Often, when you start a new campaign in Google Ads you may not be very clear about the strategy to follow or what influences the level of quality of this new account.
We at Arimetrics wanted to bring you a series of simple steps to take to optimize and manage your Google Ads campaign and get your work to have optimal results.
Here are some of the strategies that in our agency specialized in Google Ads we follow to lead our companies to a positive ROI.
Without further a day, I hope this guide helps.
Table of Contents
STEP 1 – Choosing keywords
The choice of keywords is one of the most important points in the creation and optimization of a Google Ads account. Therefore, if one or more of the keywords have a click-through rate of less than 1% after a while trying to optimize it, it is best to delete it.
We must find the keywords that people use to find our company, or competitors, in google and know that there are keywords with a high temporality with what may work for you at a certain time but later stop doing it. The good thing is that new keywords continually emerge so you just have to find them.
To do this, we can use the Google Ads keyword planner which is free. This indicates the volume of monthly searches of your keywords and their CPC so that you take it into account when adding them. Starting with a good keyword research strategy from the beginning will help us in the future.
It is important that if we see that the keywords within an ad group can be divided into two well-defined groups, we separate them because this action will increase the CTR as well as the quality of the landing page and experience in it with the consequent increase in the general level of quality of the account, thanks to the creation of more relevant ads for each of the words.
An example of this would be if we managed a Google Ads account of a sneaker retail store. Let’s imagine that our campaigns are divided by type of shoes, that is:
- Sneakers
- Dress shoes
- Slippers to walk around the house
Inside sneakers we would have several groups of ads and it would look like this:
- Sneakers (Campaign)
- Adidas
- Nike
- Joma
- Rebook
With this example, suppose that in Nike we have the keyword “Nike shoes”, among others. Perhaps, after a couple of weeks, results such as “Yellow Nike 345”, “Yellow Nike 569” and “Yellow Phosphorite Nike” will begin to appear in the “search terms” tab.
If we have on the web the product yellow Nike shoes with different models, it would be a good option to create only a group of ads for yellow Nike shoes and create specific text ads for them. This will increase the CTR of our ad group as it better segments the group of users who are looking for these Keywords.
Also, the average CPC will probably go down so you’ll spend less having more clicks.
STEP 2 – Broad, broad modified, phrase or exact match
There are different types of keyword matching and, therefore, there are also different ways to optimize and manage an account so that it gives us the expected results. Analyzing and following a strategy in the use of concordance will give us greater chances of achieving optimization.
- First of all we have the words with broad agreement. This type of concordance can be recommended when you start a project to take a variety of keywords. You can also find projects in which this form of concordance is the most optimal to use in that particular account or campaign. Be that as it may, we recommend using this type of agreement from the three terms per keyword so that Google understands what we mean. It is in this form of keyword where we must control our CPC more since we can pay for words that we do not want in our campaigns.
- The second form of concordance is the modified broad,with this concordance we ensure greater control of the keyword since it will not appear in related searches or synonyms. The modified broad match is along with the exact match the two types that have to dominate in our Google Adwords campaigns. It does not matter the order in which you place the “+”, that is, for +shoes +Nike we will appear both in the search for Nike shoes and Nike shoes.
We can also try by putting the first word in modified broad and the others in broad. For example: +blue Nike sneakers. With this we make sure that the term sneakers always comes out and the other two words may vary.
- The following is the sentence concordance,this is similar to the previous one except that unlike the modified wide, in this case the order of the kewywords does not change so for “Kitchen furniture”, we would not appear in the searches for “kitchen furniture”. What we will have are terms such as “kitchen furniture Madrid” “cheap kitchen furniture”, etc. It is recommended for keywords with enough traffic,so we can test the performance of each of the words and “stay” with the one that gives us the most conversion.
- The last concordance of all is the exact one and will be the one we use the most to optimize our campaigns in Google Ads since it best suits our target and the search intention of our potential customers. In addition to all this, it is the form of keyword with which we have greater control of searches. An example of this keyword could [agencia de marketing en Madrid] be, this is a long tail with a very marked search intention and to which we can respond through our website in an optimal way.
It will be in the words with exact concordance where our CPC should be higher compared to the rest since they usually have a lower percentage of searches and a higher CTR.
On the other hand, we have the negative keywords and their important management to prevent us from squanding money on clicks we don’t want.
To do this, we have three types of concordance:
- Exact: it will take away the exact term and nothing else. For [taxis baratos en Barcelona] example, we will only be blocked by this word and not “cheap taxi in Barcelona” or others.
- Phrase: similar expressions will be classified as negative. Continuing with the previous example, if we put “cheap taxis in Barcelona” it will also take away “cheap taxis Barcelona”, among others.
- Broad: it is the one that is most used since it collects terms that we do not want to appear within any sentence. For example cheap would block all querys like “cheap transport”, “cheap plane ticket”, etc. What it does not do, failing that, is to include the same word in the plural so we would have to add to the blacklist both cheap and cheap.
STEP 3 – Create specific landings or improve existing ones
Some people believe that with setting up a Google Ads campaign well and then directing it to the home of the web they will already get conversions, but it is not so.
We think that the best strategy in these cases is to target each campaign, and sometimes even certain keywords, to landings whose conversion rate will be higher.
For this we have two output options such as create specific landings for each campaign or use the pages that already make up the web and optimize them so that the user who enters finds what he wants and his experience is positive, since this experience is an important measure in the quality of the keyword.
As we say, creating an Adwords campaign well does not imply success, it is also necessary to work on other external aspects such as in this case is the landing.
STEP 4 – Geographic Targeting
This is one of the most recommended strategies for a correct optimization of the campaign to be managed, especially if your company only sells in a certain region or country.
To do this you can put certain regions as negative words apart from not including them in the “location” tab.
We believe that all good management of an account goes through this segmentation since the budget is not unlimited and with this the ROI per conversion will be higher.
STEP 5 – Decide if you create display ads
This type of advertisement will depend mainly on the products we want to advertise. Whether they are products that can be promoted well through image ads or not.
In any case, with display ads you will achieve two things fundamentally:
- Reach a large number of people (greater than in text).
- Decrease the “reach” price to the target and/or potential audience.
If we have a low monthly budget and the products/services are attractive enough to create display ads, go ahead.
Optimizing display ads is harder to achieve than text ads and counts on all the CTR they have.
- If the CTR is less than 0.2%, it would be bad and we would have to see if the segmentation of both audience and location is adequate.
- If the CTR is between 0.4 and 0.6%, it is good but improvable and you would also have to review and try to adjust the above.
- If you have a CTR between 0.8 and 1.4 you will be close to optimization and you would have to look more at the relative CTR which is the one that tells you how your CTR is depending on that of the competition.
WARNING: A CTR greater than%-2% may be suspected of altering it.
Finally, another important point for the optimization of display ads in Google Ads is to determine the word match that we will have.
- Contextual matching: Our ads will appear in the places where Google thinks our keywords are most searched. In the case of a company selling high-end cars, google will show our display ads in areas that will normally correspond to a high purchasing power that our products have searched for.
- Extended word match: Your display ads can appear to anyone who has ever searched google, YouTube, and other platforms for keywords related to yours. Continuing with the example above, the display ad for that high-end car will appear to a person from a neighborhood with less purchasing power if this person has searched several times for “Ferrari”, “Audi”, etc.
STEP 6 – Use extensions for your ad groups
Ad extensions are another way to optimize our CTR and the quality level of our ad group since Google takes them into account in its ranking.
We may use the extensions at the account, campaign, and ad group level.
However, we should not go crazy putting all the extensionsin. Imagine that you want to sell your product to all of Spain and put in geographical location only Madrid, maybe we lose customers because they think we do not sell to the rest of Spain.
Below we will list all the options we have to optimize the campaign in Google Ads:
- Featured text extensions: One of the most useful extensions when you want to highlight, for example, the main benefits of your product or service.
- Sitelink extensions: We use this extension when we want that, apart from the main url that you have put for your ad group, we also want some link to other parts of your website to appear as “contact”. This extension is very useful when you have several pages on the web related to the main keyword.
- Geo-location extensions: Very useful when we are heading to a very specific market in which the location of the business is taken into account for possible shipments of the product or others.
- Affiliate Location Extensions: This extension is one of the least we can use since it serves especially for department stores and / or manufacturers that sell their products to other stores. Thanks to this extension we will be able to show potential buyers of the product where they can acquire it physically.
- Review Extensions: These types of extensions are not easy to get since you need the prior authorization of google to be displayed. In addition, reviews cannot be ours or be more than 1 year old. They considerably increase the CTR if you get them and, with it, the level of quality will increase.
- Call extensions: The most useful extension,in our opinion, for urgent service companies. You can set it to appear only on mobile, desktop, or all of them. With this you will get a safe call in the case that we have mentioned. If this is not your case, this extension is still equally useful and its use will be more important the higher the price of the product or service offered or its complexity.
- Application extensions: If your company is or has an app,with this we will get a greater promotion and installation of the application.
- Site Extract Extensions: Important when you want to show different products of the company to raise the chance that someone will click on our ad by cross-selling.
- Message extension: It has a utility similar to the call extension only in this case what they send you is an email or sms.
- Price extension: If our company has better prices than the competition,this extension is for you, especially when the price of the product is very important in the user’s purchase decision. Use it and you will see how your conversions in that account are improving.
- Promotion extension: For special dates such as Blackfriday. It allows you to put special prices for these dates making our ad more clickable and thereby increasing the expected CTR which results in an optimization of the campaign or ad group thanks to the increase in the level of quality.
STEP 7 – Create, optimize and start again
Once you have followed the previous steps, we will recreate new ad groups segmenting even more but above all optimizing everything already created.
The optimization of a campaign in SEM is critical and will be a spherning for our account if we do not perform it well.
To do this, our recommendation is that review every few days the different aspects of our campaigns such as keywords, new word opportunities within search terms, in the Adwords keyword planner, texts in ads… With this we will be able to adjust better and better the ad groups and the quality of the words themselves.
If our traffic comes by mobile, a good strategy would be to raise the bid for these devices by a little percent.
Keep an eye on the CTR, expected CTR, experience on the page, among others, to increase the level of quality to the account.
General conclusions about the management of our Google Ads accounts
Finally, it is best to adapt each of the steps of this guide to each specific case.
Managing and optimizing an account is never easy and the time we dedicate to it has to be of quality and knowing what we do since a point of more or a comma of less can make us spend in an afternoon the entire budget of the month … At the very least.
Our final recommendation is that you perform the optimization almost every day, keep the ads updated and avoid sudden changes in the bids or in the budget per day but, above all, that you mime the results since without analytics you will not have a correct management.
