Like a piece of intricate machinery, a Google Ads account needs regular maintenance. The new year is a great time to review your account to make sure it is running properly. A poorly maintained Ads account will be more expensive to operate and deliver substandard results. The following are some pointers for good account maintenance, guaranteed to improve performance.
Keywords
Starting at the bottom and working up, review your keywords. Are they all Broad Match, with just a few Phrase and Exact Match thrown in? Too many Broad match keywords will lower your Google Ads Quality Score which will lower your ad rank and increase your Cost-per-Click. Broad match keywords tend to have more inadvertent clicks from people not sure what you offer. If you are using Broad match keywords you should have a lot of negative keywords to reduce wasted clicks. Inadvertent clicks increase your Bounce Rate, which again hurts Quality Score, Ad Rank etc. Finally, do you have lots of keywords in one Ad Group? Google recommends 5 – 8 keywords per Ad Group. Less keywords per Group and more Ad Groups will hyper focus your ads and increase Quality Score and Ad Rank, decreasing the CPC. Your budget will go further.
Ads
Step 2 is to check your ads. Do you have multiple ads for each Ad Group? Ideally, you should have at least 3 ads per Ad Group. Try and include your keywords in the headline and description of the ad. This helps Quality Scores. Let the ads run manually to start, to see which have the highest clickthrough rate and best cost-per-conversion before optimizing. Write at least one new ad for each Ad Group every quarter. Include every Ad Extension possible to increase your response rate. Why? You guessed it, to increase Quality Scores, ad rank etc.
The Landing Page
Now look at your Landing Page. Your ads should not be directed to the Homepage of your website. Most homepages talk about all the products or services offered and are too broad in scope. Either use a dedicated Landing page or direct traffic to the page on the site that speaks directly to the product or service in the keywords. The landing page should only speak to the topic of the keywords that generated the click. Pertinent Landing pages will reduce Bounce rate and increase Conversions.
Conversion Tracking
Once all 3 steps are completed move to step 4, review your Conversion Tracking. If there are forms on your site, you should be tracking all form-fills. Similarly, if you have a phone number or call extensions you should be tracking call results. Knowing what keywords and ads are producing the most conversions will allow you to optimize by adjusting your bids and or eliminating poor performing keywords. E-commerce sites will require conversion revenue tracking, allowing revenue data to be recorded for each sale. This allows for optimization and ROI calculation.
Google Ads Maintenance should be performed regularly to maintain your account and keep it running like a finely tuned machine. Ideally, work on a small piece of your campaign every week, so that it does not become a big project. If you need help reviewing your Google Ads account, please click on the link below and we will be glad to schedule a free consultation.
