Avoid common pitfalls that negatively impact Google Search performance with these best practices:
1. Use keywords with > 100 monthly search volume
Keywords with less than 100 monthly search volume see a significant drop in performance.
2. Use unique keywords across campaigns
Overlapping keywords across multiple campaigns creates competition between ads natively and splits performance data which negatively impacts campaign results.
Instead, add short-to-medium keywords that do not overlap.
Example:
Old list | New list |
abm 🚫 | abm pricing ✅ |
abm pricing ✅ | abm calculator ✅ |
abm calculator ✅ | abm software ✅ |
abm pricing calculator 🚫 | |
abm software for fintech saas companies 🚫 |
3. Use a separate budget group
Allow for adequate experimentation and avoid budget cannibalization by creating a separate budget group for search campaigns.
4. Use campaigns to organize your tactics
Stay organized and ensure keyword uniqueness across campaigns by adding target keywords to these campaigns:
- Branded search,
- Non-branded search,
- Competitor search,
- ABM,
- Retargeting.
5. Start with keyword groups
Start with keyword groups for the simplest way to reach your target persona on Google Search, and consider moving high performers to single keywords later.
6. Move high performers to single keywords
If a keyword is performing better relative to other keywords in your ad group (eg, getting higher clicks, higher conversions) and budget seems to be the limiting factor in driving more performance then consider moving the keyword from the keyword group to a single keyword approach.
7. Use Phrase Match with negative keyword lists
Get the most relevant searches without limiting search volume using Phrase Match and up-to-date negative keyword lists.
8. Use Broad Match if you’re layering audiences
Combined with Phrase Match or Exact Match, audiences can significantly limit search volume and negatively impact campaign results.
Maximize search volume when layering audiences by using Broad Match.
9. Use 1x ad per campaign
Adding more than 1x ad creates keyword overlap natively which splits performance data and negatively impacts campaign results.
Instead, use 1x ad with 15x headlines, 4x descriptions and dynamic keywords to find the winning variation.
10. Use 1x offer per campaign
Adding more than 1x offer creates keyword overlap natively which splits performance data and negatively impacts campaign results.
Instead, add 1x landing page offer and use web personalization to find the winning variation.
11. Choose a bidding strategy based on your goals
Lead Generation
Start with Manual Bid to generate enough data (15+ conversions per month) then switch to automated bidding:
- Maximize Conversions if maximizing conversion volume is the priority or,
- Target CPA if reaching a target cost-per-conversion is the priority.
Brand Awareness
- Maximized Clicks if clicks and website engagement is the priority or,
- Impressions if guaranteeing your ads appear for a set percentage of searches is the priority.
12. Use campaign level ad extensions
Increase ad relevancy, improve ad rank and reduce CPC by adding ad extensions at the campaign level.
Add 8 sitelinks, 10 callouts and structured site snippet with 4+ values for the best results.
13. Track performance for search campaigns
Track performance across:
- Experiments: Campaigns > Experiments *filter by Google Ads
- Channels: Reports > Multivariate Performance > Stats by Channel
14. Enable budget optimization
Enable budget optimization to automatically distribute more daily budget to the best performing keywords based on key metrics (ie, leads, MQLs, influenced opportunities, triggered opportunities).
15. Take it a step further with playbooks
Deploy specific search strategies with playbooks:
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