Google. Effing. Adwords.
Let’s face it – you’re a marketing pro. Hell, some would even call you a veteran.
When you’re not making sure your company page is SEO optimized to the moon and back with short and long-tail keywords, you’re A/B testing your ad copy, making sure you’re not over-stuffing with keywords, doing your research on other successful keyword/SEM campaigns, and just being an overall boss. Right?
You also save kittens from trees on weekends, but who’s keeping track, anyways?
Put quite simply, Google Adwords is the simplest way to get the most consumers to your page, via the magic of keywords, commonly used search terms and more.
And although you’re a marketing whiz, that also means you know there’s always more to learn in the field to be a successful company, engage consumers and make more money $$$.
That being said, here’s a question:
Do you know everything there is to know about Google Adwords?
Did you know that AdWords is integrated with YouTube for online video campaign optimization?
Or that you should always have two ad variations per ad group for optimal impressions and conversions?
Even for those of us who are marketing veterans, there’s always a little more to learn. Whether your current marketing campaign has fallen a little flat, or whether you just want to learn more about Google AdWords to improve your consumer impressions, click-throughs and conversions – here are 5 surefire ways to optimize your Google AdWords campaigns!
Segmenting
As per the wisdom of Google itself, a segment is defined as a category (ad type) that you can add to a campaign table to organize your campaign data.
By segmenting your AdWords Campaigns, you are easily able to compare the metrics per category to see what works for impressions/engagement, and what doesn’t! By checking which segments are working and which aren’t, you can choose the segments you focus on, and which ones have the highest bidding.
While splitting campaigns between computers, mobiles and tablets – segmenting among mobile and tablet platforms can help to increase your ROI on Pay Per Click ads!
Here’s how it works:
- Click the Campaigns tab, and you’ll see a Segment button in the toolbar above your stats table. Use this button to select the level of detail you’d like to apply to the data in your table.
- In terms of your AdWords interface, the segmenting is applied to what you have selected on the left hand side of your campaign page.
- Segment by User, Strategy, Time, Device and more! Whatever option works best for your campaign analytics.
The result? Being able to modify your ad campaign structure around time, demographic, and even device to account for user behaviour for better ranking within Google, and higher viewership of your ad. And hopefully, more $$$ for your efforts!
Date Range
Why exactly is your super-innovative, clever ad doing better on Mondays than Wednesdays?
Segmenting by time can help you to isolate peak days and hours of performance, and the comparison of date ranges is a game-changer when it comes to AdWords analytics.
Date ranges help you to determine which statistics actually matter to you for your specific campaign.
You can even build a date range comparison chart that gets right down to the keywords themselves, in four easy steps:
- Open your “Graph options” by clicking on the graph icon.
- Make sure you have “Show graph” checked.
- From the “Compare Metric” drop-down, choose “Date range.”
- It will default to “Previous 30 days,” but you can also customize.
For the date range on the top right hand corner of the campaign screen, ensure that the “Compare Dates” slider is set to ON. From there, you can specify your date ranges to examine the ad data as a performance graph.
Photo by Martin Reisch on Unsplash
Top Movers Report
Want to increase traffic on your website? ROI? Sales? Brand awareness? Look like Schwarzenegger in the 80’s?
The Top Movers report within Google AdWords will help you with all of that. Except the last part…you’re on your own for that one.
Again, the wise wizards at Google define the Top Movers report as the “campaigns and ad groups that have received the largest changes in clicks, costs and conversions.” It’s as the report title suggests—the “top movers” within your ad campaign.
Found under the “Dimensions” tab, Top Movers reports allow comparisons in time periods of 7, 14 and 28 day increments and more to determine the largest changes that have occurred.
Once the time-frame is selected and the report is generated, you can examine all sorts of information: top increases, decreases, CTR percentages, and even the possible causes for these changes. Illustrated below is a more thorough breakdown.
The result: SEM managers can run a single report as opposed to multiple, to determine the campaigns and ad groups need to be focused on – from different time periods. Accordingly, this analysis can lead to changes that balance the fluctuations in ad performance, helping to improve your quality score for a better Google ranking.
Ad Scheduling – Day/Time
So now after your segmenting with date ranges and that handy top movers report, now you know why your clever Monday advertisement is killing it compared to your Wednesday one.
But now the question becomes: What are you going to do about it?
As the analytics show, the specific dates and times for an ad campaign are crucial towards success. The performance of keywords and overall campaign can be heavily impacted by geographical locations, and weather patterns (which we’ll touch on later).
Think about it – you wouldn’t buy winter tires in the summertime, would you?
Well, maybe if you lived in Ontario. #Neverendingwinter #ReasonsweloveVancouver
Point is that depending on various contexts, consumers who are engaging with your ads will only do so if it is relevant. Which brings us to scheduling ads—how, and why.
Back to the dimensions tab we mentioned in the Top Movers section, you can segment by time and use that feature to increase PPC rates. How? Check which days have optimal PPC performance, and which days don’t. Adjust your ad structure accordingly!
After that analysis, head to the Settings tab and click on Ad Schedule. On the schedule itself is a breakdown of days and times per hour and day; once you’ve created your ad schedule (with the + AD SCHEDULE red button), you can set the Bid Adjustments to bid higher or lower on an advertisement, depending on the performance being higher or lower on their respective days!
The result is saving some $$$ where it matters, and gaining more where you can with higher impressions, click throughs and more.
Geographic Locations
DO: Setup location targeting on your ad campaigns.
Why? By setting up specific ads in target countries or location groups, you focus your ad initiatives on the right demographic that will engage with your advertisement, and restrict them in the areas that won’t be as effective.
The result? A much better ROI on the ads you bid on.
With the option of specifying the country, areas within a country or even as specific as the radius around a location, location targeting is the way to go. Google does a nice breakdown of how to set it up:
And then if you’re real keen, there’s the option of advanced location options.
As a default, Google sets your location options to “People in, searching for, or viewing pages about my targeted location.” In the advanced options section, you have the option of narrowing it to just people in the targeted location, or people searching for/viewing pages in the targeted location.
Accordingly, this is a great way to increase customer impressions on ads, based on their physical location and searching intent!
Weather or Not
Complimentary to the idea of geographical location, you can also significantly increase your PPC bids by considering the weather.
Basically, considering the weather conditions for an ad’s optimal performance is a great window of opportunity! Back to the winter tire discussion for our lovely friends in Ontario, you likely wouldn’t buy them anytime past March-April. So why bid high amounts on an ad within that time period? You would be setting yourself up for a much lower PPC rate, and consumer engagement.
Using a 3rd party API like WeatherTriggerAPI would be the easiest way of precision targeting weather conditions towards optimal ad performance in a customized way – otherwise you have to refer to a complex process that involves Google Script – but don’t worry, once again the wizards at Google have your back.
What Have We Learned?
And there you have it – a comprehensive breakdown of six ways to spark results on your latest AdWords Campaign! Remember – there are many, many other options within AdWords or with 3rd party API’s that can advance your campaign, so always be on the lookout for the next innovation.
