Google Ads Do It Yourself Guide

US MarketingGoogle Ads Setup, Pay Per Click, PPC, Uncategorized

Putting up Google Ads (formerly known as AdWords) is easy right? Maybe you have a Promotional Offer from Google and you were taken to AdWords “Express” and 1, 2, 3 you have ads online! What more do you need?

Here’s a free 7 step guide from US Marketing, Inc. a Badged and Certified Advanced Google Agency Partner.

Step One

Don’t use AdWords Express! You will be forfeiting important features that will ultimately cost you more and get you less on Google by doing so such as bid adjustments to more precisely target your ads down to the zip code level. You will also forfeit important metrics like whether someone started on a mobile phone (over 50% of searches on Google do start that way) and then finish on a desktop which would again allow you to better optimize your spend and increase your ROI.

Step Two – Keyword Planner

Before you just throw your hard earned money into the Google Ads wall consider this – Google is the most searched platform on the planet with over 3 billion searches every 24 hours! So what – you say, that’s exactly why you wanted to put your ads there! Google Ads are NOT like a billboard on the real highway. Nope! On the information super highway a new “page” launches with different search results and, you guessed it, different ads every time some searches!

What this means for you sir or madam is there are potentially 3 billion places your ad might appear every 24 hours! And, I will venture a guess you do not have a large enough advertising budget to put your ads up 3 billion times per day!

Keyword Planner Steps

  1. In order to solve this problem you have to carefully research where people are most likely to be searching in your geographic area for your products or services before you launch your Google Ads campaign. You can do this research on Google’s Keyword Planner as well as on Google Trends. Both are free tools.
  2. Once you get to Keyword Planner you should carefully consider the geography where you want you ads to appear and enter them as well as the main keywords and phrases you believe people are entering to find your products or services.
  3. Next look at the keywords which will be sorted by what Google thinks are the most relevant. This is where AI falls short because what a computer algorithm thinks is relevant and what people actually enter may be two different things.
  4. Look at the historical trends:
    • Searches per month of the last 12-months
    • Low and high bids to appear on page one
    • Competition
  5. Group your keywords by Ad Group according to theme. This is one of the most overlooked steps in setting up campaigns. I can’t tell you how many PPC audits I’ve done where clients have only one Ad Group! This is a huge problem because Google will assign your keywords a Quality Score which measure 3 factors:
    1. Expected Click Through Rate
    2. Ad Relevance
    3. Landing Page Experience

Importance of Quality Scores

Group your keywords by similar theme as they related to your products or services. For example, if you own a Landscaping company, then you might provide lawn mowing, bush trimming, fertilizing and weed control as well as fall leaf cleanup.

If you just jumble up all your keywords for all these different services in one ad group you will have a horrible Quality Score. This means you will wind up paying a lot more per click to keep your ads on page one of Google.

Step Three – Ad Copy

This step can only be done effectively with the human mind. All the technical aspects we’ve described so far only get your ads launched for searches you determine are relevant, but humans are your customers, not machines. Therefore, it is important that you take advantage of all the new extended formats Google offers you. This includes:

  • Up to 3 headlines of 30 characters
  • Up to 2 different 90 character descriptions
  • Dynamic ads will allow you to:
    • Dynamically insert keywords
    • Countdown the time until a sale ends
    • Dynamically generate headlines and descriptions in some cases
  • Paths that look like URL extensions

It is very important to have some of your keywords from the ad group you’re writing for in the ads. It is also very important to have a minimum of 3 ads per Ad Group so Google can show your best performing ads

Step Five – Ad Extensions

Proper use ad extensions will dramatically increase your click through rates. You must be smart about which extensions to use and how to use them. The options include:

  1. Call outs
  2. Price extensions
  3. Call phone extensions
  4. Location extensions
  5. Text message extensions
  6. Site Links

Step Six – Settings

This is one of the most important steps. Determining your goals (sales, web traffic, leads) and which network to use Search or Display. Should you include YouTube ads? What about Google Shopping ecommerce ads? How your ads are shown, how they are rotated, what geographies should you exclude? What about the days and time of day you want your ads to be shown?

Each of these areas and more require careful thought. Most important of all is your bidding strategy! Are you going to bid manually? What about your daily budget? What did Keyword Planner tell you about the recommended budget? Do you know what your own or your industry’s conversion percentage rate should be for digital marketing?

Step Seven – KPI’s and Conversion Actions

I am happy to send you Step Seven. Kindly navigate to the Contact area of this website and leave me you information and I’ll get it right out to you!