The Most Definite Guide to Optimize Your Adwords Campaign

Every business big or small, belonging to any category is using digital marketing to help their business grow and reach the masses. Internet marketers know that Google Adwords is an excellent way to drive traffic to a website.  Setting up an Adwords campaign is not just about making ads and running them but also getting the best results for the amount invested.

So, how are the best results obtained?

The best results are obtained when the campaign is setup properly (check out our definitive adwords campaign launch checklist) and optimized properly on a regular basis. Therefore, optimizing Adwords campaign is important, else if not managed properly, it can prove to be expensive for the business.

Optimizing an Adwords campaign is the most complex task, as every aspect of the account like click through rate, poor performing ads, using correct keywords, avg. cost and much more, needs to be analyzed. The optimizing process is continual and will have to be paid constant attention to, in order to maximise revenue and gather sufficient data about the account performance.

Here are a few tips to optimize your Google Adwords Account at different levels of the account.

Campaign Level

1. Checking on bid adjustments: Bid adjustments allow you to show your ads more or less frequently based on when, where and how people search. Bid adjustments are set by percentages which can be either increased or decreased.

• Mobile Bid Adjustments: Depending on the number of clicks and converted clicks, you can increase or decrease your mobile bid adjustments. As the image below shows, since the conversions from mobile are higher, the mobile bid adjustments have been increased by 50%.

• Location Bid Adjustments: If a campaign has no location selected the ads will show on all locations. To avoid unwanted impressions and clicks always select the location before the campaign is live.  Location bid adjustments help you decide which locations you want to focus more on, based on their performance. As the image shows that conversions are higher in Greater London, the bid has been increased by 25% making your ads appear more frequently.

2. Search v/s Search partner networks: Check how ads are performing on the other search network partners with Google. If conversions are less you can always go to the all settings tab and chose to not show ads on other Google search networks. By clicking on that option your ads will not show on other Google networks.

3. Top v/s others: By selecting the top v/s others option under the segment tab, a table with statistics appear showing where your ads appeared on the Google search top (above the organic search) and otherwise (below the organic search).

The below image depicts that conversions are higher when the ads are on top, so to always remain above the organic search one can increase their CPC and get higher conversions.

Similarly, sometimes being below organic search i.e. “Google search other” shows higher conversions than Google search top. In this case you do not bother about increasing your bids to be on the top.

4. Ad Schedule: By adjusting the ad scheduling bid you can show your ads on specific days and also at specific times. At the campaign click on the dimensions option and see which day ads conversions are higher, based on this data adjust your ad bids.

The below report show that conversions are higher on Saturday, Sunday and Monday. Based on which the ad schedule bid adjustments have been increased so that ads appear more number of times on those days leading to higher conversions.

Ad group level

• Pause poor performing ads: For an Adwords campaign to succeed and meet the business goals you need to regularly review and refine your ads performance. Ads with high conversions and CTR are performing well and which do not have conversions and CTR are not performing well. Such ads can be paused.

• AB test ads: AB test ads basically mean that in the same ad group you have the same ad with different variations. The elements of variation could be: Ad text, the negative keywords for the ads and different landing pages. This AB test ad method will help you see which variation is performing better. Based on the data the other ads can be paused or changed.

Keyword Level

• Pause Unproductive Keywords: At the campaign level choose the keywords tab and click on the download button. This keywords performance report will give you the details on how each keyword is performing and what is the avg. Position, converted clicks, CTR, Cost, Clicks and impression.Based on the statistics from the report pause keywords which are expensive and have less or no conversions and CTR.

• Improve Keyword Quality Scores: The quality score of any keyword depends on the ad relevance, expected CTR and the landing page relevance. So, to improve the quality score for your keywords, ensure that your ads have relevant keywords in them and that keywords are grouped correctly to ensure relevant ad copy is served to users.

• Add Negative Keywords: A search terms report shows the keywords customers are searching for. Based on this report you can either “add” or “exclude” the keywords at the campaign, ad group and the ad level.

• Manage Keywords Bids: When you select each keyword you chose how much you are willing to pay. This is known as the keywords maximum cost per click. Based on how your keywords are performing you can increase bids for better performing keywords - keywords with large conversions and low cost per click.

And it’s done! Those were few tips to optimize your Google Adwords campaign in a profitable manner. If there are any other Adwords optimization techniques you use that are not mentioned, then do let us know in the comments below.