3 Mistakes You’re Making With AdWords

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Mistakes-you-commit-in-Google- Adwords

Google AdWords is an excellent tool, developed to help individuals and businesses advertise online on one of the world’s most ubiquitous search engines, Google. Cost flexible, versatile and powerful, AdWords can help you whether you’re a multinational company with thousands of employees or a small start up with three. However, what people often forget is that, at the end of the day, it’s just a tool, not a magic lamp with a genie who’ll pop out and fulfill all your advertising objectives ( Makes you wish that existed though, doesn’t it?). But anyway, returning to the point, like any other tool, you have to know how to use AdWords effectively to gain real results and maximum value for your hard-earned money.

We’ve come up with a list of mistakes everyone using AdWords has probably made at some point and most importantly, how to fix them. Before I digress further into a full fledged discussion of advertising genies (I’m thinking he’d have a little moustache, you know? What is a genie, really, without a pointy little moustache?), here’s the list-

1. Trying to Interest Everybody

 Adwords-AdvertisingYou’re probably thinking,”What? Of course I’m supposed to try to get everybody interested in my product! Shouldn’t I try to reach the largest possible audience with my ad?” Surprisingly, the answer to this is no.Google’s default settings will let you gain maximum reach and get the most clicks possible on your ad but you’re not just trying to get clicks, are you? You’d like the people who click on your ad to take some action and actually buy your product. Most of the people who click on your ad with settings that allow such a wide audience will not follow through and you’ll be left with a lackluster ROI, wondering why your sales aren’t improving as much as they should.

 That’s alright, but what can I do ?

Narrow your audience down to people actually interested in your product- relevance trumps quantity. Switch from broad match (where Google attempts to match against the highest number of queries) to modified broad, allowing only users who search for specific keywords to see your ad and filter out pointless clicks. For example, if you have a pizza store with no delivery system in place, you’ll filter out queries that ask for “pizza recipes”, “pizza ingredients” or “pizza delivery” and target your ideal audience (I figure prominently in this category. If you do indeed have a pizza restaurant within 50 miles of my location,you’ve just acquired a new best friend).

Also, make use of negative keywords. As the name suggests, these are keywords that you list for Google to stop your ad from turning up when someone searches for these terms. So, if you include “recipe” in your negative keyword list, Google doesn’t show your ad, reducing the number of pointless clicks that will probably never convert. “That’s all very well,” you’re thinking,” But how am I to find out what negative keywords I should use?”

That’s where we step in. We don’t have a genie (yet) but our killer keyword lists might just fool you into believing we do.

2. Bidding the Same for All Times of the Day/Week

Advertising-on-timeAn astonishing percentage of AdWords users neglect to adjust their settings to target specific audiences at specific times. For example, if your pizza store is shut on Thursday, you might want your ad to show up less on Thursdays. A pizza lover looking to stuff his face with pizza might, upon finding your website, salivate at their desk, thinking longingly of the perfect pizza with juicy, succulent chicken afloat a sea of bubbling cheese and then drown in crushing disappointment at the realization that your restaurant will not be open for another agonizing 24 hours. Not only do you cruelly dash the hopes of pizza lovers across town to the ground, you also spend more than you need to on your AdWords campaign.

That’s alright, but what can I do?

Well, let’s start with the obvious- if your pizza store is shut on Thursday, why not consider bidding less for that particular day? Your ad shows up less on that particular day and you have a little more capital you can invest in your business.

Taking this a step further, research shows that individuals in search of pizza are likely to feel their insatiable pizza-craving at certain times of the day more than others ( Much like tendencies to sprout fur and fangs and transform into a massive werewolf, a hunger for pizza too is stimulated by the full moon. Relax, I’m joking...or am I?) Jokes aside, you might, therefore, profit by bidding more on keywords for these times of the day so that your ads show up more frequently, allowing the ad to reach more potential customers.

We, at releaseMyAd, can help you with research on optimal pizza eating times (among other things), deciding when you should bid less and when you should bid more, customizing your ads and much more, so you can get your pizza (or other products) to your customers, no matter when or where they want it.

3. Not Having Specific Landing Pages that can Seal the Deal

Targeted-AdvertisingAlright, so you’ve got yourself an amazing keyword list and a hungry customer, who cannot wait to come to your restaurant and devour pizza by the plate, has clicked on your ad. What now? Your call-to-action button says “Click here to see our locations!” and the customer clicks happily, only to find himself on the homepage, lost amongst a sea of colorful pictures of pizza (there are worse places to be lost, I’ll give you that) and buttons and what not. He loses interest after having to navigate through your entire site and he goes off to the pizza guys next door, the ones you hate.

That’s alright but what can I do?

Now, your website might be fascinating but it pays to send customers to specific landing pages that are linked to specific calls to action. If your call to action says “Click here to see our locations”, send them to the Locations page. Similarly, if your CTA says “Click here to see our delicious menus!”, they’ll probably want to go to the Menus page. In short, make it easy for your customers to pick you- the less the effort they’re required to put in, the more pizzas you’ll sell. As simple as that.

Also, with different landing pages linked to different keywords, you can enable conversion tracking to gauge in a simple step which keywords are working best for you.

At releaseMyAd, we can help you with conversion tracking, setting up landing pages and anything else you might need to make your business the next big thing.

If you’ve been reading this article, shaking your head and thinking to yourself, “Yes, yes but what if I don’t even have a website yet  ?”, we have news for you too. If you sign up with us for an AdWords campaign, along with all our other services, we’ll create a website suited perfectly to your needs for free. (A slice or two of pizza, if you do own a pizza store, would not come amiss though).Call us on:09830688443 or email at online@releasemyad.com.

Author Bio: Sukanya Datta Ray is an intern at releaseMyAd.com where she writes a lot of emails and daydreams about pizza, among other things, at her desk. She’s studying English at Smith College, USA and during her time with us, has helped us extensively with our AdWords accounts, gaining a lot of insight into the world of online advertising.