3 Tips To Clean Up Your Google Ads & Improve Your ROI Right Now.
Alright folks, 2020 is officially ON. January can at times be a bit of a slow start for many businesses, with such a variety of dates that suppliers, partners and clients return from holidays, not to mention school holidays for those of us with children. But with the Australia Day long weekend officially behind us, everything becomes REAL.
Some of you are likely still finalising your strategies and marketing plans for 2020 – so it can be forgiven if your Google Ads campaigns and strategy have yet to take centre stage in your mind – even if you have turned them back on for the year.
I get it – taking the time to go through months of Google ads data can seem like an arduous, even tedious, tasks.
But what if I told you that putting together an effective Google Ads strategy for 2020 and hitting the ground running doesn’t have to be as painstakingly-long and difficult as you may expect — even when it comes to the most sophisticated Google Ads accounts!
The answer to dwindling results
If you’ve been running Google Ads for some time now, then chances are that you’ve had your fair share of learning experiences with Google Ads, and you’ve managed to maintain or even grow your results for the most part. Even still, what you also may have noticed recently is that the performance of your ads has declined and the learning curve has become much steeper!
Fortunately, the answer to dwindling ad performances after years of work may lie in a fairly simple clean up every once in a while. With the help of a good Google Ads clean up, you can get your Google Ads ready for 2020 and beyond without having to dramatically increase your ad budgets or invest in another pricey, lacklustre and time consuming online course.
A good Google ads clean up will provide you with fresh perspectives to realize new opportunities in your account. So start the year strong and take your Google Ads to another level, here are three tips that you might consider applying!
1. Refresh your list of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
At the start of your journey into the Google Ads realm, you would have most likely set up a few KPIs to hold yourself accountable to. Perhaps there was a time where you simply wanted more traffic to your website. Or you may have gone one step further and set to only $5 or less per click, and get 1-2 leads per day.
If you met or exceeded these KPIs – congratulations!
However, over time, there is a high likelihood that your cost per click has skyrocketed – Google ads costs have gone up by 200% in just the last 3 years!
Your leads have also quite likely changed. Maybe the same spend doesnt get you the same result anymore, or brings in less qualified leads.
If you are still meeting these KPIs, the logical next step is to improve these metrics further – or add in new KPIs!
Taking a look at your long standing list of KPIs will lead to a realization that you’ve most likely been chasing a metric for so long that you haven’t exactly set aside time for new goals and even greater performance levels. For example, you may have had “get leads” KPI for a long time, so it’s ideal to take your efforts further by adding other indicators, such as “higher conversion rate” or “lower cost per lead” and the like.
The key to really effective KPIs? Get specific! It’s not enough to simply aim for “lower cost per lead”. Take a look at how you’re currently performing over a significant dataset e.g. the last 3 months of consistent advertising – if you notice your cost per lead is higher than you’d like it to be, aim for a decrease of minimum 20% over the next 3 months.
If you:
- don’t know how to view this data
- aren’t currently tracking how many conversions (leads or sales) come from each of your online channels
- Don’t get any leads or sales through your website or Google ads
We can help!
In all of the free Google Ads audits we do for our prospective clients, we always identify some key metrics which are underperforming and set a goal for increasing performance that will directly lead to more sales and revenue.
2. Add a remarketing audience for good measure
Another effective way to start the new decade strong with an improved Google Ads strategy is to add a remarketing audience. A remarketing or retargeting audience will immediately help to further enhance the effectiveness of your campaigns.
A remarketing audience essentially creates “follow-up” ads targeted at people who have previously visited your website, or a specific page of your website.
When a new visitor reaches your website, often this is the very first they have encountered your business. Whether they’re just researching their problem or considering their solutions, it’s often quite unlikely they will be ready to enquire or buy from you right now. With a remarketing campaign, you maximise your opportunity to reach them again when they ARE ready to make a purchasing decision.
It’s like “Hey, remember us? You liked what you read, so why not come on back and enquire or buy now”.
It works a treat! Even more so if you add in a compelling offer with it – 20% your first order, free consultation valued at $1000, and so on.
With a remarketing audience, you’ll be able to boost your digital marketing campaign’s engagement and conversion rates and maximise the return on your investment in any advertising or SEO.
3. Change up your bidding strategy and test the results!
Taking a look at your bidding strategy or revisiting it occasionally can work an absolute treat in terms of getting through sticking points and slower periods of growth. After likely staying with one bidding strategy for a loooong time, you may have maximised just how far that bidding strategy can take you.
As good as some of Google’s machine learning has become, we still firmly believe that a Manual CPC bidding strategy is always the best place to start. You can manipulate your ad position and how much you are willing to pay to show up for as many searches as possibly can for the searches you most want.
However, we’re the first to admit that sooner or later, it can see us hitting a glass ceiling. It’s at this point that we move to a trial of an automated bidding strategy, such as Maximise Clicks or Maximise Conversions. Granted, we’ve seen some major declines in performance, but with the kind of careful, daily monitoring we do of our client’s accounts, we are always quick to catch and revert the bidding strategy.
But in many other instances, we have seen our clients results explode! Our Manual CPC approach helped us to get the client through the darkest days of Google ads – the early days, such as:
- navigating through hundreds or thousands of irrelevant search terms
- trying to unseat major competitor companies who have taken up residence at Position 1 of Google
- Increasing clickthrough rate through tinkering and ABC testing ad copy and the like
And with a solid foundation in place, the automated machine learning began to take the accounts to the next level, while we continued to work on emerging campaigns.
Whether you’re using a manual or automated bidding strategy right now, switching up your bidding strategy could be just what your business needs to see some major growth in your Google ads account (and overall revenue).
Final words
As we move into this new decade, jumping at the opportunity to refresh your Google Ads strategy is one of the best decisions to make for the continual growth of your business.
Google Ads is our pick for the best top of funnel channel – hands down.
It’s controllable, measurable and scalable. The searches are always highly qualified (as long as your Google ads agency is equally qualified that is), and you can get a direct response for a conversion or sale.
With the simple yet effective tips mentioned in this article, you won’t have to worry about fading into obscurity on Google or missing out on countless digital opportunities any longer!
Don’t think you’ve got the time to dedicate to your account? Or perhaps you’d prefer a seasoned expert to clean up your account and manage it towards more leads and sales, for less?
That’s what we do!
If you’re looking for a Google ads agency in Brisbane, servicing small and medium sized businesses across the world, then go ahead and get in touch with us today by using the Request a Consultation or Schedule a Meeting buttons! We’d be thrilled to help.