Most of us know that casinos have what is called, “a house advantage” – meaning, the odds are that the casino will win more of your money than you will theirs.
But did you know that Google has the same kind of advantage when it comes to AdWords?
Forget about getting a refund for that campaign you accidently let run overnight (without setting the budget to the right amount) – once those click are gone, their gone – and Google gets paid no matter what.
Successful advertisers win with AdWords by using what I call, “Ad Control“.
Ad Control is a series of best practices that I use to help ensure that my client’s campaigns produce a profit, because if you are not in control of your ads, AdWords is.
These are 3 of my top tactics for gaining more control over your Google Advertising.
1. Labeling
Effective labeling makes your campaigns and Ad groups much easier to see and organize. Having seen the inside of dozens of accounts over the years, I know how easy it is for advertisers (who are trying to gain more control) to actually lose control. This happens by creating too many campaigns and Ad groups and not properly labeling them.
Instead, I prefer to use as few campaigns as possible, always thinking in terms of simplicity and the 80/20 Principle. Then I label them alphabetically, like so:
- F. Fruits
- a. apples
- b. bananas
- c. cherries
- V. Vegetables
- b. broccoli
- c. celery
- c. carrots
- k. kale
Notice that I used Title Casing for the Campaign names and lower casing for ad groups. Having tried several different ways over the years, this works the best.
Next, I add some descriptors about the campaign’s settings, so I can see what’s what at a glance, without having to open each campaign’s settings each time.
F. Fruits (m-100%) M-F (Conversion Optimizer)
V. Vegetables (M@100%) All Days (9am-5pm)
“M@100%” means the mobile bid adjustment is at 100% (normal) and the other notations are related to scheduling, geographic and/or bid adjustments.
Use this sparingly and avoid “geeking out” with it – and it will help you to more clearly see what’s going on with your campaigns – at a glance.
2. Using Support
Given how fast AdWords is evolving and how much it changes all of the time, it’s important to stay on top of what’s happening. For this, I use AdWords support. Google AdWords has some of the best customer support on the planet – and best of all, it’s completely free to use.
Many advertisers don’t realize this, or assume that support is just there to convince you to spend more, but the fact is, AdWords support is one of your greatest assets in keeping your campaigns under control.
I call support a couple of times every week to ask about new features, how to do certain things, and just a second opinion about my campaigns. Doing this saves me a ton of time by leveraging the combined knowledge of many different people.
Having labeled your campaigns also makes it easier to communicate with the agents. (e.g. “I’m in Campaign V. Vegetables – ad group t. tomatoes”)
The number for support can be easily found in the upper right corner of your account by right clicking on the gear icon.
3. “Patching The Holes”
MAKE SURE THERE ARE CONVERSION CODES ON EVERY OPTIN POINT ON YOUR SITE!
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve consulted with clients who fail to properly place these codes on their /thankyou/ page(s).
The resulting “holes” leaves us not knowing which keywords/Ads are producing leads/sales – and when this happens, Google wins…
To Google’s credit, they provide users with free access to Google Tag Manager.
Using Tag Manager allows you to insert just ONE code on your site, and let it insert the rest of your codes (remarketing, Analytics, conversion codes, etc.) on their proper pages – automatically when they load.
If you aren’t using GTM yet, go there now and start configuring it!
Conclusion
Simply making use of these 3 “Ad Control” tips will give you leverage and start you on the path to making AdWords work for your business.
