Running Your Own Google Ads Campaigns? The majority of business owners understand that if you want people to find your website then you need to market it and if you want instant results then Google Ads is a great place to start.
Have you looked at your Google search results recently? With 90% of people online using Google to complete searches, Google is the place to make sure your website is seen and Google Ads is the platform to be on as Google Ads are taking over the search results (SERPS)!
Google are constantly making updates to their platform which change which adverts are shown and how they are delivered.
The amount of space in the search results given to Google Ads is increasing and the organic results are appearing lower and lower.
Why Use Google Ads? – It’s the only way to appear right at the top!
If one of your potential customers searches for a term related to one of your products, they are going to see Google ads first!
It doesn’t matter how great your website it, how long you’ve been in business, how much money you have spent on SEO, if you want to be right at the top you have to pay Google some money.
It’s ok if you decide that’s not your strategy and you just want the best organic results you can. But if you’re not paying to be there then your competitors are and they stand a better chance of getting the sale!. It doesn’t matter who you are or how great your business is, if you pay the right money you will be right at the top of Google.
It’s not something everyone wants to here but if you want instant results and to be at the top of Google search results then you need to be paying for Google Ads.
For commercial intent keywords (people looking to buy) two thirds of people will click on the ads and less than 2% of people will never get down to the bottom of the 1st page of the search results.
If you are not paying for Google Ads then you are missing out on a huge amount of online sales. Sales that are going to your competitors!
Now I’m sure you are convinced that if you want a successful business you have no choice but to advertise on Google Ads. Many eCommerce store owners have come to this conclusion themselves – so let’s look at why Google Ads can go horribly wrong if managed incorrectly.
Are you sure your Google Ads are working for you?
Google Ads does not work for every online business, especially if managed incorrectly! If you don’t track or analyse the data about your eCommerce sales then you could be losing thousands of pounds!
Speaking to so many business owners, I have conversations with them telling me that Google Ads must be working for them as they sell loads and that’s great but do they know if it’s Google Ads or another sales channel. Even if it is Google Ads, are some of their ads delivering but others costing money? What we need is real hard data!
It could be that you are getting the same level of sales but spending 90% less if your account was being managed properly. Or maybe you could put the 90% of money that is wasted in to the areas of your markeing that does work and get even more leads.
Problems With Managing Your PPC In-House
Managing your own campaign or having a member of staff manage it for you often has many downfalls. In-house management often has the best intentions but running a business or managing Google Ads around other tasks doesn’t help. Your often contending with so many day to day tasks that your Google Ads account, and your profitability, suffer.
Management of a Google Ads account is often not your only job and we often find a low priority one at that.
Inevitably initial enthusiasm of setting up the account, if there ever was any, wanes and they then forget to check or update the account every day which turns into weeks which turns into months.
Big changes to the market for your advertising will come and you will miss it, or your once well performing campaign will start to cost more than it brings in.
Major Updates Are Missed
Google are constantly updating their advertising platform. There are changes not only to the market in general but also in functionality. New features are added, changed or even taken away all the time.
There have been numerous updates even in the last couple of months.
If you don’t keep on top of these and you’ll miss huge opportunities! You’ll end up wasting money and you’ll miss out on new sales, which your competitors will be picking up!
No budget or Training
For the majority of businesses, it doesn’t make financial sense to invest in the tools, training resources and education available to keep up with the changes in Google Ads.
If you use a reputable eCommerce Google Ads Agency, especially one that is partnered with Google then you are going to have a more experienced person managing your account.
You’ll have access to the information you need to make your account more profitable.
You’ll get even better results than you are now.
No Conversion Tracking
This is something we spot a lot. It’s important that you have conversion tracking setup. This way you can see in Google Ads which Campaigns, Adsets and Keywords are generating sales and which just generate clicks.
From this data you can spend more money on the keywords that generate sales and stop paying for keywords that just drive traffic and provide no financial gain.
No Call Tracking
Even if you sell online it’s important that you are tracking your phone calls. Many of our clients also provide telephone sales, especially for high valued products, you need to know which keywords are driving these calls and bringing people into your sales funnel. It’s important that you have an accurate way to trace where the calls are coming from.
Not only will you be unable to attribute them to Google Ads, referrals, or some print ad you’ve run. You won’t know which ones of these work and which don’t.
Without this information you can’t know where your money is being well spent. Or even worse, wasted.
Sending Traffic To Your Homepage
At Springer Marketing we audit a large number of Google Ads accounts and the vast majority of companies send traffic from their Google Ads clicks direct to their homepage.
By doing this you are making it hard work for your visitor, each keyword should be specifically for a certain page and you should direct the visitor directly to the page that will help them the most.
Not Having Negative Keywords
This is a HUGE one. Let me explain what this means…
A negative keyword is a word or phrase that you can set in Google Ads for anything you don’t want to show up for. If you sell computers you might want to show up for “HP computer’ but not for ‘HP computer manual’.
If you show up for the latter then this isn’t someone looking to buy your products, it’s someone looking for information. Maybe you have the free manual on your website BUT do you want to pay for someone to visit your website to download it?
If you continue to pay for clicks like the one above then your ROI is going to suffer.
How Else Could You Be Loose Money In Google Ads?
There are many other factors (hundreds!) that could be wrong with your Google Ads account. But the above are the most common and ones we notice the most when Google Ads is run in house.
Do you want to know if your Ads account is in good shape? Get one of our free eCommerce PPC audits and we’ll tell you.
