with. When going through this report, look at how each search term performed by viewing how many conversions it got. For low performing keywords, consider pausing them by adding them to your negative keywords. For high performing keywords, consider raising the bid adjustment for them.
It’s best practice to view the search terms on an ad group level instead of a campaign level, so you can more easily make adjustments. This is a great way to see how a campaign performs and know which search terms exactly are driving conversions. - Use negative keywords: using negative keywords is a great way to focus your campaign on working best. If specific keywords don’t perform well, add them to your negative keywords so they won’t serve.
- Use the correct match type for negative keywords: don’t use a broad match type if all you want to do is not serve ads for an exact term; instead, use the exact match type. If there is a phrase you don’t want to serve ads for, use the phrase match type.
- Make sure keywords aren’t competing against each other: by making sure your keywords aren’t competing against each other, you’ll be lowering the amount of money you spend. A great example of how to do this would be to create a long tail ad group for a keyword; in the original ad group, add the long tail keyword to negative keywords to avoid competing against each other.
- Start with negative keywords: if you already know specific search terms that will display your keywords that aren’t relevant, start your campaign off with those keywords as negative search terms. If you are importing an extensive list of negative keywords, you can change the match type in bulk by editing them.
- Be careful with negative keywords: although negative keywords are a great way to increase ads’ performance, they can also cause a campaign to suffer if the wrong negative keywords are added. Be careful when adding keywords, paying close attention to the match type and the negative keywords being added.
- Using audience targeting is a more advanced tip is to control the audience viewing your ad. Whether they are a group of people defined or have already visited your website or a list from Google such as an in-market or affinity segment, you have options to target by audience.
- Be creative with audience lists: sometimes, your ad campaign is based on an industry not included in Google’s in-market or affinity audiences. In this case, try choosing an option that is loosely related, and you may find some performance enhancements.
- Convert people that have already visited your site: by creating a remarketing list of people that have visited your website but have not yet converted, you’re off to a great start with a new campaign to reach this audience.
You can now advertise to a group of people with a higher potential of converting because they’ve already shown interest in your brand but just haven’t converted yet. By showing your ad to them a few more times, they may likely return to convert on your site. - Use customer match: if you have an offline presence, you can re-engage them with customer match. Just download their information such as names or email addresses to a file and upload it to Google. Google will then be able to target them and, also, similar customers. This list must contain 1000+ people for it to work.
- Target what people are actively searching for using in-market audiences by choosing audience lists from google of in-market users. You can tap into the results of data compiled from billions of searches on Google of user data. This is a huge opportunity, especially if your audience is a good match for one of their in-market audience segments. In-market audiences are combined with users who show an active interest in a subject and are close to purchasing.
- Only add several audiences you can manage: don’t go overboard with audiences adding more than you can handle. You’ll need to keep an eye on them to make sure they are performing correctly.
- Use similar audiences: if you already have a list of customers or people that have viewed your site, you can expand that audience using similar audiences. Google will look through its users’ database to find ones that are similar to those in your list and allow you to advertise to them.
- Increase conversions with affinity audiences: with affinity audiences, you can reach people based on their passions, habits, and lifestyle. If your company has a product or service that matches an affinity audience, you can expect to see an enhancement in your conversion rates.
Even if the affinity audiences don’t match your company’s offerings exactly, try something close to see if it increases your campaign’s performance. Again, with this option, you can tap into Google’s massive database of user search history, which is extremely valuable. - Get creative with custom affinity audiences: with customer affinity audiences, you can enter keywords that the user would be interested in and URLs. Custom affinity audiences allow you to get more specific than affinity audiences.
- Target your competitor’s traffic: with custom affinity audiences, you can target your competitor’s traffic by entering your competitors’ URLs into a custom affinity audience. This will allow you to target people that have gone to their URLs with your ads.
- Add places an ideal customer would go to: with custom affinity audiences, and you can also enter areas a perfect customer would go to and target them. However, with this option, you can only advertise on YouTube.
- Use custom intent audiences: custom intent audiences allow you to target based on in-market keywords, URLs, and apps. It is only available on the display network.
- Use the correct targeting option: you can either set it up as targeting or observation when using an audience. To see how an audience would perform, set it up as observation. To actively target an audience, set it up to target it. Setting a campaign up with the wrong audience option could end up costing a lot with deficient performance.
- Adjust audience list bids: once you start to see some conversions, you can start making adjustments to your audience list bids. Increase them if they are performing well or decrease them if they are underperforming.
- Use demographic targeting: you can target people based on their age, income, gender, and parental status using demographic targeting. Google has this data on most users, so it’s beneficial. If, for example, you have a product or service aimed at an older audience, you may only want to target people 45+ or at least put in a bid adjustment for them.
- Get to know your customer base: finding out more about your customer base could help you pick audience lists or generate custom affinity audiences better.
- Use demographic exclusions: if you have a demographic that doesn’t fit your product or service, make sure to exclude them not to waste any money.
- Make bid adjustments to demographic targeting: make sure to adjust bids based on gender, income, age, and parental status.
- Track campaign performance: you can track additional details of your campaigns’ performance by enabling auto-tagging and conversion tracking. You’ll be able to see the details in Google Analytics, such as website purchases or newsletter signups. You’ll also be able to view offline conversion details.
- Boost conversions with auto ad suggestions: Google can write ads for you by taking content from your existing ad copy and writing suggested ads. You can go through them to see if they look like they’ll offer additional performance benefits and enable them.
- Make bid adjustments on days of the week: does your company make more conversions during the week or on the weekend. That’s something you’ll want to know and make bid adjustments with that data. You may even want not to have ads run on the weekends or certain days.
- Analyze by time: by generating reports based on the hour of the day or day of the week, you can find out when is best to run your ads.
- Target devices: if you have a spectacular mobile or desktop site, or consumers don’t convert on a certain device, you can make bid adjustments based on devices.
- Analyze device reports: by analyzing how your site converts on certain devices with the reports Google offers, you can determine how much you should make bid adjustments. Note that Google automatically makes these adjustments if you have a target goal set, such as target CPA.
- Increase bids on calls if they are highly valued: if your business values call more than lead form submissions, you can use an advanced bid modifier to adjust your bid on calls.
- Use the keyword planner: you may already have some keywords ready to add to your campaign, but make sure you use the keyword planner to see if Google can make any additional suggestions. It will provide the search volume as well, so you can sort by that or by the keywords’ relevance.
Use as many keywords that are closely related to your product as possible. Keywords are the basis for any campaign, so it’s good to get as many as you can from as many different sources as possible, as long as they align with your campaign. - Identify negative keywords with the keyword planner: it’s also good to go through the keyword planner to find any negative keywords you may want to add to your campaign. If you don’t offer a product or service that people would find using your search terms, you can exclude it here.
- Use root keywords in the keyword planner: you’ll want to make sure you’ve tried using the keyword planner with the main keywords of your campaign to ensure you get a relevant and expansive list of keywords.
- Determine if ads are showing: by mousing over the eligibility status column, you’ll be able to see if your ads are displaying or, if not, the reason why. You can also preview what your ad will look like using the Ad Preview and Diagnosis tool. If you’re using restricted words in your ads or your quality score is too low, Google will let you know what’s wrong.
- Don’t search for your ads on Google: doing so can only hurt your campaign because Google looks at what’s clicked on and if people are bouncing, etc. Instead, use the Ad Preview and Diagnosis tool.
- Use automated rules to cut down on manual changes: by using automated rules, you can tell Google to do certain things at certain times and email you about it. It would be best if you were very careful when setting this up. You can, for example, pause keywords if their avg CPC is too high.
- Set the correct “apply to” setting: when setting up automated rules, you’ll want to make sure you apply it to the correct campaign data to ensure it works correctly.
- Use scripts to control your campaigns: scripts can help you automate your campaigns, but be careful using them as we would only recommend them for advanced users. However, you can set up scripts, for example, to pause campaigns going over budget and set them to run every hour, considering that Google can spend up to twice the daily allotted budget.
- Track leads correctly: all the time you spent setting up your campaign will waste if you cannot track the leads correctly. This is crucial to the success of any campaign because you need to optimize the ads to run with the right adjustments to the bids.
- Track lead gen forms: make sure to set up conversion tracking on your lead submission forms. You’ll need to know who exactly is converting and specifics about their demographics to optimize your campaign.
- Use a live chat: live chats can help people who need additional information about your business but aren’t ready yet to make a phone call.
- Track local offline conversions: make sure to link your Google My Business account to Google Ads so that Google can track when someone visits your business after interacting with an ad. Google can track store visits up to 30 days after interacting with your ad.
- Use Google shopping ads: you can set up shopping ads in Google by going to the Google Merchant Center and submitting a product feed. Shopping ads run in the shop carousel and on the shopping tab. They are an excellent source of conversions. They usually convert higher than normal text ads because they contain an image, the product title, and the price, so people know what they’re getting into before clicking and are more likely to be buyers.
- Try a smart shopping campaign: to be opted in to be allowed to use a smart shopping campaign, you may need to contact your Google rep. Smart shopping campaigns allow Google to adjust the bids and determine which keywords to show ads.
- Add negative keywords to shopping campaigns: because shopping campaigns do not allow you to specify a keyword list, they automatically generate keywords based on your website; you may want to add negative keywords to control when irrelevant search queries may trigger your ad.
- Use maximize clicks bidding for more traffic: using maximize clicks, Google will automatically determine which keywords you should run ads with and how much to bid for them based on your budget. If your primary goal is to get more traffic, this is a good option.
- Use target CPA: we suggest using a target CPA if you already have conversions on your product or service and want Google to optimize everything for you to get the most conversions at a specified price.
- Use enhanced CPC: we suggest using enhanced CPC when you want to use manual bidding with a little help from Google. Google will automatically adjust your bids up and down up to a certain percent to maximize conversions.
- Split products up in shopping campaigns with a filter: you may want only to use one product per ad campaign, this way, you can control what negative keywords you add for each product.
- Try YouTube ads: there are multiple types of ads you can run on YouTube. They include skippable in-stream ads, non-skippable in-stream ads, video discovery ads, bumper ads, out-stream ads, masthead ads, and shopping ads. Skippable in-stream ads appear before, during, or after another video and can be skipped after 5 seconds. Non-skippable in-stream ads play for 15 seconds or less and can’t be skipped. Video discovery ads show a thumbnail of your video and appear next to videos or in search results.
Bumper ads are great if you have a short message of 6 seconds or less that you want to play and can’t be skipped. Outstream ads run outside video ads. Masthead ads take over the YouTube homepage with a large banner on the top. Shopping ads are video ads linked with a shopping feed. - Use different types of YouTube bidding: on YouTube, you can bid with maximum conversions, target CPA, target CPM, maximum CPM, viewable CPM, and maximum CPV.
- Try TrueView ads for shopping on YouTube: showcase a video and product shopping ads on YouTube if you run an eCommerce store.
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Garry Grant is a distinguished expert in search engine optimization and digital marketing, boasting over 25 years of experience in the industry. As the founder of SEO, Inc., Garry has successfully expanded the company’s offerings by developing innovative technologies and strategic solutions to address complex challenges. Please visit our SEO Company.
Garry provides specialized consulting services to select organizations with established in-house SEO and Paid Search teams. His expertise has proven instrumental in enhancing team performance, introducing cutting-edge strategies, and optimizing page speed, thereby equipping internal teams with industry-leading techniques. His client portfolio includes renowned enterprises such as SC Johnson, 20th Century Fox, Vegas.com, IGN, Walmart, Target, and Pacific Gas and Electric, among others. To schedule an initial consultation with Garry, please utilize the provided calendar link.