Google AdWords nearly drove one irate advertiser to suicide! Stop AdWords from driving you to an early grave…
You might have heard about the Google AdWords customer in India who threatened to kill himself if Google didn’t respond to his Google AdWords Help thread “in the next few hours”. This guy was so hacked off with the lack of AdWords help that he took the extreme measure of promising to kill himself (he didn’t, by the way).
OK, so threatening to take your own life may be a little extreme, but we all have things that drive us nuts about Google AdWords and the AdWords interface and make us want to kick something. Here are our top 5 AdWords grievances…
1. Google AdWords Network Targeting
This is a very common mistake and one that has burnt thousands of advertisers. The settings you choose here will determine where your ads appear on the Internet. The Google Network is made up of the Search Network and the Display Network (formerly the Content Network).
- The Search Network is where your ads can appear above or beside the search results for the keywords you target. The Search Network does include other search partner sites like ask.com and aol.com.
- The Display Network (formerly Content Network) is where Google scans your ad groups and based on the keywords, they assign a theme to those ad groups. They then do the same to the pages on the Display Network. When the content page and your ad group have the same theme, your ad is displayed. You can use text, image, video and rich media ads on the display network.
By default your campaigns are opted into both the Search and Display Networks. But what Google doesn’t tell you is that because the Search and Display Networks work in very different ways, best practice is to run separate Search and Display campaigns, not lump them all in together.
So when you set your campaigns up, build separate Search and Display Network campaigns:
Click ‘let me choose’ and select Google Search and Search Partners if you want to and save your changes.
2. Devices Targeting
This is another trap that is easy to fall into. Just like the Network targeting scenario, you can target your ads to desktop computers and mobile devices:
- Desktop and Laptop Computers (pretty self-explanatory).
- iPhones and other mobile devices with full internet browsers where you can display standard text ads.
Again, by default both of these targeting options are selected, and again, this goes against best practice. User’s behaviour is so different on a mobile device than on their computer or laptop. People tend to use one-word searches and misspellings are common.
It’s best to structure mobile and desktop device campaigns differently. If you’re on a computer you might be more likely to use long tail keywords and be looking to make a purchase, rather than looking for information. But the same rules apply – make sure your landing pages are relevant and make sure they render OK on a mobile device.
As before, deselect “iPhone and other mobile devices with full internet browsers” to only target Desktop computers, and vice versa to only target mobile devices. You can also target specific networks, so if you were after business users, targeting Vodafone might be a good test.
3. Quality Score
Do you honestly know what Quality Score is and how Google determines your Quality Score? The rule of thumb is that the closer the relationship between your keyword, your ads and you landing page, Google will give you more points out of 10 (1 the lowest, 10 the highest), which in turn will mean better ad positions and lower costs per click.
Did you know that Google can display your keyword Quality Score in the AdWords interface? OK, so it’s not your actual Quality Score. Google can’t really tell you that. But it’s an indication that you might need to do some work on your ads or landing pages. So anything with a Quality Score of 6 or below might need some attention.
By default the Quality Score is not displayed. To turn it on and display the Quality Score, go to the Keywords tab and click on Columns and tick the Quality Score option:
Now you’ll be able to see your Quality Score under the keywords tab:
4. First Page Bid
Have you ever logged in to your account and seen those little messages that tell you that your keyword max CPC is below first page bid estimate?
AdWords is only trying to be helpful. If your bid is less than the first page bid it will tell you, and suggest what you should be bidding. But be careful with this! Firstly take a look at your average ad position. If it’s high, it suggests that your ad is always appearing on the first page so you probably don’t need to worry about increasing your bid.
Also, it should really only apply to Exact match keywords, and occasionally Phrase match. You’d be mad to increase your Broad match bids too much. It may cost you a fortune and you could end up overbidding. Use your own judgement on this one. Take what Google says with a pinch of salt.
5. Daily Budgets
Be careful with your daily budget as you can find you’re overspent by up to 20%. To be fair to Google, they do warn us that “Daily budget represents your average spend over the month; actual spend on a given day may vary”, but it’s worth keeping your eye on it.
We recommend using a slightly lower test budget when you first start an AdWords campaign. Then you can ramp it up once you are sure your campaign is running smoothly.
Stop Google AdWords from beating you!
The real danger is that you make a few mistakes, don’t build or optimize your campaigns in the best way, and then declare “AdWords doesn’t work!”.
Unless you’re in the know, or are an agency with dedicated Google account management support, there are things that you just won’t know you’re supposed to be doing.
We’re running regular Google AdWords Certified Trainer courses and seminars for individuals, companies or agencies. Book one of our courses and expect to get the kind of information you need to be able to take on Google AdWords. Check our course dates.
