Or You Could Hire Experts with the Money You Will Waste
E-Power Marketing has seen too many examples where that is true. We have seen so much waste in Ads spending that experts could have been hired with plenty of money left over.
On the surface, Google Ads advertising programs look easy to run. It looks intuitive. But unless you know all the nooks and crannies with defaults set for Google’s benefits, much of your money will be spent without benefit to your business. These defaults are scattered throughout the complex program. Unless you are well trained to know where the options are and what you should set them at, you will waste money.
When we hear a company tried Google Ads and it did not work, the reason is typically because the program was run by non-experts. Intelligence is great. Training and experience are better.
Many businesses think it is efficient for their marketing or digital marketing people to run Google Ads programs internally. We have met many competent marketers, who are not Ads experts, that believe they are running well optimized ad campaigns, while wasting thousands of dollars every month. They are unaware how much advertising money they are wasting online.
Google Ads is not only complex, it is changing all the time. Whoever manages and optimizes your Ads program should be doing it full-time. At a minimum they must be Google Ads Certified and keep their certification current, which requires annual recertification. Or better yet, you want a Google Ads Premier Partner agency who has shown expert program optimization and met stringent Google requirements. It takes that level of commitment to manage Ads truly cost effectively.
Besides wasting money, you are missing opportunities. The money goes fast with Google Ads. You want to make sure your money goes to attract website visitors who are qualified buyers.
Here are some questions to ask your Ads managers to determine whether they are doing their jobs.
1. Are all the keywords set to broad match?
That means they are spending a good deal of your budget to capture people searching for things you probably do not offer.
2. Did you setup a Search Network Program with Display Select?
Google recommends this approach to reach the most potential users. However, what this really means is not only are your ads going to show up within the Google Search engine for your chosen key phrases, they will also show up in Google’s Display Network. This means your ads are appearing on millions of websites that carry Google’s ads. The Google default for this program is to send your ad across those millions of websites resulting in a potential to waste money. A good Google Ads Display Network campaign controls the details and does not allow default settings to remain unchanged.
3. Have you set different click bids for desktop and mobile searches?
Mobile clicks are almost always cheaper than desktop. But you have to know how to set that in Ads.
4. How many negative keywords do you have?
Our English language uses words that have many meanings. Your keywords will be searched with other keywords. When those keywords indicate the searcher has no interest in what you have to offer, the Ads manager should take the words that modified your keywords into an irrelevant search, and note it as a negative keyword. That way you won’t pay for searches not related to your business. For example, you sell maps from around the world. You would want to use “Bing” or “Google” as negative words for searches involving “maps.”
5. How many leads or sales did Ads generate?
If that cannot be definitively answered, then conversion tracking is not set up. If you do not know what results your program is generating, then you certainly cannot optimize ad spending. Unlike many forms of advertising, you can directly measure results with Google Ads pay per click advertising.
Are you concerned your business is wasting money with online advertising? If you want to know in greater depth how you can waste money on Google Ads, download our eBook Top 10 Ways To Tell Your PPC Program is Being Mismanaged.
