6 Adwords Tips to Maximize Your Campaigns for 2017

This month I've heard a lot about New Year's resolutions and goals for 2017. For businesses using Google AdWords, those resolutions include something about maximizing their ad budgets to ensure a strong ROI.

Here are 6 tips from our AdWords analysts to maximize your campaigns this year. 

Tip #1: Say No to Broad Matching

According to Google, Broad Match "lets a keyword trigger your ad to show whenever someone searches for that phrase, similar phrases, singular or plural forms, misspellings, synonyms, stemmings (such as floor and flooring), related searches, and other relevant variations." While using broad match may enable your ad campaign to show up for more keywords, they may not be the keywords that really convert for your business.

Jane recommends only using Broad Match Modified if you are experienced and have tested your target keywords well.

AdWords provides multiple keyword match types: Exact, Phrase and Broad Match. You should always use Exact and Phrase match in your AdWords account. To get more reach, use Broad Match Modified (not Broad Match). Broad Match Modified can be identified by the + sign in your account.

Here are examples of the different keyword match types:

• Exact Match looks like this: [Adwords ROI]
• Phrase Match looks like this: "Adwords ROI"
• Broad Match looks like this: Adwords ROI
• Broad Match Modified looks like this: +Adwords +ROI

Staying away from Broad Match allows you to conserve budget until you are sure which terms convert well for your business.

Tip #2: Give Top Keywords Ample Budget

Once you have an idea of what keywords convert best for your business, it's important to make sure that your budget is being spent to support those keywords.

While you want to leave some budget to be spent on testing new keywords, it's a good idea to manage your top converting keywords by putting them in their own campaign. Then, you can dedicate the majority of your budget to flow to that campaign so you're investing in what works. This will ensure your ad spend is directed at the keywords that will perform best for your business.

Tip #3: Separate Search and Display Campaigns

Although AdWords offers the option to combine both (search network with display select), it's usually best to run these tactics separately.

There is a lot of variation between search and display performance for most accounts, so by keeping them separate you can better control budgets. When you set up a new campaign, based on what you're trying to target, make sure you choose "search network only" or "display network only."

Tip #4: Always Use Negative Keywords

Adding keywords that are irrelevant to your business as negatives can be just as beneficial as the keywords you're bidding on.

Negative keywords help reduce the amount of times your ad is served on irrelevant queries. For instance, if you run a dental practice that offers root canals, and you're bidding on keywords related to root canals, you don't want your ad to show for someone searching for "root canal malpractice".

Negatives are particularly important when running Phrase, Broad, and Broad Modified match types. You can always see the actual searches that trigger your ads by going to your keywords tab and clicking on the "search terms" button. If any searches show up in that report that you don't want to be advertising on, then add them to the negative keyword list.

Tip #5: Include Ad Extensions to Your Campaigns

Aside from the benefit of adding relevant information about your business, ad extensions work to improve overall metrics. Adding extensions can increase your click through rate, improve your quality score and even make your ads stand out from the crowd.

According to Google, accounts that include at least one ad extension see an average of 10-15% increase in click-through-rate.

You can manually add extensions like sitelinks and click-to-message to improve relevance and lead submissions. Sometimes, Google will include automatic extensions to your ad based on the information it pulls from your AdWords account.

Tip #6: Run Responsive Display Ads

Google recently introduced responsive display ads to replace regular display ads. The main difference between the two is that you no longer need several image ads (or banners ads) to set up a display or remarketing campaign. Instead, you just need to upload an image, a headline, and your destination URL.

The image will automatically adjust its size, appearance, and format to fit any available ad space. This means, your ad can show in a native, dynamic text or image format in any size, on any website with ad space. This new ad format most importantly increases your reach and saves you time with setup.