How to avoid paying Google’s ‘stupidity tax’, and create better ROI

Do you use Google Ads? If you do, you are probably paying ‘Googles stupidity tax’ without realising! 

Google is an intuitive platform that makes it easy to be able to create and publish ads. The ease at which this can be done is both a good and bad thing. 

Mistakes are easily made, as Google makes it very easy to publish ads, they also make it very easy to make costly mistakes. 

Google is not there to save you; the business owner; money. Google is there to serve the searcher, giving them the most relevant and up to date content as possible.

Therefore if you are targeting the wrong customer, the wrong keyword match types, or the wrong network, you could be facing a very steep price. 

Set up your account properly

If your Adwords is set up properly then you should face no issues. Have a look at the steps below to ensure you are making the correct moves. 

1. Define your customer. What are you selling and who is buying it? Have a good idea of the type of person that would be interested in your product/service.
2. Create a list of keywords. The keywords you use should reflect your users thinking. Try using tools like Google Keyword Planner for more help. 
3. Choose the right network. If you are running ads on Google directly, you will want to choose the ‘search network’ option. If your running a display, shopping, or Youtube campaign, choose accordingly.
4. Location, location, location. Choose a predetermined location or create a custom location. 
5. Set a schedule. Depends on what your selling, but it may be more efficient to only run your ads at certain times.
6. Choose devices. Use your analytics and see what devices people use the most often to access your site. If it is a campaign to download an app, target mobile. Be clever with this one. 
7. Bid strategy and daily budget. Start with manual CPC. This allows you full control, enabling you to adjust your budget as needed. 

Start with a low daily budget

£5-£10 a day will allow you to get your bearings on what to expect with a low amount of funding. This amount allows you to make mistakes safely. Change the parameters a little, see what has the best ROI then increase the budget from there. 

Google will try to ‘help’ and make assumptions if you haven’t set up the account properly. Not being thorough is a great way to accumulate big costs in clicks with zero leads. 

Keywords & Negative Keywords

If you followed step #2 on the account set up, you should be in good stead for this one. When setting up your keywords for an ad group they need to be structured and themed. Inexperienced advertisers fall over here, for example:

Affordable bicycles 

Best bicycle for mountain biking

Best place to buy a bicycle 

Bicycle repairs

A better example would be this:

Best bicycle deals today

Best bicycle for the price

Best mountain bicycle for sale 

Best bicycle repairs

A tightly themed list of keywords that are relevant and themed are much more effective.

A negative keyword is one that prevents your ad from being shown through the use of a certain keyword or phrase. This is known as a negative match, and can be useful if you don’t want your ad to be shown inappropriately. 

Broad match, Phrase Match, & Exact Match

Broad match Ads may show on searches that relate to your keyword, this can include searches that don’t contain the keyword but ones that have similar meaning. Broad match is the default type keyword, and will ensure that your phrase is spread across as many channels as possible. 

Phrase Match Ads show searches that include the meaning of your keyword. For example, if you search ‘Baseball Glove’, the ad may show searches for: ‘equipment for baseball’ and ’Yankees Baseball Glove’. The Ad would not show for searches like: ‘Baseball bat and baseball glove’. 

Exact match ads will only show on searches that have the same meaning or intent of the keyword. This gives you the most control over your ad although it will be seen by a smaller audience. If the phrase does not exactly match the keyword, the ad will not be seen. 

Come up with some cracking copy

Use the keywords to create some copy for a compelling ad. These ad groups should be entirely focussed on one idea, product or service. So having tight keyword groups helps here. 

Test and refine

Use your analytics as a guide. Test your ads, budget, keywords, and landing pages once a week. Refine your content and your offers too. 

The longer you are in the game, the easier it gets. So start with a small budget, figure it out, then expand outwards.

Fancy a chat? Click the link below to talk anything marketing.

https://meetings.hubspot.com/jacob-vint/

Cheers, 

Jacob