If you’re not confident working with Google AdWords, it can potentially be a daunting and expensive task. Costs can soon spiral out of control if you do not manage and review your Google AdWords account on a regular basis. Regularly checking over your account will help you to see any issues or errors in your account, meaning you can act on them straight away. However, sometimes it’s not errors in your account that can cost you money, it’s simple mistakes. In this article, I will be discussing 3 costly AdWords mistakes that you need to make sure you avoid!
If you want to learn more about Google AdWords and how it can benefit your online business, here are some great articles we have published on the subject:
- Google Adwords Cost - A Quick Guide to How it Works
- What Is Quality Score In Google AdWords?
- Does Google AdWords/PPC Work For UK Small Business Owners?
Now let’s start with the first point on how to avoid Google AdWords getting too costly for your business…
Setting Keywords to Broad Match
One of the biggest and most common ways you can waste money on clicks is by having keywords set to Broad Match. By default, when you add new keywords to an Ad Group they will get added as Broad Match keywords. If you do not change the match types of these keywords this can soon become a wasted money pit! By having your keywords set to Broad Match you’re potentially bidding for any search which vaguely uses part of your keywords. For example if your keyword was ‘Bright Red Paint’ and you set this keyword to Broad Match, it would mean that if a user searches for ‘Dark Red Paint’ your ad would still potentially show for the searcher. This is because part of your keyword is ‘Red Paint’ and Google will see this, along with what the user has searched for, and will show your ad. Changing the Match Type to the various different ones Google offers, can dramatically help save you clicks and will allow your ads only to show up for relevant searches. Learn more about the different match types by reading this article - A Guide to Keyword Match Types in Google AdWords.
Not Adding Negative Keywords
The next point to help save you spending money on wasted clicks is to add Negative Keywords. This can be one of the easiest ways to prevent wasting money. Adding Negative Keywords will tell Google that you don’t want any of your ads to show up if that certain keyword is used in the search. This can dramatically help with reducing wasted clicks, as it means you can target the perfect audience that you want to see your ad. This means it will again help your budget and will mean you’re not spending money on wasted clicks. For example, if you’re a business that only deals within the UK then adding other countries as Negative Keywords will help reduce wasted clicks from countries that you do not serve.
Bidding Too High On Keywords
The saying goes that to get anywhere in life you need to spend big, but this certainly is not the case with Google AdWords. Many people believe that to get the number 1 spot in Google AdWords you need to bid the highest. Although the bid price is a factor, there are other ways you can get to the number 1 spot. Having a high Quality Score will help with this, along with having high relevance between your Google ads and landing pages. Not bidding ridiculously high for a keyword will help maintain your budget for longer. If you’re bidding too much for a keyword then as soon as a couple of people click your ad, your budget will soon be used up. To help combat this you need to be regularly checking your entire account and trying to get your ads and landing pages relevant to your keywords. This will help your Quality Score, which will mean you can potentially bid less for keywords but still hold a high position.
Always Remember…
You need to always remember to regularly check your entire account. This cannot be said enough. The more time you spend analysing the data you get, the better your account will be. Meaning you will get more conversions, a better CTR, better Quality Scores and much more! If you have any questions about Google AdWords or need any help, contact us today.
