We know that PPC can become one of those “just set it and forget it” kind of things, but at least once a month you should do a once over on your campaigns. Check for new features you could be utilizing and clean up some of the noise in your account.
Go through your keywords
There are many theories on how to best organize your keywords. However you choose do so, make sure you’re sticking with a strategy and keeping up with your data to see if its working. As audience developers, we borrow from the SKAG (single keyword ad group) theory, and supplement it with search intent of the user looking for your brand. Are they looking to research or are they in the transactional phase? We segment out these keywords to drive traffic and sell products and subscriptions. It’s easier to check your performance at different stages of the funnel when keywords are organized in this structure.
If its been a while since you last went through your campaigns, you may have some keywords that are now just noise. With the relatively new updates like the exact match keywords function, Google’s machine learning can predict the intent of the searcher. So, if you’re bidding on a keyword (ex: yosemite camping), you can appear in popular variants of that search, paraphrases, or implied words. So, exact match really isn’t exact anymore.
Here’s an example from Google:
This is super helpful, but be careful. You can cast a wider net with exact match then before, so check your search terms on your monthly check-in to be sure that the queries you showed up for are actually what you’re intending. If not, add them to your negative keyword list.
Extensions, Extensions, Extensions
To maximize the performance of your text ads, Google Ads selects which extensions to show in response to each individual search on Google. For that reason, it’s a good idea to use all the extensions relevant to your business goals. There are many different types of extensions that we won’t get to in this blog, but you can read about them here. The more extensions that you have enabled that are relevant to your potential customer, the more chances you have to take up the most real estate on the page. On mobile, if you’re in the top spot, you take up the whole screen. The SERP is your advertising real estate and you want to take up the most room.
Quality Score
Are there keywords you bid on but never get an impression or click? Check your quality score on these. See if you can improve anything for them and remove them from your account if they aren’t working. Your quality score determines your Cost Per Click and Ad Rank. Taking into account your click-through rate (CTR), the relevance of each keyword to its ad group, landing page quality and relevance, the relevance of your ad text, and your historical AdWords account performance. See if you can make any changes to any of those variables to improve your quality score and decrease your CPCs.
Get rid of what is old and what doesn’t work
Do you have ads in your account still that are only two lines long? Get rid of them. There are expanded text ads now. Your legacy ad that was written in 2017 isn’t going to cut it anymore. Google gave you the capacity to increase your real estate... take it! Have you combed through where you’re directing traffic lately? Check out the UX of your landing page. Can you improve it? Is there something on the page to capture an email if they didn’t make a transaction? Research phase searchers could be added to your newsletter list before they make a transaction and you could enroll them in a welcome workflow and tease your products. Collect your leads, nurture your leads, convert your leads.
Need help going through your Google Ads account? I can help! natalie@twentyfirstdigital.com
