Posted in: Optimization | Posted on | By Lior Krolewicz
1. Not Using Negative Keywords
With negative keywords you can specify your campaign’s targeting. Negative keywords prevent your ad from showing up for searches that are not relevant to your business. For example, let’s say you sell antique furniture, you might not want to show up for searches like “modern”, “stylish”, or “contemporary furniture”. These clicks would most likely not result in a sale and only cost you money. By using negative keywords, you can target customers interested in your business and reduce your cost. To get negative keyword ideas, you can run a search query report and find out which keywords triggered your ad.
2. Not Using Keyword Match Types
With keyword match types you can control which searches you would like to show up for. There are three keyword match types: broad, phrase, and exact match. Broad match allows your ad to be displayed to a wide audience, whereas exact match shows your ad to a small but very targeted group of customers. If you are not sure which keyword match type to use, start with broad match first. You can run a search query report after you have collected enough traffic and analyze which keywords triggered your ads, and then you can adjust the match type.
3. Not Testing Your Ads
You should continuously monitor and test your ads. Setting up a split test can help you to optimize your ads, improve your clickthrough rate (CTR), and improve your conversion rate. You can split test your headlines, for example, by running the same ad (same description lines, display and destination URLs) with about five different headlines. This way you can find out which headline received the most clicks. You can apply the same procedure for your description line one, description line two, and your display URL.
4. Not Tracking Conversions
In order to find out which keywords resulted in a conversion, you need to set up conversion tracking. A conversion pixel will tell you which keywords converted well and which did not, allowing you to optimize your campaign spending and to improve your return on investment (ROI).
5. Not Optimizing Keywords
Managing your AdWords account well means continually monitoring and optimizing it. Therefore, you should run a search query report on a regular basis and add new promising search terms, negative search terms, and adjust your bid. By running a search query report and adjusting your account, you can avoid spending money on irrelevant searches and optimize your performance.
