Can you imagine that digital marketing was still in its infancy only a decade ago? The evolution of advertising has experienced major milestones over the years, more and more businesses expand their brand presence and boost their sales through marketing channels from offline like TV, billboard, newspaper, magazine and broadcasting to online such as social media and Google ads.
The main difference between these two types of channels is that online channels have commonly use algorithm and parameter to determine the ranking of your ads or the number of audiences who will see your ads.
Take Google ads as an example, the benefit is that you spend less money but target customers more precisely. However, some may argue that they have no idea about their poor performance and become less confident in using Google ads. Today, this article will discuss common mistakes people might when running Google ads.
Misuse keyword matches
Keyword match types are essential determinants of triggering your ads. You can use broad match to demonstrate your ads to reach a wide audience or you can use an exact match to target a specific group of customers.
Google keyword match types summaries show the definition and example of four keyword matching types: Broad match, Broad match modifier, phrase match, and Exact match.
Some say “broad match” is a good option because it will deliver more impressions and drive the most traffic, but please remember that it will be more imprecise and cost you more because the keywords people search maybe not a tight fit for your business or the ad.
The value of exact and phrase match is higher than “broad match” when it comes to conversion rate but they will deliver much fewer impressions. This means you may not reach as many audiences as you need to reach.
In a niche market, there are not too many people looking for your products or services, so if you limit search with exact matches, you may lose traffic and exposure of your business. On the other hand, if you use too many broad match terms, you may not get a satisfying return on investment on your ad campaign.
The best solution is to test and compare your matches to find which works well for your business. We suggest people start from using an exact match and then expand to phrase match and broad match as needed. Another method you can refer to is cascading bids which mean setting the lowest bids for broad match keywords, the highest bids for exact match keywords, and bids in the middle for phrase match keywords as below:
Use negative keywords in Google ads
If you are providing training for small business, the keywords in your Google ads may include “start a small business”, “small business training” but you may want to exclude “free” or “free training” from your ads as you would not want waste money on clicks appealing to consumers who want to have free training.
Keyword Planner in Google is a good tool to start, you can use it to get search volume forecasts of keywords you may want to add or exclude to your account. After finding the terms you want to exclude, you need to decide how to exclude them in terms of match types.
If you want to exclude a complete one term, you can exclude it as an exact match. If you want to exclude a term only in a certain context, then you would choose phrase match. If you want to exclude a certain term with any combination of words, you can exclude it as broad match.
Lack of ad extensions and call to action
Ad extensions can help your customers quickly browse your website and make a decision on whether they will click on your Google ads or not. Sometimes they even take actions without linking to your websites.
Another obvious benefit is that the more ad extensions you use, the greater visibility and prominence of your ads will be shown on the search results page. This will enhance the possibility of your ads being clicked. It is a good idea of being familiar with different types of ad extension as listed below:
Adding proper ad extensions, your consumers may contact you straight away without browsing your website if they are interested in your product or service. This means the right ad extensions will ultimately help you get a rapid conversion, so always ensure you use the right ones as the wrong ad extensions would not appeal to your users. Below shows the example of using call and sitelinks extensions.
Apart from ad extensions, a compelling ad copy is like writing headlines of a blog post. It is better to try on writing and testing different ad copies to see which one works the best for you. Additionally, if you want to write an enticing ad copy, adding call-to-action (CTA) is a good option. Below is a good example as it used the entire ad copy as an opportunity to showcase their CTA. It persuades your customers to take actions from the beginning, giving you plenty of reason to do so, like get free samples and free worldwide shipping.
People need to review the performance of their Google ads periodically, it cannot be run solely without timely adjustment and revision. Get the most of your Google ads optimisation opportunities, contact WeBoost today!