When’s the best time to review five key aspects of your Google Ads Campaign?

As I write this it’s the middle of February and the excitement of Christmas and the New Year are all but distant memories.

It’s cold and wet outside but, actually, Mother’s Day and the Easter holidays aren’t that far away.

So, right now, it’s the perfect time to review these five key aspects of your Google Ads campaign.

1) Bid Price Changes

Firstly, you need to review your bid pricing. Many companies will change their bid prices in the weeks building up to Christmas with the potential increase in expenditure that this time of year traditionally creates. However, these companies are not always so “on the ball” when it comes to resetting them in the New Year or when seasonal demand may have dipped.

So, you need to compare your bid prices against your competitors and adjust them accordingly to give yourself the best chance of increasing the relevant clicks directly through to your well-crafted landing pages and your sales funnel processes that will result in more sales made.

Rather neatly, this brings us on to the second key area to review…

TIP: Leaving your bid prices at their pre-Christmas rate is a great way to waste money.

Adjust them down accordingly as demand and competition decease.

2) Ad Copy and Landing Pages

People’s motivations for shopping are usually different in February than they are in December so is the copy in your ad and in your corresponding landing pages properly targeted for February?

“Makes an ideal gift” may be the correct angle for products aimed at Christmas shoppers but “cure the wet Wednesday blues” may be a better pitch during February’s inclement weather etc.

Obviously, this is all dependent on what you are selling BUT it’s too easy to forget to refresh your copy when there isn’t the impetus of a specific event or a season on which to hang your hat…

TIP: Valentines Day ad copy is much less effective in July.

Sounds obvious, but it does happen…

3) Ad Extensions

Are you using ad extensions properly?

In fact, here’s an important question for you. We asked a number of prospective customers, who use third party organisations to manage their Adwords campaigns for them, how adding Ad Extensions had increased their relevant traffic and therefore their sales. Not a single person knew what an Ad Extension was!

So, in case you’re in the same boat, Ad Extensions simply expand your ad with additional information and thereby give people more reasons to choose your business. Typically, they can increase an ad’s click-through rate by several percentage points.

If your Adwords partner hasn’t discussed or implemented the easy benefits of adding Ad Extensions, perhaps you ought to be talking to us instead?

In a recent survey of potential Google Ads clients, not one person knew what an Ad Extension was!

4) Review Your Different Audiences

This is absolutely critical. Imagine a golf club that attracts visitors to play on its course.

Some of those visitors subsequently join and become members of the club, paying an annual membership fee. You wouldn’t send a special March “Green Fees” offer to those members, as they have already paid green fees as part of their annual membership.

Presumably, you also wouldn’t send a “Members Only” James Bond themed evening invitation to causal visitors. (Unless, of course, this was a deliberate teaser campaign to show the benefits of membership but you would have to be very careful how you presented this “invitation” to non-members!)

So the golf club has two distinct audiences that need to be approached differently… and so do you!

People who like you, visit your website regularly and perhaps have already bought from you are a totally different audience from those who have come across your website for the very first time.

To convert one audience into their first sale and to convert the second audience into “raving fans” who will buy more from you again and again AND who could be persuaded to spread the news about you, requires two different marketing approaches.

Therefore, you need to target people who have visited your site differently than those who haven’t visited you before… and this is one of our key strengths at Adsmith Digital – so please do get in touch.

You need to target people who have visited your site differently from those who haven’t visited you before…

5) Adwords Interface

Finally, you will probably have noticed that Google have updated the Adwords interface – again.

It’s worth spending an hour or so just clicking through the interface to see where everything is and familiarising yourself with its new look and feel.

The great thing about Google Adwords is just how powerful a tool it is and how much data is available to you the customer. However, one of the drawbacks about Google Adwords is, yes you’ve guessed it, how powerful a tool it is and how much data is available!

To the time-poor, non-experts, or to the people who just want to increase their sales… it can be all rather daunting.

What so many companies need is a partner who can manage the whole process for you BUT ALSO will report on the data that you need to know in order to make the best decisions in a digestible and easy to understand way.

The best thing about Google Ads is how powerful it is and how much data is available to you.

However, one of the biggest drawbacks with Google Ads is (yes you’ve guessed it!) how powerful it is and how much data is available…

So when’s the best time to review five key aspects of your Google Ads Campaign?

Now. It’s always now.

Make sure your Google Ads account is always relevant, whatever the season. We can help if you’d like some training, of if you want to see what it’s like to work with us, book your Google Ads MOT today.