How to optimize your Google Ads campaign?

Creating and optimizing a PPC campaign can seem like a daunting and time-consuming task. It is, but there are ways to help you simplify this process and increase the Clickthrough Rate (CTR), reduce the Cost Per Click (CPC), and get more leads. The very first and most important thing to say is that you should never stop optimizing your PPC campaign. After all, your ads will often require constant monitoring and optimization. The main methods for optimizing your campaign include the following actions –

• Review your keywords
• Use keywords matching
• Set up the right location
• Make A/B testing

Review your keywords

If you get less than a 1% Clickthrough Rate with existing keywords, then you need to change them as soon as possible. When setting up your PPC campaign, you should remember that your primary focus is real people search queries. And you need to analyze – how would you search for the desired service in their place?

Also, since the popularity of search queries is endlessly changing, it will be advisable to use the Wordtracker Keywords tool with Google Insights.

You can select new keywords in an existing Ad Group or create a new one. It may also be useful to create multiple Ad Groups – each of them will have its ad and landing page. 

It will help each of the Ad Groups have more relevant keywords for their landing pages. More relevant ads and landing pages will provide a higher Quality Score, decrease Cost Per Click, and Increase Conversion Rates.

Use keywords matching

Your ad campaign costs are significantly affected by keyword matching. There are three types of keyword matches – exact match, phrase match, and broad match. The AdWords Keyword Estimator Tool allows you to create a ‘bid stack’ and bid on each of these types of keywords. However, you should approach this issue carefully.

An Exact Match means that the user will see your ad only if the exact matching phrase is present in the search request. It is the most profitable type of match, as it eliminates a non-target audience and delivers the best response.

Phrase Match means that your ad will be seen by users who will have a phrase associated with a keyword or a similar variant in their search query. This option is not as good as the previous one, but it is still quite efficient so, you could make a Phrase Match Bid 75% of your Exact Match.

A Broad Match is the least effective since your ad will be seen by all users whose query contains one of the keywords. So, you should bid no more than 25% of your Exact Match.

This approach will allow you to customize your PPC campaign in such a way that your ads will, first of all, appear in the exact match search queries (best keyword searches), and the phrasal and broad match search queries only at a lower price (less important keywords). It will significantly reduce your costs.

Using negative keywords is also extremely helpful. It means that if a user has a specific keyword in a search request, he will not see your ad (even if positive keywords are present in the query). This tool will help to eliminate unnecessary ad impressions.

Set up the right location and schedule

Setting up geolocation for your ads is an outstanding opportunity to focus on people in the area you need, especially if your services or product are location-specific. But the IP address of a person does not always match the location (It can be caused by the widespread use of VPN services). So sometimes it is useful to launch a second campaign with a wide geolocation, but add the “location words” to your keywords.

Setting the ad schedule can also help you increase your Clickthrough Rate.

Make A/B testing

A / B testing means you are running two ad campaigns at the same time. Using this method will help you to find a real working model of an advertising campaign much faster, choose the right keywords, determine the geolocation and schedule of advertising. If you are making A/B testing and change advertising strategies sequentially (not parallelly), in the end, you will spend much more time and money.

It will be enough for you to wait for a moment while your ad gets 200 impressions to understand the correctness of its works. If you get two clicks out of these 200 impressions, then this is a good result, and your Clickthrough Rate is one percent. The higher this indicator is, the better for you.

The Conversion Rate is individual for each business. But if it is less than one percent – this is a great moment to change keywords or match settings, add negative keywords, improve your ad text, and keep testing.

Summary

Creating and optimizing a PPC campaign is not an easy task. However, with the right approach and commitment, this method can significantly increase your Clickthrough Rate and generate new leads. Never stop optimizing your ad campaign – optimize keywords, adjust keyword matches and bids, use different geolocation settings, and never stop experimenting and testing new approaches. The more resources you spend on optimizing your PPC campaign, the more money you will save due to the decrease of Cost Per Click. The 1MDE team has many years of experience in creating and optimizing PPC campaigns. We know how to reduce the costs of your advertising campaign and increase its profitability, and we are always ready to help you with this task.