There are several Adwords Mistakes you should avoid, like the plague, to protect your ad campaigns, improve your quality score, and increase your bank account.
That’s right… you could possibly be your worst enemy; unknowingly, sabotaging your Google Adwords account, and blaming Google for your lack of knowledge.
However, don’t feel bad — pay-per-click has taken many marketers on a fallacious ride due to the ease of entry and low start-up cost. You can literally activate an account and have your first campaign ready to rock and roll in less than an hour, even if you’re a complete newbie.
The simplicity of the entire process is what causes many people to proceed without educating themselves on basic PPC principles. You see… if most marketers would just implement the basics, then many of the horror stories about Adwords would be eliminated.
So… whether novice or pro, do yourself a favor and check out these very common Adwords Mistakes.
Neglecting The Competition
It’s very easy to ignore the competition, especially when you have a list of keywords that you spent all day gathering, or better yet, a list you bought from some marketing research company who offered a money back guarantee.
Despite your enthusiasm and your bag full of golden nuggets, your competition holds a plethora of knowledge that could save you months of research.
Therefore, by analyzing your competition you’ll be able to determine the commercial viability of your market, uncover a variety of monetizing methods, discover some unique list building strategies, and find potential keywords that convert like crazy.
Whatever you do… don’t ignore the competition.
Not GEO Targeting
Most newbies begin internet marketing with the mindset of promoting to the world on a shoestring budget.
Listen carefully… this is a huge mistake. Unless you have an extremely large budget you’ll only be able to market to a particular geographic location without depleting your advertising budget rather quickly. You need to determine where your target market resides before spending a dime.
Furthermore, by initiating GEO targeting you’ll be able to market to a particular country, region, state, county, or even zip code of your choosing; giving you the ability to zoom in on your target market.
Setting Your Daily Budget Too Low
It’s better to set your daily budget high, in the beginning, to show Google you’re serious about your marketing efforts. Also, setting your daily budget too low will cause your pay per click ads to run intermittently throughout the day and they’ll stop displaying when your budget is reached.
And as a result, your testing data will be skewed.
Failing To Turn Off Content Network
Believe it or not — it’s very easy to forget to turn off the content network. Something this simple could caused muddied results, and really screw up your campaign’s quality score.
However, the content network can be extremely profitable, and works better than the search network for certain products.
Note: If you’re brand new to Adwords, only pursue the content network after you’ve tested your market.
Using Too Many Keywords
Be sure NOT to stuff all your keywords in to one adgroup because they appear to be closely related.
Instead, try putting 4-5 targeted keywords into each adgroup. This approach will tremendously boost your quality score and click-through-rate (CTR).
Using Broad Match
Broad Match will automatically show your ad when ever your keyword is searched, regardless of how the keyword appears in the search query; even if the search is unrelated to your ad.
It’s better to use phrase (e.g. ” “) or exact match (e.g. [ ]) to precisely target the keyword or phrase of your choosing.
Ignoring Negative Keywords
Negative keywords prevents your ad from displaying when a particular search query containing that term appears with your keyword or phrase.
For example, if you didn’t want your ads to appear for the word free, one-day trial, or free trial you would add these terms as negative keywords.
Failing to run the Search Query Performance Report
The Search Query Performance report shows performance statistics for the search queries that resulted in your ads being triggered and clicked. This allows you to optimize your keywords and add any negative keywords you may have overlooked.
Not Including keywords in the ad text
Google bases everything on relevance; that is why top performing ads are extremely relevant to the search query. So, by inputting your keyword into your ad text you increase the relevance and quality of your ad.
And as a bonus, the keyword is highlighted bold to make your ad stand out in the crowd (theoretically speaking).
Ignoring The Display URL
Don’t assume the display URL doesn’t play a factor in click-through-rates, because it does. A long ugly URL will spell-out affiliate marketing quicker than ticks on a hound — causing your ad to sit idle.
Your display URL should be a shorter, more memorable, version of your destination URL.
Sending Visitors to Homepage
Don’t send visitors to your homepage, unless it’s your money page and you know it converts. Many marketers assume visitors will find their landing or money page once they click through, but nothing could be farther from the truth.
Most searchers will hit the back button as soon as they realize the landing page does not relate to the ad. In return, hurting your quality score and your bank account.
Failing to Optimize Ad Serving
When you first set-up your Adwords account, by default, Google shows your best performing ads first and often until your budget is depleted. Then your ads are shut down until the next 24-hour period.
You want to set the ad server to show ads more evenly. This allows you to test your ads and determine a winner.
Not Running A Simple A/B Split Test
I just hit this topic briefly in “failing to optimize ad serving”, however split-testing is so important I must reiterate this point. For each adgroup set at least two ads to test against each other. This is known as a simple A/B split test.
When performing an A/B split test, change one variable in one ad (could be the headline, text, font, etc.) to test against the other ad which remains constant; then determine a winner.
Declaring Split-Test winners to Quickly
Don’t declare a winner to quick; make sure your ads receive enough impressions and clicks to determine a clear winner (Note: aim for around 100 clicks if you aren’t sure). After determining a winner repeat the process over and over again.
Ignoring Tracking Results
Tracking is a key interval in online success, so don’t forget to set-up Google Analytics or Prosper 202. Google Analytics is ultra easy to turn on and it’s free. But, don’t set it and forget it like some marketers.
Tracking your results will reveal a ton of information to help you optimize your campaigns and find hidden keywords. This is the secret sauce to exploding your bank account.
If you made it this far you should have enough info to get started and get out of the red. Just remember to take your time, do your research, and educate yourself on pay-per-click to avoid the common Adwords Mistakes.
Spam Marketing Works like crazy, that’s why so many people teach this insane method of marketing, even though it’s extremely annoying to be constantly bombarded with information you haven’t requested, and there are harsh penalties for violating people’s privacy; bottom line… the results justify the means.
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