I wish I had this list when I was just
getting started with Google AdWords… It would have prevented countless
early mistakes that cost me a lot of time and money.
The reality is that Google AdWords is a
big, hairy beast of a platform and it’s nearly impossible to set
everything up correctly unless you follow a step-by-step guide or a checklist.
To make matters worse, AdWords is unforgiving. Small mistakes like
using default settings can end up costing you hundreds or even thousands
down the road.
That’s why today I’m publishing a list of
questions you need to answer to ensure you’re not missing any important
details. Whether you’re just about to go live with your ads or they’ve
been running for years, walk through the questions below to see if
there’s any room for improvement.
1. Are you targeting buying-intent keywords?
One of the biggest mistakes with AdWords
advertising is targeting research-intent keywords. When prospects are
doing research, then they aren’t ready to make a purchase so the vast
majority of your ad budget will be wasted when you target
research-intent keywords.
Instead, focus on buying-intent keywords where you know the prospect is searching in Google in order to make a purchase.
2. Are your keywords grouped into Ad Groups of similar phrases?
The purpose of organizing your keywords
into Ad Groups is not to make your campaign look neat and tidy. Keyword
organization actually plays a critical role in an AdWords campaign
because every keyword in a particular Ad Group will use the same ad
copy. That means if you have many different keywords in the same Ad
Group, then your ad copy will not make sense for all of them (unless of
course you draft a boring, generic ad, but you know that’s not going to
work).
3. Are your keywords Broad Match, Phrase, or Exact?
By default AdWords will set your keywords to broad match. That means your ads will be displayed on any keyword
AdWords considers relevant to your keyword. Did you know that? You
would assume if you add the keyword “leather journal” that your ads
would only display when someone searches “leather journal.” But that’s
not the case unless you use the Exact match type!
Phrase match keywords allows AdWords to
display your ads for any search that includes your keyword phrase.
Clearly, it’s important to review your match types to make sure you’re
ads are displaying on the right keywords.
4. Are there any negative keywords?
Unless every keyword is using Exact match
type, you’ll need to add negative keywords. Negative keywords specify
words or phrases that you do not want to target with your ads. For
example, if you add “free” as a negative keyword, then your ads would
not display for searches that include the word “free.”
5. Are your ads 100% relevant for all the keywords in the Ad Group?
This is marketing 101 – match your message
to the market. If your prospect is searching for a “leather journal”
then your ads should focus on your leather journal products. As
mentioned in question #2, your keyword organization plays an important
role in whether or not your ads will all be 100% relevant. First,
organize your ads into Ad Groups of similar phrases and then you’ll be
able to draft ads that closely match your keywords.
6. Is the core keyword used in your ad copy?
This should be fairly obvious after the
previous question, but it’s worth clarifying. Review your ads and make
sure the core keyword phrase that you’re targeting in the Ad Group is in
at least one of your ads. This will help your relevance score, which
leads to a higher AdWords Quality Score, and it tends to also increase
your ad click-through rates.
7. Do your ads include a compelling offer and call to action?
Search in Google for your target keywords
to see what your competitors are offering. Then put yourself in your
prospects shoes and honestly consider which ad you would click on based
purely on the ad copy. Would you really click on your ad or would you
click on one of the other more compelling offers? If you struggle with
that question then chances are good your prospects are not going to find
your ads compelling either.
8. Are All appropriate ad extensions set up?
This one is easy. Simply check to see if all of the following ad extensions are set up:
- Location
- Call
- Sitelink
- Callout
- Structured Snippet
- Review
In some cases, one of the above will not
make sense for your business, but whenever possible set them all up. Ad
extensions tend to increase your click-through rate, which leads to
higher Quality Scores, which leads to better ad position for less cost.
9. Is your landing page 100% relevant for the keywords and ads?
First of all, are you advertising to your
homepage? If yes, then create a dedicated landing page ASAP. Even if
it’s a duplicate of your homepage, it’s important to have a dedicated
landing page because you need the freedom to make edits to improve
conversion rates. Plus, your homepage is rarely the most relevant page
for all of your keywords.
10. Does the offer on the landing page match the offer in the ads?
Often when I review an ad campaign I’ll notice one of two things:
-
The offer promised in the ad is nowhere to be found on the landing page
- The offer on the landing page does not match the offer promised in the ad
Both cases will hurt sales conversions, but they are easy to fix.
11. Do you have separate Search vs. Display campaigns?
This is another easy one to answer. Check
to see if any of your campaigns are targeting both the Search and the
Display network. Each network behaves quite differently and requires a separate campaign to properly optimize your ads.
12. Are you targeting mobile traffic with a mobile landing page?
We all know more and more prospects are
turning to mobile to surf around, and even buy online. That’s why
AdWords by default will enable all of your ads to target mobile devices.
The problem is that many businesses do not
have mobile friendly websites. That means you may be spending precious
ad dollars to send prospects to a website that is nearly unusable on a
mobile device! To prevent this, make sure you turn off mobile targeting
until you have mobile friendly landing pages.
13. Is all the appropriate conversion tracking setup?
Finally, this list would not be complete if
we didn’t touch on conversion tracking. Even the best set up campaign
will need ongoing tweaks to keep the ads running smoothly and
profitably. That means you must set up conversion tracking. Without
tracking there is simply no way to optimize your ad campaign because
you’ll be flying blind. Here’s the list of all the conversion tracking
you should set up:
-
Webform conversion tracking to measure how many forms are submitted on your website as a result of your ads
-
Website call conversion tracking to measure how many phone calls are generated from your website as a result of your ads
-
Ad call conversion tracking to measure how many phone calls are generated from the number displayed on your ads
- GCLID conversion tracking to measure offline sales (phone calls or in-person sales) generated as a result of your ads
Congratulations! By making it this far you
now know how to ensure your AdWords campaign is set up properly. The
next step is to take action and fix any issues that may have been
highlighted by walking through the 13 questions above.
If you’re feeling stuck, overwhelmed, or simply don’t have the time, Let us know or comment below with your questions.
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