This month, I’ve been working hand-in-hand with Google account managers to review and assess a bunch of accounts, ultimately turning out with our top three most impactful recommendations for every account. During these conversations, I’ve learned some new Google Ads (formerly called AdWords) tips and techniques and different approaches to the “old faithful” we’ve been using here at WordStream for years.
Looking for some fresh strategies to implement in your Google Ads account? Here are four super-actionable Google Ads tips that I’ll definitely be trying within the next few weeks!
Google Ads Tip #1: Combine Branded Terms with Modified Broad Keywords
The secret to lowering your CPCs and simultaneously boosting your ad rank lies in Google’s mystery metric—Quality Score. Savvy advertisers are perpetually tweaking their accounts in pursuit of these coveted 10’s, but achieving high scores isn’t a straightforward feat. In fact, it seems as if the sole keywords that consistently score 7-10’s are branded terms.
Branded terms are a slam dunk for several reasons. Firstly, it’s easy to make super-relevant ads and landing pages for these keywords, as your brand should appear regularly throughout your ad copy and website. Even better, the those that are searching your branded terms likely have strong intent; they know exactly what company they’re trying to find so they’re apt to click on your ads and have high engagement rates on your website.
While these keywords maybe be the chalice for top Quality Scores, you certainly don’t want to limit your ad visibility to those who already know of and are searching for your brand. That said, you’ll leverage the ability of those branded keywords to impact the
Here’s how the hack works – create keywords that are a mixture of branded and non-branded terms. Set the non-branded term to modified broad (using + signs), but leave the branded term on broad. Using this system will allow your ads to indicate when people search combinations of your non-branded terms—your branded terms don’t should be present.
So, as an example, let’s say that your branded term is Havaianas and your non-branded terms are neon flip flops. You’d add the keyword as havaianas +neon +flip +flops, and therefore the ad would be eligible to point out for search queries that include the words neon, flip and flops.
Why does this method yield prime quality Scores? Remember, Google calculates your scores supported exact matches to your keyword term. Because the “official” keyword technically includes your branded terms, it’s likely to yield a stellar Quality Score.
Google Ads Tip #2: cash in of Location-Based Bid Modifiers
One of the simplest ways to fine tune your Google Ads account is to spot what’s working and amplify it (or promote your “unicorns”—in Larry Kim speak). One route to try and do this is often through location-based bid modifiers.
Far too many advertisers set their targeting to reflect the areas where their products are sold and neglect to revisit these settings. the matter is, not all geographic locations yield the identical performance. for instance, if you sell hunting equipment, there’s an honest chance that you’ll see more conversions coming from searchers in rural areas where hunting may be a popular sport than those in heavily populated urban centers.
Rather than guesstimating which regions are the foremost valuable for your business, head to the scale Tab and set your view to Geographic. this can produce a sortable report that breaks down your performance metrics by country, region, metro area, city and “most specific location.” Organize by conversions to grasp the regions that are bringing within the most sales for your business.
Once you’ve identified your most respected locations, revisit your location targeting settings and set a positive bid adjustment for every of those locations. Higher bids will facilitate your to realize better visibility for searchers located in (or looking for products within) your top locations, debut even more conversions.
Google Ads Tip #3: Reach Beyond Your Current Language Settings
According to a 2013 study by the middle for Immigration Studies, one in five US residents speaks a language apart from English in their household. However, simply because their preferred language isn’t English doesn’t mean that the overwhelming majority of those people don’t also speak English.
Remember, AdWords bases its language targeting settings on a Google user’s interface language. Users can edit this setting to confirm that Google provides leads to their selected language, irrespective of their physical location.
As you’ll be able to see, once I change my preferred language settings to Spanish, I’m only served ads that are targeted to Spanish speakers, despite the very fact that i’m logged into the US version of Google.com.
As you’ll be able to imagine, many of those bilingual Americans set their maternal language as their primary language on Google, effectively eliminating ads from any companies who don’t include Spanish-language targeting in their Google Ads campaigns. this is often an enormous source of missed opportunity for US-based advertisers who absolutely should be advertising to the bilingual consumer-base.
It may sound sort of a headache to expand your advertising efforts to a totally new market, but it’s actually quite simple. First, identify which languages are most prominent in your target regions.
If your website doesn’t translate seamlessly or your sales reps aren’t trained to support multiple languages, you actually shouldn’t risk going “whole hog” and creating campaigns specifically for non-English speakers. this might actually do more harm than good, as this campaign would likely garner lots of impressions and clicks, but fewer conversions. Instead, this trick truly helps you to attach with a bilingual audience; those that are employing a non-English browser but will still understand and reply to ads written in English.
As you’ll be able to see within the example above, GrubHub has adopted this strategy perfectly. this can be clearly a bilingual searcher (her Google profile is about to Spanish, but she is searching in English) and GrubHub’s English ad should suit her just fine!
Google Ads Tip #4: Salvage Dying Ad Groups with RLSA
Ever have an ad group that you feel really good about but it just isn’t pulling through with strong results? It’s hard to hit the pause button when your gut tells you that these keywords hold unseen potential. It’s also hard to justify running keywords that aren’t yielding many clicks. If you decide to go this route, it crucial that you execute it properly. With RLSA, your primary targeting criteria is still keywords—your remarketing list is then layered in as a secondary targeting method. When adding your remarketing list, you have the opportunity to set it to “bid only” or “target and bid.” In this scenario, be sure to select “target and bid”, which limits your ads’ visibility to past site visitors.