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3 Tips for Tuning Up Your Google Ads Campaign Performance

There is no denying that data-backed advertising is all around us. From our cell phones to our workplaces, to our recreation and social experiences, we create, consume, and leave behind massive crumbs of data for advertisers, urban planners, tech developers, and researchers alike. 

The Google Ads digital marketing platform (paid search in particular) is known to play a vital role in driving qualified traffic to your website, which leads to incremental business revenue and ultimately growth and expansion. The mechanism controlling this platform is complex and like the engine in your car has many individual parts and systems that work together. Also like an engine, this machine needs to be tuned and optimized frequently to drive maximum efficiency and effectiveness. Being expert operators of the Google Ads machine, we know which nuts and bolts come loose most often, and how to fix them most efficiently leading to less waste and better results for you and your clients.  Today I will share with you the 3 top tips for tuning up your Google Ads campaigns to avoid advertising waste.

Car engine getting worked on

 

1. Search Queries (also known as Search Terms)

Search queries are the actual words that users type in their search bar when they see an ad on the search results page. In order to serve the ads, Google Ads matches these queries with the keywords we are targeting in the campaign. Matching the right query with the right keyword is where things can get a little fuzzy, and requires an expert understanding of how this matching system works. If the keywords are not set with the right ‘match type’, they have a tendency to match with sometimes very loosely related search queries which, more often than not, are irrelevant to the business. For example, the keyword ‘Movers’ can be loosely matched with ‘Movies’ and the next thing you know, moving ads are served to users looking for a movie theatre nearby. 

Google’s algorithms are getting smarter as they continue to gather the massive amount of data for machine learning and simulations; however, the chances of mismatching keywords with the search queries that are out of the context are still present.

2. Landing page experience:

The second most common tune-up is in landing page experience. When a user clicks the ad looking for a specific query, they land on the page that the advertiser dictates. If the information they are looking for is not front and center, they will often bounce out (leave the site). Yes, that information or the answer to their query has to be front and center and immediately accessible for the user to take action (with a distinctive CTA button). Plainly put, attention spans are diminishing and there is information overload online. This combines into very finicky and often undesirable user behaviours.

Even a well-designed and optimized website can have a higher drop-off rate if the ad serving those users is not landing them on the right page. Likewise, a mediocre website can achieve surprising results if the right user queries land on the right page, at the right time. 


Strong mobile experience is critical.
Webpages are commonly designed, previewed, and tested on desktop and their mobile performance (design, speed, load times etc.) are not optimal. When a mobile user lands on a webpage through an ad, and they don’t find useful information in that 5”-6.8” screen space, they tend to bounce out, not to mention the fact that 53% of users will abandon a mobile website if it takes more than 3 seconds to load. When we take a look at the number of Google searches based on the device, 63 percent of Google’s US organic search traffic originated from mobile devices. Therefore, it is imperative to optimize the landing page experience on mobile devices.

3. Geo locations where ads are served:

Businesses often have the vision to go broad in their advertising and inform as many people as they can about their offerings. While this may work for some brands and engagements, in most cases there are particular geographic regions where a brand or product can get more bang for their advertising buck. Cost per acquisition (CPA) is not a uniform number, and analyzing geo performance can help brands understand where they have higher and lower CPAs by geography. Generally speaking, a broadly targeted geographic advertising campaign can do a good job at driving a broader reach, but require large budgets to run, and may miss out on a potentially high lifetime-value prospect in your own backyard.  

Closing Remarks

Digital advertising in 2021 is continuously creating deeper data pools, multiple metrics to cross-tabulate, and elevated analytics that are available to all advertisers. While these features and functions create great opportunities for marketers, the sheer volume of tactics, levers and automation can make optimization a daunting task. That’s why we do regular maintenance and optimization on all of our accounts, and why we would recommend tuning up your Google Ads campaigns today. Any loose nuts and bolts in your advertising vehicle will inevitably decrease advertising efficiency, and increase subsequent operating costs.

Do you need help with your Google Ads performance? Let our team of dedicated digital marketing experts take a peek under the hood and we can help you identify, locate, and fix those loose bolts quickly. Contact us today to find out how we can help!