Beginner’s Guide to Google Ads Optimization

How you should act while using Google Ads depends on the goals of your marketing strategy, but there are some fundamental things you need to know to maximize its advantages. Digital marketers all around the globe rely on Google Ads optimization to sell their services or goods. Sometimes companies use them to build brand awareness and customer trust if they don’t use them for conversions. If you’re new to Google Ads or have little experience, or if you want to start over again to get the most benefit from your ads, you should start with building a strong structure to optimize your Google Ads Account.

 

Optimizing Your Google Ads Account Structure

 

A sloppy structured Google Ads account is doomed to fail. You might suffer from low Quality Scores (QS) that might lead to high costs, irrelevant clicks, and end up with inadequate conversions.

Four main building blocks form your Google Ads account.

• Campaigns: These are either search campaigns, display campaigns, or video campaigns.
• Ad groups: Ad groups contain ads that have similar targets.
• Ads: Ads are different products or services under the same ad groups
• Keywords: Keywords are targets for your ads to appear in relevant searches

Let’s give an example to paint a more clear picture of how to structure your account. You’ll remember our imaginary laptop seller if you’ve been a guest to our blog before; if you haven’t, no problem at all.

 

Creating Relevant Campaigns, Ad Groups, Ads, and Targeting Right Keywords

 

Our imaginary laptop merchant sells different types and brands of laptops that serve different purposes. They might create two campaigns. One for Google’s search network that will aim to sell laptops as fast as possible, the other for display networks to create brand awareness.

The first campaign is for business laptops, and they can create two ad groups. They can put laptop deals for designers in one group and laptops for employees in the other.

They can create two ads in the designer laptops ad group. An ad for graphic designers or video producers who look for running software such as Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Premiere. These people would search for keywords like “laptops for graphic design, best laptops for photoshop/premiere/after effects, laptops for video editing,” etc. They can use these phrases as their target keywords.

The other ad would be for selling laptops with better graphics cards and perform better in 3D rendering. And the keyword phrases might include “3D modelling laptops, laptops for Maya, best laptops for ZBrush.” Also, some graphics cards are more compatible with specific 3D modelling software; they might also add these graphic cards’ brands to their keyword list.

This brings us to the second ad group that might consist of cheaper laptops to use in offices or at homes for people who don’t have any concern about high performance. The performance of these laptops should be enough to run Microsoft Office software and other basic business and entertainment tools.

Two possible ads for this group might be office employee laptops and laptops for personal or home office use.

The first ad can be designed to attract companies to make bulk purchases for their inventory. So, some of the keywords in this ad’s list could be “affordable laptops, laptops for sale, cheap laptops for office work.”

The second ad might target freelancers, self-employed, or people who are looking for laptops for casual use. This ad’s keyword list could contain phrases like “work from home laptops, laptops for personal use, best budget laptops.”

After you set up your account structure perfectly, there are still things you can do to optimize your Google Ads. Because optimization is a process, not something you do once, sit back and relax.

 

Wait for Gathering Enough Data to Improve Your Ads

You shouldn’t hope for your ads to accomplish high performance as soon as they start. Wait for the data and see what you can do to make them perform better.

Optimization Score and Google Ads Recommendations

Check your optimization score and relevant recommendations regularly. Some of the recommendations might not align with your goals, dismissing them won’t harm your optimization score; on the contrary, you can see some improvements. Also, dismissing irrelevant recommendations increases your chances to get more to-the-point advice in future.

Applying Google Ads recommendations can help you with

• lowering your CPCs,
• choosing more suitable extensions,
• creating better bidding strategies,
• and managing your keyword lists and keyword match types.

You don’t have to apply recommendations all the time and you shouldn’t.Check the recommendation and if it makes sense for your account, you may apply it.

 

What Do You Want to Optimize?

Even though Google makes money from advertisement and loves to spend your money, they also offer some tools and methods to prevent that. On the other hand, you might be ready to sacrifice some of your budget to optimize your visibility, or to have a few more conversions. Some methods and features of Google Ads that you can use for your account’s optimization are

• Google Ads Scripts
• Smart Bidding Strategies
• Keyword Insertion
• Negative Keyword List
• Keyword Match Types
• Impression Share
• Search Terms Report
• Dynamic Search Ads
• Ad Extensions

Each of them has its pros and cons. As we mentioned before in this article, you should have a clear marketing strategy and decide carefully which option or options to chose.

 

Use Google Ads Scripts for… Almost Anything

Using Google Ads Scripts is probably one of the best but relatively harder ways to optimize your ads on many different levels. Google Ads Scripts are snippets of JavaScript codes you can that can help you with optimization. 

Things you can do with these scripts are almost limitless. You can optimize your budget management, keyword performance, conversions, and bidding strategies, among other things. You don’t even know how to code; most of the time you just copy and paste the code that will do the work for you. Sometimes you might need to do some tweaks and edits but that doesn’t require in-depth coding knowledge. If you’re new to Google Ads Scripts, check our introduction blog post to learn about this amazing feature.

 

Use Smart Bidding Strategies to Optimize Conversions

You realize it’s a bottomless pit when you start to dig what you can do with Google Ads. Also, it’s almost impossible to manage everything manually. You should learn how to automatize and optimize some processes.

Smart Bidding Strategies allows you to optimize your conversions depending on your marketing strategy.

There are five types of Smart Bidding strategies.

• Target CPA: You can use it to get more conversions if you have budget restrictions.

• Target Return on Ad Spend (ROAS): Set a goal for sales for each $ you spend on an ad and wait for Google to work its magic. And by magic, we mean its algorithm.

• Maximize Conversions: The name is self-explanatory. But, if you pick this strategy you simply burn money.

• Maximize Conversion Value: Another self-explanatory name, but this time, you have slightly more control over your budget.
• Enhanced CPC (ECPC): Do you want to use manual bidding but also take advantage of Smart Bidding Strategies? This option is for you.

Check our article about Smart Bidding Strategies to have a more educated opinion on the subject.

 

Use Keyword Insertion to Optimize Your Ad Copy Automatically

With a little piece of code, you can alter your ad’s text to reach more customers. Keyword Insertion does exactly that.

Some of the advantages of Keyword Insertion are

• Increasing CTR
• Increasing QS
• Saving Money and Time
• Capturing User’s Attention with Bolded Text

 

You can visit our article A Comprehensive Introduction to Keyword Insertion to learn more about this feature.

 

Use Negative Keyword List to Prevent Your QS to Drop

For an efficient Google Ads campaign, you should know to which words to bid, but also, you should know to which ones not to bid.

Creating a Negative Keyword List and micromanaging the match types will definitely have a great impact on your QS, thus your CTR and (with high probability) your conversions. Because this list can make your targeting much more precise and stops you from spending money on useless keywords. How can you detect these keywords? We have an article about it in which you can find out how to spot Negative Keywords.

 

Use the Right Keyword Match Types That Serve Your Purpose

Not all Keyword Match Types are equal. They can help you get more conversions, or cause spending your money for nothing -if you’re not careful. But, you can build a Keyword Match Type strategy starting from Broad Match Type, weeding out useless keywords in the process to find your Exact Match Types to maximize your CTR and conversions. More on this in our “Keyword Match Type Guide with Examples” article.

 

Use Impression Share Data to Optimize Impressions

Impression Share (IS) data shows you the rate of your impressions versus the possible impressions your ad could get. So, it’s a way to learn what you have missed. When you analyze your IS percentage, you should have an idea about what to optimize in your ad. It means that you’re losing potential customers because your ad didn’t show in relevant searches. This might be because of your keyword choice, low budget, low QS, or another reason. You can understand that by checking the type of IS which are

• Search Impression Share
• Display Impression Share
• Search Lost Impression Share (Budget)
• Display Lost Impression Share (Budget)
• Search Lost Impression Share (Rank)
• Display Lost Impression Share (Rank)
• Search Exact Match Impression Share

 

Use Search Terms Report to Explore Keyword Opportunities

Checking your Search Terms Report can help you with three fundamental things.

1. You can find out which keywords performed bad and add them to your Negative Keywords List
2. You can spot the different terms that triggered your ad to appear. So, it allows you to manage your Keyword Match Types. Also, discover new keyword opportunities.
3. You can determine which Smart Bidding Strategy to use.

To get the best result from the Search Terms Report you should let Google gather some data for you. Looking at one week’s data cannot be adequate. But, acting on a month’s data may cause better results. [You can learn how you can benefit from the Search Terms Report by visiting our article]

 

Use Dynamic Search Ads if You Have a Wide Range of Products In the Same Category

Sometimes, you can’t add every single keyword for each product that is in your inventory. You can use Dynamic Search Ads. For example, you may have a hundred different laptops in your inventory with small nuances in their configurations. Google crawls your pages, finds these products, and creates ads for relevant search inquiries. Have a look at our blog post about Dynamic Search Ads if you want to use them wisely, because sometimes, using DSA can be costly.

 

Use Relevant Ad Extensions That Aligns with Your Marketing Strategy

Use Ad Extensions only if you’re 100% sure that they will work. A/B testing can be a good strategy to understand to decide if you should use them. Google favors some ads with Ad Extensions because people are more likely to convert to sales or leads. For example, if you’re a local business such as an electrician, you can add your phone number or address to your ad. People are more likely to call you or visit your store rather than looking for a number or address of another local electrician that didn’t use an extension. We have a blog post where we explained Ad Extensions and how to use them in more detail.

 

You Still Need to Be Careful When Choosing Your Optimization Method

The outcomes of the methods mentioned in this blog post usually depend on what you want to optimize, and how you implement and execute them. Don’t forget that each of these methods has cons as well as pros. Weigh your options and make the best decision.

Most importantly build your Google Ads account’s structure on a solid foundation. Otherwise, a simple mistake might turn your building to ruin.

If you are too busy to check all these recommendations or don’t know how to, Adsbot can save time and money for you. With its AI-powered algorithms, you can get daily insight via Adsbot. This will help you optimize your account. You can automate most of your regular operations using Adsbot so that you can focus more on strategy. Last but not least, you can use Adsbot’s Alerts for your account; these alerts will capture any anomalies in your account and will help you to fix them. 

 

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