5 tips to boost your Google Ads

Google receives almost 6 billion searches every day and many of the search page results include Google Ads (previously called Adwords). Google Ads can play a very significant role when it comes to drive relevant and quality traffic to your website. Google Ads are displayed on the top of SERP followed by organic search results. They appear like this:

Results in red box are Google Ads and results in green box which are displayed below the red box are organic results.

How do Google Ads appear?

Google Ads work with the very simple formula. Google Ad auction is focused around keywords. Advertisers focus on the list of keywords which are most likely to be used by people for a product or service of their industry. Then they bid on these keywords, basing on how much they are willing to pay for a Google user to click on their Ad. Google’s algorithm is such that it combines the bid and quality score of the ad and determines which ad must be displayed on the SERP. When the users click on their ad, advertisers pay a fee to Google. This is how Google Ads appear on SERP.

If you already have a Google Ad and want to optimize it to the best then this blog is perfect for you.

Tips that will work for Google Ads.

1) Make your landing page appealing

Viewers who clicked your Google Ad will land to your landing page. Google Ad completed its duty by bringing traffic to your page and now it is the duty of landing page to be appealing enough to convert viewers into customers. You should optimize your landing page for PPC conversions by making the message of your ads align with your landing page message.

KEYWORDS ➡ GOOGLE ADS ➡ LANDING PAGE

Repeat the message of Google Ad on your landing page which will craft more compelling content and increase the conversion rates. Be very clear about your offer and highlight the CTA button where you think that a particular place on your page has high probability of getting clicked.

2) Fill all the Ad content

ETA (Expanded Text Ad) were introduced to the world of AdWords in 2016 which made a substantial impact. It is desirable to fill all the details of Google ad which will make your Ad more compelling. It’s like you get more character space to write for your Ad.

This field gives you the additional space to write. Take full advantage of this field as it allows you to describe more about your brand, offer and idea.

Final URL – Make this unique and highly relevant landing page.

Headline 1 – Put the name of your brand or the primary value of your Ad.

Headline 2 – You can set up the base of your description or secondary value for your Ad.

Headline 3- Now this is the new space provided by Google, use it to attract customers.

Description – This is the money maker section where the needs of customers will be solved by your solution. Put a strong CTA at the end of description to help frame the ad and engage your reader.

This is how your Ad will look when you fill all the fields of your Ad content.

3) Eliminate negative Keywords

Yes, there are keywords which negatively affect your ad campaign and advertisers don’t realise it. Keywords such as “free” or “jobs” will bring you visitors who want free products or services. These visitors will not add to your customer base. If main objective of your advertisement is to increase sales then never use keywords that include word “free”. By optimizing your ads for negative keywords, you can help eliminate any potential searches that would waste your ad budget without bringing you the return you want to see. Making your lists more efficient so that they remain focused directly on the prospects most likely to engage with your brands will ensure that your money goes to the best possible use.

4) Track which mode is bringing traffic

Track everything you can. Get answer to following questions to improvise your Google Ad.

• Which campaign is bringing most traffic?
• Which site has highest bounce rate?
• Which site has longest average time on site?

These questions can be easily answered by UTM codes.

UTM codes helps you track everything from keywords to campaigns. They are just the codes which are attached at the end of the URL. It helps in determining source, medium and campaign name. This will enable Google Analytics to tell you from where visitors reached your site and by which campaign.

This is how UTM codes will show up in your Google Analytics dashboard.

UTM codes help you determine 3 main things.

1) Traffic Source

This will help you know that from which source traffic is generated. Add utm_source to know traffic source parameter. Your traffic source could be facebook, Instagram, Google, Bing etc.

2) Medium

It determines that what was the medium of generating traffic? It could be cpc, referral, email, display etc. Example – &utm_medium= email.

3) Campaign Name

It allows you to determine the performance of a specific campaign. It helps you differentiate Facebook campaign from email campaign or any other campaign. By knowing the performance of every individual campaign, you can determine which campaign should be focused more or which one should be removed or just improvise your strategy.

Example – &utm _campaign=example_campaign

5) Offline Tracking

Why to keep account of only online deals? You provide your phone number in the Google Ad to contact you for any queries. This is also a medium where traffic is generated. It is important to track which campaign or keyword enabled them to call here. Google analytics keep an account for that but it does not show campaign name or keywords. Google analytics give you only start and end time of the call, call duration, area code and call type. You want to track everything like UTM codes. So you can use call tracking applications like Callrail. It will determine everything from basic Google analytics data to keywords and campaigns. You can know which campaign and landing pages are responsible for most conversions and which pages are poorly performing.

Conclusion:

Google Ads if optimized, they can bring you best results in less time. They should be positioned properly on the screen, content should be appealing enough to drive traffic and CTA button must be on the perfect place where it has a high probability of getting clicked. Track the performance of Google Ads and make your strategy robust. Do the research and find apps that track traffic more efficiently. The ad should be descriptive enough to give full information about the brand, offer and idea. Do not miss out any field which Google provides you to modify your Ad. Observe the advertisements issued by your competitors and follow the trends. Get creative, experiment, do the hard work, because getting Google ads right can pay huge dividends.

About the Author:

Tanushri Saxena is pursuing her MBA from GLS, Ahmedabad. Currently, she is interning as a content writer at WebKow. She enjoys an occasional cup of coffee and is an avid Game of Thrones fan (but not season 8  ).