Improving
Google Ad performance
Learn Google Ads in five steps
Step five - improvements
Whilst there are various optimisations which can help improve Google Ads performance, many people make too many changes too quickly. If a new campaign has just started try to allow seven days before making major changes. This allows Google’s AI system to properly assess and learn how and why ads are performing a certain way.
80% of your time in the first couple weeks of a campaign’s life will be looking at the search terms reports to view which keywords are triggering your ads and driving traffic to your website.
If using many broad match keywords, there may be large amounts of irrelevant traffic arriving (which is costing you money for each click). Negative keywords are keywords which you do not want your ads to show for. For example, if your ad is showing for the keyword ‘cheap wool jumpers’ but you sell more premium higher-end clothing, you can add this keyword to the negative keyword list.
A comprehensive negative keyword list is essential when running Search campaigns otherwise you may be driving costly traffic to your website with no benefit. Negative keywords can be even more important than your usual targeted keywords.
Similar to standard keywords, negative keywords can also have match types including broad, phrase and exact match.
To manage negative keyword lists, click ‘Tools and Setting’ > Shared library > Negative keyword lists. You can also view these lists under the Keywords tab within the main interface.
You can also use the Search Terms report at the ad group level to see which queries are driving the most amount of traffic. If similar terms (from your main keyword) have enough volume/clicks, you can separate those terms in to their own ad group to create a more relevant/individual landing page (e.g. keyword is ‘home builder’ and users are entering queries such as ‘single storey home builder’.
Tip
When reviewing the performance of keywords, you can use bid adjustments to bid higher for keywords which are driving more conversions.
Improving quality score:
A key focus on improving campaign performance is to focus on improving the metrics which make up the quality score (ad relevance, landing page experience and expected click-through rate).
Ensuring what your ad promises/promotes and what the landing page delivers are key to ensuring ad relevance.
Consider how long people spend on the landing page – this can be an indication as to their experience. Is there relevant content which they’re spending time reading through or do they leave straight away?
When measuring expected CTR, you need to assess how persuasive your ads are. Do they offer value for a user and a genuine reason to click through or are they plain, boring and the same as all the other ads?
Tip
One of the ultimate goals of Search ads is to bid as low as possible whilst driving as much relevant traffic to your landing page as possible. A high quality score can help outrank competitors even if they are bidding higher for your targeted keywords.
Using other channels to improve
the performance of Google Ads
A smart approach to Google Ads won’t focus on Search or Display ads in isolation but will use each channel within the wider digital strategy to improve overall campaign and ad performance:
How Google Ads can be improved by:
Facebook Ads
Facebook ads can generate a large amount of cheaper traffic (possibly in the awareness stage), who can then be retargeted (using RLSA’s) when they start searching on Google for purchase-intent keywords when they’re further along the buying journey.
Display ads can also be used to reach users who have previously visited the website from a Facebook ad.
You can also look at Facebook ads which have performed better than usual and use this ad copy within Google ad headlines and descriptions. Strong performing targeting options on Facebook (e.g. interests) can also be used when setting up affinity and in-market audiences for Google ads.
SEO
Similar to Facebook ads, the more traffic a website has, the more data Google ads will have for creating retargeting and similar audiences. Creating funnel-specific content (i.e. blog posts for people who are in the consideration phase and deciding between options) can help retarget users who are almost ready to buy.
You can also review top performing content pieces to see if these topics would be suitable for paid campaigns (i.e. users are interested in learning about these kinds of services/products). Winning blog post titles and AIDA copy can be used to create headlines and descriptions for your Google Search ads.
You can use Google Search Console to find keywords people are using to find your site. You may find a keyword where your website has many impressions (i.e. showing in the search results often) but your current rank is on page two or three. You can use Google ads to target this specific relevant keyword to help your website appear at the top of the search results (within the sponsored ads sections).
A major part of SEO is ensuring content on a website is helpful, valuable and useful for users. If Google ads landing pages follow these same SEO principles, your quality score will likely improve due to users being satisfied with what they have found.
Social Media
You can review the demographics (age, gender, location etc) of your organic Social followers to better target Display and Search ads.
If organic posts have performed particularly well, the creative assets (i.e. images) can be used for Display ads whilst copy may be used for Search ads.
Social Media can also act as a secondary platform (beyond your main website) to direct users to. Maybe users feel more comfortable viewing your page and content on Instagram rather than clicking on a sales-driven ad trying to get them to your website.
eDM’s
eDM’s can help deliver large amounts of traffic to your website. This traffic can then be retargeted for future campaigns using both Facebook and Google ads.
Google Ads retargeting lists can also be built around email lists (using the customer match feature). When people are in the early stages of their buying journey, they may sign up to your mailing list. This could be the result of a lead magnet providing valuable insights into a topic when the user is just beginning their search. Once a user reaches the mid and end-funnel stages and starts searching for purchase intent keywords, they can be retargeted with ads from their original signup.
Split testing subject lines, calls-to-action, creatives etc on eDM’s can highlight which options your audience responds best to. These can then be used within headlines and descriptions of Google ads to help boost click-through rates.
Analytics
Google Analytics can be used to find which affinity and in-market audiences website visitors belong to. These audience types can then be targeted with both Display and Search campaigns.
Analytics can also show which devices people are using (mobile, desktop, tablet) to access your site. If you find the majority of traffic is from mobile with little from desktop, you can target only mobile users within Google ads. You can also change bid adjustments to bid more aggressively for users who are on mobile.
Analytics can also show performance data for each campaign including keywords, costs, conversions etc. You can also view how Google ads traffic interacted once on the site – did they stay a while, view multiple pages or leave straight away? If they leave this can indicate users aren’t finding what they thought the ad was offering – this can lead to a lower quality score and higher costs.
You can also use the goal flow report to see how Google ad users are stepping through the conversion process but may be dropping off before completing a signup, purchase etc.
Analytics (more specifically Google Tag Manager) can be used to track more specific Google ad traffic interactions on the website other than standard Analytics goals.
This concludes step five of learning Google Ads (improving campaign results). In the next section (Social Media Marketing), we’ll cover how platform-specific algorithms work across Social channels so you can create content which actually achieves organic reach for your brand.
Learn digital marketing in five steps
