Google Ads: 5 Best Practices

Running Google ads the right way can in no doubt get you a higher ROI. But have you exhausted the platform yet? Running ads on Google is best if you have a product or service people are looking for specifically. Like furniture, a yoga retreat, or clothing. It is a search-driven platform, and when using it the right way it can get you lots of prospects. 

These are my 5 best practices for using Google Ads.  

1.    Organise your campaigns.  

I can’t stress this enough. Structuring campaigns and having a solid foundation for them is key to build up a Google ads account.  

Your Google ads account is set up in a certain way. First, you have your account.Witin your account you can have multiple ads accounts in one (if you run ads for multiple businesses for example). From one of these accounts you set-up your campaigns. This is the overall ‘group’ you are going to use. Eg: Furniture. Below this will be your ad groups. See this as a sub-category like tables, desks, or chairs. From there you will write your actual ads and you will be able to put in your keywords.

Using your website as a reference can be a useful tool to structure and build your ads. The organization of your ads is the key to understand your data! 

2.1     Keyword Research 

When I look at Google ads, I believe that keywords are the highest element of influence that Google ads has to offer. It is essential that you know how to use them in the right way. There is a long list of things you can do with keywords and how to optimize them, but I am going to give you the most important ones.

First of all, knowing which keywords you should use for each ad;  

Looking back at our hierarchy chart, you can see we have different ad groups with different ads in there. Every ad should have its own set of keywords. How do you know which keywords you should use? Do your own research. There are many tools out there that offer keyword research. Some are free, some are paid. Here are a few of my favorites.

Google search bar: Yes, just type in the google search bar and see what will come up. This way you know what is searched for and what is not.  

What can I make out of this search? 

First of all, people search a lot for working tables/desks for at home and at the office. There is also a competitor shown in the search bar (home depot) Based on this information I can filter out my keywords and use them optimally. You can also go to the bottom and look for related searches. This will give you even more possible keywords to use. 

Take a look at competitor websites. We just saw that Home Depot is one of our competitors. By looking at their website and the way they organize their search menu you can get inspiration out of this. 

Lastly, these are some websites that are useful for keyword research: 
Finding related searches for keywords: Ubersuggest.com  
Finding competitors: Similarweb.com  

Tip: use excel to start organizing your keywords! 

2.2 Keyword optimization 

Now for the optimization part. Every keyword can be seen as its own individual part in the ad. So, every keyword can be optimized in different ways. For example: 

Use the Google keyword planner! It is essential when you want to optimize and structure your keywords! What does it do? It shows the research volume trends, it can predict clickthrough rates and suggests a bid for the keywords. Of course, you need to look at it from your own perspective, but it is a good start when looking for optimization ideas.

Overall, look at trends in your ads. Which keyword has been triggered the most and which one the least? It is all about consistency and organization.  

3.     Optimising: Use hourly reports to see when your ads perform best 

You have the option to look at hourly reports to check your performance on your google ads. When you see a certain pattern, you can easily adjust your settings to show certain ads at a certain time. You can even check your keyword's hourly reports and lower the bid or higher the bid on certain hours or days. You can really dive deep into this. When sticking to the facts and search for the data, it will reduce cost, increase clicks and quality scores.  

4.    Optimise your quality score! 

You might want to know, when do my ads show up? How is this determined, why is my ad showing up for one person and not for the other? This is all has to do with the Google ads auction. Every time someone searches for something on Google there is an auction behind the platform in which ads will battle for the highest spot on the search list. How is this determined? There are 2 things the google auction looks at; Max CPC (cost per click), and relevance (quality score). This means when you invest a lot of money on 1 keyword and landing page is relevant to your ad, you are most likely to come high up the ladder. But when the relevance (quality score) is low, it won’t matter how much you bid, it will become less likely to show up on someone’s search page.  

The quality score is divided into 3 elements: Expected CTR (click-through rate), ad relevance, and landing page experience. When all those elements are optimal your quality score can reach at most a 10 (this is optimal). This is however not a realistic view. So, try to aim for a 7 in quality at least!  

The quality score is there because Google wants to be relevant for the people who search through their platform. This only makes sense because if the searchers are not happy with Google, they won’t come back. This is why quality score, aka the relevance, is most important.  

How do you make sure this is optimal? Make sure your landing page matches the requirements of the search. So, when looking for a wooden desk, make sure the searcher lands on a page that offers wooden desks. 

So always keep this in mind when setting up your ads! It will save you a lot of money.  

Tip: don’t overdo it, people still like some of the experience of searching for what they want.  

5.    Copy is key! 

Your ad would not be complete without a good ad copy. This includes writing headlines, sub-headlines and extensions (the features you can add in your ad, like the phone number or benefits of your company)

There are a limited number of characters for this, so you have to be clever on how to write down the message you want to convey.

Here are my tips:  

• Include keywords you will add to your ad. This will make the relevance (quality score) of your ads higher

• Don’t write boring everyday headlines, make it fun and add some humor into this. People will see that you put in the effort.

• What would your customer like to hear? What are they looking for? Use your empathy.

• Don’t overcomplicate things. Write simple headlines so a 7-year-old could understand them.

• Asking a question can help. It will put people into action mode.

Google ads is a huge platform. These tips were only a fraction of the possibilities within the platform and there are always ways for you to improve. This is why it’s important to set a limit on your daily usage of it and not get swooped into it. Be smart but have boundaries.  

Want to know more about Google ads? E-mail me at floor@floordigital.co to get a free consultation call.