Even if you’re a newbie to marketing, chances are you have heard about Google Ads at least once. Whether it’s while watching videos on YouTube or just searching the web.
Remember those top search results on Google that have a little Ad tag next to it?
Today, Google Ads is one of the most accessible and effective advertising tools you can use to put your brand in front of your target audience.
If you’re wondering why that’s the case, 91.88% of all searches online are done through Google. This opens up a literal world of opportunities to sell your product or service.
That said, navigating through the Google Ads setup process, maximising your reach, and lowering your ad spend can be a pretty complex task if you’re unfamiliar with the platform—but even experienced marketers make mistakes all the time.
So let’s look at some of the most common mistakes you can make with Google Ads and how you can avoid them.
If you’re unfamiliar with Google Ads, here’s a quick overview of what it can do for you.
Google Ads can help you reach your target audience when they search for something similar to what you’re offering.
Compared to traditional advertising methods, Google Ads can give you a wider reach at a much lower cost.
In addition, you can choose the type of ads you want to run. You have a few different options, including Search, Display, Video, Shopping, App, and Performance Max ads.
All you need to do is choose what you want to achieve with the ads, select the type of ad campaign, set a daily budget and per ad cost, pick the audience and target keywords, and give the content for the ads. Google will take care of the rest.
1. Not choosing the right conversion tracking option
Conversion tracking is how you track the success of your Google Ads campaigns. You need to select a conversion tracking method when you’re choosing your goal for the ads.
For instance, if your goal is to improve sales, you need to set up conversion tracking that tracks the buy action on your website. How you can track conversions is a topic for another day.
The common mistake many people make is that they track the wrong metrics for their selected goal, which can impact the reliability of the tracked results, which in turn, will leave you in the dark about the success of your campaign.
2. Not utilising the correct keywords
Most of the time, Google shows ads based on what a person is searching for. For instance, let’s assume you sell shoes. If someone searches for running shoes, Google will serve your ad.
But to show up in the search results, the ad must be optimised for the keyword. In simple terms, you should tell Google to show your ads when someone searches for running shoes.
If you don’t do that, then you’ll miss out on opportunities to market your products.
3. Not selecting the correct target audience
Similar to keywords, selecting the right target audience is very important. If we borrow our previous example, you can choose athletes, runners, and fitness enthusiasts as your target audience when advertising running shoes.
You can also target audiences from a specific geographical location. If you can only deliver your products to a certain geographical location, you don’t want your ads to be shown when people outside that location search for running shoes.
4. Not using the correct number of ads
Another common misconception many new Google Ads users have is that they think setting up one ad is enough to get the results they want. But this is hardly the case.
You can segment your ads into several ad groups. In simple terms, you can choose to show different ads to different segments of your target audience. But that’s not it, you can further customise the ads by running multiple ads for each ad group. Google recommends having at least 3 ads per ad group for the best results.
This way, Google will pick the best-performing ads and show them to Google users.
While Google Ads is very accessible, it’s also very easy to undermine your campaigns by making the common mistakes we’ve listed above.
Be diligent when you’re setting up your ads campaigns so you don’t make these mistakes. The fewer the mistakes, the easier it will be to hit your goals.
If you’re still unsure about setting up your campaigns, Seeda can help you. Get in touch to learn how.