If you’re just getting started or are thinking about running a campaign, AdWords can be a little overwhelming. Partially because AdWords itself is huge, and every misstep often means wasted ad spent (money) and a lower ROI.
That’s why I have tracked down the 5 biggest AdWords mistakes beginners & experts make, to help you get started.
AdWords Mistake #1 – Focusing on the wrong Keywords
Everyone thinks that the keywords that have high search volume are the best ones. When building out a campaign, you should first start off with very targeted keywords. This really important if you have a limited budget as the broad keywords can eat up your budget fast and provide little to no conversions.
Use the AdWords Keyword Planner to help get ideas and search volumes for targeted long tail keywords.
AdWords Mistake #2 – Setting it and forgetting it
Running ads is a constant game of optimization. There’s always new opportunities to pursue for growth so don’t let it just sit there! If you want to get the most out of your AdWords campaigns remember to test things like ad copy, bid price, and landing pages.
AdWords Mistake #3 – Not having a dedicated landing page
One of the biggest mistakes that AdWords beginners make is driving paid traffic to their homepage. Your homepage is great for explaining what your business is about, but it’s never going to be as effective as a dedicated landing page at getting conversions.
Each of your campaigns needs to have a specific campaign objective in mind before you set it up. Having a landing page dedicated to that objective is a huge part of maximizing the return you’ll see from your ad investment.
AdWords Mistake #4 – Loosely bunched keywords
Most businesses just starting out with AdWords create one campaign and one ad group with lots of loosely related keywords. This type of structure does not allow for ads that are specific enough to your keywords, resulting in low quality scores.
When you have low quality keywords, AdWords penalizes you and you have to pay more for each click, wasting your marketing budget. Creating separate campaigns are key to managing your budget; budgets are set at the campaign level and you should use different budgets for your most important keywords and lower priority, test campaigns.
AdWords Mistake #5 – Just sitting on accounts
“Usually the biggest mistake is that people not doing work and just sitting on accounts. Less than 1% of accounts get worked on even once per week. It’s not just the confused small business owners that aren’t doing much. Even expert PPC account managers often struggle to make the time to do account work if they’re managing multiple clients, etc. So, the solution is to adopt a workflow wherein you can quickly figure out what needs to be tweaked every week in a way that doesn’t take too much time.”
Finally,
Key Takeaway: Create separate campaigns for your different keyword sets as well as to run test campaigns. It will keep your quality score up and reduce your total cost per click amount.