7 Strategies to Make Your Google Ads Campaign a Success

What is Google Ads?

Google Ads is Google’s online advertising platform. It’s a potent example of how technology is changing online advertising. With Google Ads, advertisers bid on specific keywords so their ads appear in search results when users enter them in a Google search. 

Google Ads campaigns are known as pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns. Advertisers pay for clicks, allowing Google to earn money from these campaigns. It’s essential to improve your PPC strategy to maximize potential lead conversions. You don’t want to waste money on the wrong content and keywords.

How can you make your Google Ads campaign successful?

Google Ads can expand your reach to a vast audience of Google users, helping you achieve goals like increasing calls to your business, boosting website visitors and generating online sales. 

The following seven strategies can help make your Google Ads campaign more successful, so consider them carefully in your quest to build your business’s online reputation.

1. Track customer demand before launching a Google Ads campaign.

Customer demand is a critical ingredient in a successful Google Ads campaign. If people aren’t searching for relevant products and services, your efforts will go to waste. 

Before starting any online campaign, consider the following to ascertain if there’s adequate demand for the product or service you’ll feature in your Google Ads campaign:

• Is your target audience searching for your solution? 
• What are consumers looking for? Tailor your ad solutions accordingly.
• Are you offering an in-demand product or service? 

Once you’re confident that consumer demand exists for your offering, you’ll be better positioned to deliver a successful Google Ads campaign.

2. Have a clear goal in mind for your Google Ads campaign.

For any search engine marketing campaign to succeed, you must have a goal and desired outcome. You’re likely running a Google Ads campaign to increase followers, boost online brand awareness and improve sales.

Consider the following before starting a new Google Ads campaign:

• What outcome do you want to achieve from your Google Ads campaign?
• What customers are you targeting?
• What keywords relevant to your business are customers searching for?
• How can you make your ad relevant to the keywords Google users enter into the search engine?
• What action do you want to drive for people who see your ad?

To create a clear ad campaign that directly reflects your goals, you must understand the specific action you want your target audience to perform.

3. Write your ad with your target customer in mind.

Your ads must be relevant to your specific target audience, so adjust your tone, language and call to action (CTA) accordingly. Your Google Ads should accomplish the following goals:

• Attract attention with the right tone and context
• Raise customer interest
• Convince customers to perform a desired CTA

When you write ads that resonate with your target audience, your ad campaign will have stronger results.

4. Optimize your keyword targeting strategy.

When implementing an ad campaign, include all keyword targeting types in your overall strategy for the best results. Your keyword targeting strategy should include the following:

• Broad match keywords: Google displays your ad when a similar phrase or keyword is used. However, there’s a higher chance of driving irrelevant traffic to your website. You should ideally bid the lowest amount for broad match keywords.
• Phrase match keywords: Google displays your ad when a user types in the specific phrase for which your ad is optimized, giving you more control over who sees your ad. You should bid a higher amount for phrase matches than broad match keywords.
• Exact match: Google will display your ad only when the user types in the exact keyword or keyword phrase, giving you the most control over who sees your ad and providing a lower bounce rate. If possible, bid the highest for exact match keywords.

Keep your ad groups separate according to keyword type to ensure the campaign remains well organized.

5. Create a strong selling proposition.

A clear and unique selling proposition (USP) is vital to achieving the best results with your Google Ads campaign. Your USP helps customers understand why they’re choosing you over the competition. 

Some benefits of creating a strong USP include the following:

• A strong USP generates more traffic while keeping away unwanted leads, ensuring more quality leads visit your website.
• A strong USP boosts successful lead conversion
• A strong USP can reduce the time customers spend on price comparisons, especially if you’re offering something unique.

The best way to create a robust USP is to understand your customers more intimately so you can solve their problems and give them what they want. When you pay attention to your customers’ shopping behavior and patterns, you’re better positioned to create something that addresses their needs and adds value to their lives.

6. Optimize your Google Ads campaign.

You probably won’t create a perfect Google Ads campaign initially. You’ll need to optimize it midway through to ensure you get the best results. Consider the following:

• Keyword bids: From the time you start generating clicks to your website, you should consider optimizing your keyword bids. You can raise the bid for keywords that bring in good sales. If the keywords aren’t generating the desired results, lower the bids or switch to other keywords.
• Landing page conversion rates: Landing pages should always offer what the ad promises or you’ll risk the customer bouncing. Landing pages that stick to the ad content usually result in higher conversion rates and greater profit for the brand.
• Click-through rates (CTRs): A specific ad’s CTR determines its quality score. Test different campaigns simultaneously to see which ads garner the most clicks (more on quality scores below).

Once you optimize your Google Ads campaign, you’ll start seeing greater traction for your desired call to action, which will ultimately benefit your business.

7. Be aware of your competition’s strategy.

Knowing what your competition is up to will help you make more informed decisions about specific Google Ads campaigns. Here’s what you need to know:

• Use keywords for which your direct competition optimizes.
• What are your competitors’ CTAs? They may inspire you to create CTAs that generate the best results from your target audience.
• Thoroughly examine the look and feel of your website landing pages and compare them to those of your competitors.

When you examine your competitors’ strategies, you may see factors missing in your own Google Ads strategy. 

Additional tips for optimizing your Google Ads campaigns

In addition to the above Google Ads success strategies, consider the following tips and best practices: 

• Use responsive ads: Google allows you to create responsive display ads that its AI tools will optimize for size and location. It will take your images, headlines and other ad components and generate optimally formatted ads for various ad spaces, including websites and YouTube. 
• Enhance auto-targeting: You can optimize ad-targeting to reach specific audience segments or find segments you may have overlooked. 
• Choose location targeting carefully: Your target audience segments may be in various locations worldwide. Ensure your ads appear where your customers are and that you can accommodate the customers you reach. 
• Pay attention to ad viewing frequency: Google allows you to limit the number of times a user can view your ads to ensure they aren’t frequently served to uninterested parties. 
• Consider ad timing: Carefully plan your ad scheduling to ensure your customers see them when they’re more likely to be online — and not asleep.
• Use Smart Bidding: If you’re tracking conversions, the Google Ads Smart Bidding feature can help you reach your specific goals, such as increasing leads or boosting profits, by adjusting your bidding strategy automatically.  

How do Google Ads appear?

When you use Google Ads, your ad will appear in different places across the web, depending on how you’ve targeted them. When setting up your campaign, you’ll choose a list of keywords that will trigger the ad. When a user searches for one of your specific keywords or phrases, your ad will appear alongside their search results.

Google Ads appear in two primary ways: 

• Google search sites: If your ad appears on a Google search site, it will appear on or below Google’s search results. It may also appear when people search on the Google Shopping and Google Maps tabs.
• Google partner search sites: Your ad could also appear on one of Google’s search partners’ sites or you can choose to display your ads on other sites that your customers visit.  

What is a quality score on Google?

A quality score is a diagnostic tool showing how your ad quality compares to similar ads. You’ll need to ensure a high quality score to win keywords on Google and have your ad appear to customers and prospects. 

What factors affect your quality score?

The following factors may affect your quality score:

• Relevance of the search query to your Google ad and ad group
• Relevance of your ad to your landing page
• Historical data covering the CTR for the ad and ad group
• Historical account performance

What are the benefits of a higher quality score on Google?

A higher score and good bid amount will put you in a better position to have your ad placed on a Google search engine results page (SERP). Additional benefits include the following:

• Lower costs: Google tends to reward advertisers with high quality scores in the form of a lower cost per click, which ultimately helps enhance their digital marketing campaign return on investment.
• Greater exposure: With higher quality scores, you’ll notice your ads displaying more often in the search engine and in more prominent positions than others. You’ll get more conversions and clicks without changing your bid.

Businesses looking to build successful ad campaigns on Google should always try to get a higher quality score for their long-term benefits.

Enhance your Google Ads campaigns

Effective Google Ads campaigns can help you boost your business’s profitability. However, you must build your campaigns around powerful concepts and executive them carefully to be successful. Consider working with a digital marketing expert to help take your business to the next level.

Kimberlee Leonard and Jamie Johnson contributed to this article.