7 Common AdWords Mistakes That Are Costing You Money
AdWords is very reasonably priced, but it does cost money to run a campaign. While AdWords can be a very effective tool for drawing traffic to your site, it will only earn you money back if you are targeting the right keywords, and by extension, the right visitors. Are you pouring a lot of money into your AdWords account without seeing the returns you expect? You may be making one of these common campaign management mistakes.
1. Targeting way too broadly
You might think, “Why shouldn’t I target broadly? If I cast a wider net, I will catch more fish.” But remember, you need to target visitors who are actually likely to convert. If you spend money on clicks that are not going to convert, all you are doing is throwing money down the drain. Narrow your keywords down enough to target visitors who are actually looking for what you are selling.
2. Forgetting to include negative keywords
This is connected to the mishap above. If you only sell acrylic nail polish and not gel nail polish, you do not want to pay for clicks or views for customers searching for gel nail polish. So add in “gel nail polish” as a negative keyword. That way you will target your campaign for greater accuracy.
3. Not split-testing
If you are struggling to manage your campaign on your own amid your other duties as a business owner, you may not feel you have ample time to experiment. But if you are not tracking conversions and split testing to optimize your ads, you are probably overspending. You need to fine-tune your ads and figure out what is working and what is not.
4. Not bidding on brand keywords
Why would you bid on your own brand name? It may sound like a bizarre and pointless act, but it isn’t. If you don’t do it your competitor might, and someone searching for your site will actually end up on their site.
5. Setting bids that are too high or too low
It is tricky to figure out the right bid amount to set for each of your keywords. If you bid too low, you will miss out on valuable traffic. If you bid too high, you will be taking an inefficient and expensive path toward conversions. Conversion tracking and analysis is key here!
6. Getting too subjective
It is easy to feel like you should be using a particular ad because you think it’s amazing. But that doesn’t mean your customers agree. You have to learn how to set aside your own subjective values concerning wording and design and stick with the ads that are providing you with measurable results. Love your ads for the money they make you, not just their design.
7. Ignoring ad extensions
Use your ad extensions! It is all too tempting to ignore them if you are under-involved in your own campaign, but they are essential to your CTR and Quality Score. That means they also impact your budget.
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