Google AdWords is and has been a successful advertising platform for many businesses. However, there are so many businesses I see advertising on it that are simply just wasting money. Some accounts and campaigns I see are set up so poorly that the person running it might as well be taking money from their wallet and throwing it in the drain!
One of the key things to a successful AdWords account is the account structure. In this article, I am going to delve into some areas that make up a great account structure.
1) Campaigns
When you are setting up an AdWords account or looking at your existing one, you probably have a number of campaigns. If you don't then you should! Whether you are advertising on Search, Display or both, it is good practice to make use of more than one campaign especially if you are targeting many different locations or offer a wide range of services.
An example is... If you are a car garage and offer a multitude of services, you could have a specific campaign for each with different ad groups under that campaign. So one campaign could be MOTs and another might be car servicing; you'd then have different ad groups under these.
Having multiple campaigns gives you much more control over your AdWords account. It allows you to set different daily budgets depending on your requirements and what's working or not working. It also enables you to set various location targets for different campaigns and much more!
2) Ad Groups
The more specific an ad group is the better. If you have an abundance of keywords of all different varieties in one ad group then a lot of these are going to suffer from very low quality scores. You are far better off to have a small group of keywords in each ad group and have them super targeted. This way, your ads will be more relevant to the keywords and you'll benefit from better quality scores, lower costs per click and a better cost per conversion!
3) Keywords
The keywords you use across your account are another vital part of your account structure and overall success. Make sure your keywords are grouped under the relevant ad groups and campaigns to achieve the very best relevance, quality scores and improve your chances of conversion!
Also, ensure you pay close attention to your keyword match types. One of the most popular and best match types to use is the phrase match. Only use broad match if you have had your account for a while and have a huge amount of negative keywords. A lot of AdWords spend is wasted on broad match keywords so a good place to start is to check your search terms. If you see a lot that are completely irrelevant to what you are targeting then it could well be down to your keyword match types.
4) Negative Keywords
Following on from the above and my point about having a lot of negative keywords, these are very important to a great account. Make sure you do your research and add any relevant negative keywords for terms that you don't want to show up for. Some common negatives to add are: free, jobs, courses, careers, university etc. etc. Another example is that if you only offer commercial based services, you'd want to add domestic, residential and terms like those as negative keywords.
It's always good practice to add as many as you can as a starting point and build from there. Check your search terms at least once a month and add any phrases that aren't relevant as negatives. This will help narrow your targeting down even further and is great practice for optimising and honing your account to get the best results.
Summary
Google AdWords is a fantastic platform to advertise on for businesses and you can get instant website traffic and sometimes instant results! However, most of the time AdWords accounts take time, effort and ongoing management to build out properly and get the very best results. Yes the impact on your ROI could happen a lot sooner than something like SEO but it will still require a little patience.
If you are struggling to get the results you deserve from your business Google AdWords account, give our team a call for advice today on 01332 343281.
