How to Avoid Common Google Ads Mistakes?
Google Ads
The Google Ads platform offers a number of ways to customize your advertising campaigns to reach customers. For many, this many options is the only way to ensure all campaigns are focused on the right objective. But this amount of detail can be overwhelming, which can lead to mistakes or suboptimal strategies.
The Most Common Mistakes in Google Ads and How To Avoid them
Mistake 1: Using the wrong (or no) conversion actions
We’re all running campaigns in Google Ads for one reason: to help our businesses (or causes, etc.) get more sales and/or attention.
Conversion tracking allows us to measure those desired outcomes by using pixels to track the actions users take on our sites. But I think this description of conversions gets confusing for some.
While it may be a desired outcome for you to drive traffic to your website, that doesn’t mean that each pageview should be a conversion. Those can easily tracked with existing metrics like clicks in Google Ads or pageviews in Google Analytics.
Instead, conversion actions should be treated as those higher-value actions someone can take. Like filling out a form or making a purchase.
Too often, I see accounts filled with pageview conversion actions and hundreds of “conversions” but that aren’t actually seeing any sales.
How to avoid this facepalm
Be more specific with your conversion actions. Choose only those goals that will move your business forward so you’ll know your campaigns are optimizing for the right actions.
Mistake 2: Not Optimizing For Conversion Testing
It is shocking to see how many ad campaigns are still set up without conversion testing in place.
Without this, you can’t say with any certainty how much it costs you to obtain a lead or sale from your marketing campaigns. Which keywords are driving sales which keywords are not…the list goes on.
Optimizing your Ads campaign for conversions is a sure-fire way to boost your ROI and make the most out of your $$$. Go to Settings -> Measurement -> Conversions. Then make sure to add every possible conversion action, based on actions people take on your platform.
The reason Google Ads exists is to be a source for leads and sales, and unless you optimize your campaign for conversions, you can’t make this happen.
How to avoid this problem:
Simply, setup as many conversion actions as possible.
Mistake 3: Auto-applying recommendations
Over the last few years, Google Ads has made recommendations directly in the digital platform to try and help advertisers optimize their campaigns.
While some suggestions are useful and can help you achieve your goals, it’s worth noting that most are based on “best practices” across a wide range of accounts and don’t necessarily take your specific digital account goals into consideration.
While I’m a fan of always reviewing the recommendations given, I stop short at handing Google the controls and allowing them to automatically apply their recommendations in my accounts. That’s…a lot of changes Google can make on your behalf without asking you. But only if you opt into these automated changes.
How to avoid this facepalm:
keeping these automated recommendations off, but setting a monthly cadence to log into your Google Ads account to specifically review the suggestions Google provides. You can dismiss any that don’t make sense for you and review and apply the ones that do. But either way, you’ll be the one in the driver’s seat, not Google.
You can learn more in my post on the pros and cons of Google Ads auto-applied recommendations.
Avoid these Google Ads mistakes, make you achieve success
It can be easy to get overwhelmed within the Google Ads platform. While all the levers are great for people who spend their day jobs managing digital campaigns, it can be tough to keep up for those who have a wealth of other business decisions to make. Running a successful Google Ads campaign takes some time, patience and a whole lot of testing.
By spending the extra time initially to set up your campaign properly and avoid common mistakes with Google Ads (think multiple ad variations, keywords, narrowly focused ad groups and keyword mix and so on) it can go a long way towards generating leads at a cost-effective and sustainable level.