Has your business ever tried running Google search ads to guarantee exposure on the search results page? Have you ever wasted $1,000+ in a week's time with job searchers, vendors, or bots clicking your ads and burning up your company budget? It has happened to the best of us, many times. We're sharing our top 5 recommendations to cut costs on PPC campaign that you implement TODAY- in less than 30 minutes.
In 2019, we're managing nearly 1 million dollars of ad spend on Google Ads. You could say we've earned some valuable insights and learned a thing or two about the IT space. Google Ads can be a beneficial addition to your digital marketing strategy, but this relationship needs strict boundaries to keep your company finances out of harm's way.
Our Top 5 Google Ads Budget Savers
Here's what we configure for 90% of our ad accounts, to take proper caution with clicks and keep spending under control.
1- Location settings: You have selected a geographical area for your ads to display in right? Did you know the default settings in Google allow your ads to be shown to people OUTSIDE those boundaries?
Head to Settings: click on the campaign you want to revise < click on 'Locations' < click on 'Location Options' and change this sneaky little setting to 'People IN your targeted locations' and 'People IN your excluded locations.'
2- Create an ad schedule: Do you think qualified traffic is searching the web for a managed services provider at 2am? It's unlikely. For many accounts, we see only $100-$300/month spent during off-hours- regardless we'd like an extra $3600 in the bank this year.
Find it here: Ad schedule < hit the blue pencil to create an ad schedule. Only want clicks / potential calls during operating hours? You can make it happen and reduce wasted spend.
3- Call bid adjustments: Do you use any tracking tools to monitor your lead calls? Ever had to pay for an automated click and spam message from PPC? Bot traffic and bot calls are on the rise- not everyone wants to block the option for calls, but it does significantly reduce bot clicks.
Make it happen here: Advanced Bid Adjustments < click the pencil under 'Call Bid adj. < decrease the % you're willing to pay for a call.
4- Demographical pruning: You can eliminate age groups that your company deems outside the target market. In many cases, we remove 18-24 & 65+ age groups in demographical pruning.
Check it: Demographics < More, exclusions < choose specs you want to block. *Hint* we don't EVER block the 'unknown.'
5- Match type: [We're here for exact match.] While we do have some campaigns running with phrase and broad match terms, our preference and home base is exact match. Many searchers for terms related to IT services can be extrapolated in Google's eyes to include far too many terms.
Running the keyword IT Support in "phrase match?" Gee, what kind of search terms are your clicks based on? 'Apple IT support phone number' or 'IT support tech interview questions' or 'IT support specialist salary.' Put the kibosh on that nonsense immediately by changing your match types.
Make the change: Keywords < select all < edit, change match type < exact match.
Bonus: Bid Strategy! Through our testing, the bid strategy we have found most successful is 'Manual CPC.' Google's machine learning and auto-optimizing bid strategies are.... not created with your goals in mind. Automation is a great starting point to get in the game, but if your Google Ads are producing terrible quality leads or instant bounce traffic, changing your bidding strategy can help.
Set it so: Settings < Bidding < Change bid strategy < 'Select a bid strategy directly' < Manual CPC. Congrats, you're now in full control of your click auction.
Google Ads is basically a suite of platforms in one
Many features, attributes, and analytical details of a Google Ads campaign may appear to be locked away in a vault. They are. We have performed account analysis reports and every single time we have identified a list of opportunities for cost savings and increased performance. Straying from the pre-defined settings and customizing your campaign settings can help control costs and extend your reach.
If you fear your business's campaign on Google Ads is flushing your funds away- have another set of eyes take a look.