Google AdWords can be an amazing tool for building online sales - businesses can thrive on the traffic it delivers. But get it wrong and you can burn a budget in no time at all, or miss out on some golden opportunities. So if you’ve struggled to make AdWords pay, chances are that you’ve made one or more common errors. Reggie James of Digital Clarity explains the pitfalls and how to work round them.

1.   No tracking

Running a campaign without analytics or conversion tracking implemented on your website, or installing but not using it, is like flying blind. It means you won’t be able to identify which keywords and ads are working and which are spending your budget without influencing or directly generating sales. It’s vital that you use your current analytics tools, or install a service such as  Google Analyticsand then take the time to evaluate the performance reports provided by AdWords itself.

2.   Display Network switched ‘on’

The AdWords Search and Display networks are quite different platforms and work very separately from each other. A mistake often made by advertisers is to simply switch on display network targeting on your search network campaigns and then forget about it. But before you run a display network campaign, make sure you understand whether it’s right for you and then set up a campaign accordingly. Don’t forget that it requires a different approach to ad copy and also offers the option of including image and video ads.

3.   Using one ad for all your keywords

Ideally you should create different ads to suit logical groups of keywords, monitor their performance and test them against each other to get the most from your budget. Google rewards relevance, so creating ads which are more relevant can radically increase your Clickthrough Rate (CTR) and Quality Score, and ultimately help improve your position on the search engine results pages (SERP’s). It can take time to create unique ads for all of your adgroups, but you’re almost certain to achieve better results than if you just use a single ad for all your keywords.

4.   Displaying a generic landing page

After clicking on one of your ads, users don’t want to then have to search again through your website to find what they need - in theory they have already done that on the search engine. They want to be provided with the most relevant information for their search query, or the simplest process to sign up or make a purchase. Crudely directing all your visitors straight to the home page of your site can increase your ‘bounce rate’, whereby visitors leave the website almost as soon as they arrive.

5.   ‘Match Type’ confusion

AdWords match types are an important consideration which help to control who sees your ads, and generally advertisers will tend to go one way or the other, either putting all keywords on ‘broad match’ and exposing themselves to irrelevant traffic, or going too specific by using ‘exact match’ for everything. Google’s match type options and algorithm allows some in-depth strategies to be set to find the fine balance between exposure and relevance. Equally,‘negative keywords’ which prevent your ads being shown for keywords you don’t want included are often missed, but can be essential to running a successful campaign.

6.   ‘Fire and forget’ - thinking AdWords runs itself

If you don’t set aside time to regularly monitor campaigns and implement optimisation changes, your campaign may well tick over but will never be fully efficient or drive the maximum level of sales or leads. Assuming that AdWords can run itself or that Google will look after a campaign over the thousands of competitors for you is not likely to get you very far. In reality, it takes time to successfully run and improve AdWords campaigns, to monitor keywords, ad variations, optimise landing pages and maximise conversion rates. But optimising your campaigns can ensure you achieve the maximum return from your ad spend.

For further information, visit www.digital-clarity.com