Google Adwords Performance

10 Easy Ways to Improve Your Google Adwords Performance

You’ll be surprised to know how many businesses continue wasting money on underperforming Adwords campaigns when they can do so much better. Still, the owners are satisfied because they are making some profits after covering the cost of advertising. Probably that’s why Adwords has an average bounce-back rate of 70% to 90% for lead generation pages and 95% to 97% for sales pages.

Improving Adwords Quality Score and Ad Rank

Quality Score and Ad Rank are two rather confusing Google metrics that determine the following:

  • Ad auction eligibility –  whether your Ad is eligible to be displayed, and the amount you bid
  • Actual Cost-per-Click – Higher the Quality Score, lower the CPC; even a small reduction in CPC can deliver big savings
  • Ad Position – Better quality Ads, with a better Ad Rank, appear higher on the page

Also, a higher quality Ad can appear at first-page and top-of-page positions for lower bids. You can check the Quality Score for each of your keywords in GA, provided you’ve run PPC campaigns before.

#1. Select the Right Keywords

Go back to your Adwords Keyword Planner and brainstorm more keywords that are relevant to your business. Researching these keywords will reveal many other search terms that people use to search for similar businesses. Spend some time thinking about each of your keywords and eliminate the ones that are not relevant to your business. The right keywords will match the customer intent while correctly representing your business or product.

#2. Use Adwords AdGroups

Many companies we work with do the mistake of dumping all their keywords in a single AdGroup. You should first organize your keywords to match different customer segments. For example, if you’re selling wedding flowers and birthday flowers, the keywords related to both the products should go into separate AdGroups. This will improve your targeting, and hence, your CTRs and conversions will go up.

#3. Include Your Main Keywords in Your Ad’s Text

Including the main keyword of each AdGroup in the text of your Ad improves your quality score and makes your Ad more relevant to the customer searching with that particular keyword.

#4. Have Separate Landing Pages for Each AdGroup

A component of the Quality Score measures the user experience on your landing page. Sending the traffic from a particular AdGroup to a dedicated landing page targeted and optimized for that AdGroup improves the user experience.

#5. Leverage Location Targeting

If you are offering services only in Victoria, Australia, your Ad should not be displayed to a user searching for your keywords in Sydney, or you’ll be wasting a lot of money.

Post Launch Campaign Optimization

AdWords Quality Score is not something you can improve in a single campaign. You’ll need to monitor your campaigns after launch and make the necessary adjustments to keep improving your ROI. Take these steps to stay on top of your AdWords campaigns.

#6. Use Google Analytics and Call Tracking

GA is a must have before you start running PPC advertising. Keep a close eye on your CTR, conversions and how your different keywords and Ads are performing. Use a call tracking software if you are expecting people to call you after seeing your Ad or going to your website.

#7. Look Out for Bad Keywords

Track your campaign every day and pause the keywords that are not performing as well as the others. You’ll know a keyword is no good if it is driving traffic, but not conversions, or if it is sending you traffic with a high bounce rate.

#8. Increase Your Bid for Keywords with Low CTR

If you have some high converting keywords that have a low CTR, it may be because your Ad is not appearing on top of the page. You can adjust your bid for such keywords and see if the CTR goes up.

#9. Conduct A/B Split Testing

Testing can boost the CTR and conversions by as much as 200% to 300% or even more. You should always test two different versions of an Ad and see which one is performing better over a period of a few days or weeks. When you have identified the winner, get rid of the loser and make a new variation with the aim to further improve the performance.

#10. Change High Performing Keywords to Broad Match

If some of your keywords are consistently driving you quality traffic and conversions, you can try changing the match type from exact match to broad match. Your Ad will be shown for more search queries and you can start getting more traffic for the better performing keywords.

Conclusion

Adwords is something most businesses use quite often. Even a small decrease in CPC or a minor increase in CTR and conversions can have big cumulative effects over a few years. A company that earns more revenue for each dollar spent on Adwords is more competitive and will emerge as the winner in the long run.