We have seen many businesses pouring money into advertising spend, but failing to drive meaningful results. This results in throwing money down the drain with slim to little results. There are 3 main things you should consider when running google ads: price, performance, and reporting. This blog goes over how to properly target your market with google search ads, and some bonus features you may not be currently utilizing.
Targeting Options
Effective targeting is the key to getting your ads in front of the right audience. Google Ads offers several targeting options:
- Keywords: You can choose the keywords for which you want your ads to appear. Use broad match, phrase match, or exact match to control how closely the user's query must match your chosen keywords.some text
- Broad: Anything Google deems is relevant to your keyword
- Example: Keyword - Flooring | User Search Query - Hardwood Floors
- Phrase “ ”: Must contain the keyword phrase, but can have anything at the beginning or end of it.
- Example: Keyword - “Hardwood Flooring” | User Search Query - The Best Hardwood Flooring Stores
- Exact [ ]: Must exactly match the keyword
- Example: Keyword - [Hardwood Flooring] | User Search Query - Hardwood Flooring
- Best Practice: Always be testing your keyword match types. If a broad keyword is causing you to show up for irrelevant search queries, you should consider switching the match type to a phrase match or an exact match. However, if you have an exact match or phrase match keyword that you have a very low amount of impressions for, but you want your ads to start showing up more often for that keyword or relevant queries, you should consider broadening the match type.
- Location: Target specific geographic locations to ensure your ads reach a relevant audience. You can target by country, state, city, or even a radius around your business. Pro-Tip: Make sure you only choose “People in or regularly in” option when setting up your google ads. If not, you could get a lot of junk coming in from all over the place. some text
- Best Practice: The pin drop radius feature is typically the best option when using Google ads. This will allow you to drop a pin on a map (typically on your store) and then target anyone within 1-1,000 miles.
- Demographics: Refine your targeting based on age, gender, income level, and more. Never start your advertising campaigns with rigid rules on demographics. Rather, set demographics to observation mode so that you collect data on who is seeing your ads, what interests they have, and if they fit your store’s target demographic. If during your observation period, you see that your ads are not hitting your target audience, then you can experiment with implementing rules as to who should and shouldn’t be seeing your ad, based on what demographics react best to them. If you have a small market (less than 500,000 people), be very careful with setting rules on demographics. some text
- Best Practice: We have never had to use demographic targeting because by targeting keywords and location precisely, we don’t end up paying for clicks outside of our target demographics. If you are in a very densely populated area, and start to see your campaign paying for a large amount of clicks outside of your target demographics, then you will want to experiment with demographic targeting.
- Ad Schedule: Specify the days and times when your ads should run, optimizing for when your target audience is most active.some text
- Best Practice: Again, an ad schedule should only be implemented after you have received enough data showing you that at certain times of day, you are receiving a lower-than-average conversion rate or “bad clicks” (clicks that bounce from your site). We would not recommend you use this tool unless you have received overwhelming evidence that certain time periods produce bad leads, a low conversion rate, or “bad clicks”.
Ad Extensions
Make use of ad extensions to provide additional information to potential customers. Extensions like site links, callouts, and location extensions can improve your ad's visibility and relevance, leading to higher click-through rates. You can add your business’s phone number, your free consultation, or other details/CTAs that could make your ads more relevant and compelling to your audience. This will also improve your ad optimization score and increase your impression share and top-of-page rate (see this article [competitive metrics blog] for a definition of those terms).
Google Analytics Pairing
To measure the effectiveness of your Google Search Ads, pair your google ads account with your google analytics account. This allows you to see exactly how website visitors are interacting with your site based on which ads and keywords they came from. This will come as a huge help when improving/optimizing your advertising. See this article for what metrics you should be paying attention to.