Is Google AdWords Working for your Business? How to Review a PPC Campaign

Google AdWords works simply by optimising search functions to rank your website highly when searching for certain keywords. This then allows you to have ‘pay-per-click options’, this is done by Google ranking your site highly for searches and then you pay a specific amount for every ‘click’ to your website that you receive.

What are your goals?

Before starting a new advertising or marketing campaign, you need to have a clear understanding of your business aims, goals and objectives. These will be a clear base to figure out the route that you are going to take. Conversely, it is just as important to continually review a campaign and its effectiveness for your business. Here are some key things that you need to determine whilst embarking on a Google AdWords campaign: 

What is the size, type and industry of your business?

Your size and type of business will affect how you construct a campaign, especially with AdWords.  

For example; small to medium sized businesses that operate in a niche market would have to look at the types of advertising that they need to reap the best reward. Google AdWords allows you to specify your own keywords or phrases. They will also provide analysis on each, as well as more suggestions, that determine the amount of searches per month and also the competition within that search. The higher the searches and competition, the higher the ‘suggested bid’.

What marketing and advertising plans/structures do you already have in place?

Most businesses operating now will have other digital marketing plans and structures in place, these may be:

• Your own social channels pushing out information
• Traditional TV or Radio adverts
• Sponsorship and partnerships

Using AdWords can fit into a marketing plan along with these as the main focus or a supporting campaign.

What is your Budget?

Looking at the budget that you have may determine the length and scale of your AdWords campaign. Small to medium business can use tools such as Google AdWords effectively; but it is all about careful and strategic planning. This planning will help you to gain the most back from your investment.

What are you looking to achieve?

Before you start you need to know what are looking to achieve with this campaign, this focus will help you to approach the campaign in the right way. Some goals that your business many have could include:

• Plans to increase sales (either generally or to a specific product/range)
• Increasing brand awareness
• To diversify your brand, or change its perception
• If your website is ecommerce – do you want sales or enquiries?

Although Google AdWords only pushes your site higher, this in turn will hopefully give you increased click through, leads and sales; providing it is used in the best way for your business. Bearing relevancy in mind all the time.

Where do you want to be found?

Choosing the right AdWords needs to be thought about for some time, you will need to look at where you currently are in the search results and which of your products is the most popular.

If your businesses wants to be known for a new product or service, which is it? Using AdWords to promote a new or overlooked product can be quite useful.

What were your expectations of using Google AdWords, and has it met them?

You will always have expectations with a new idea or challenge, but it may not meet them. To ensure that you are getting the best out of a service like this, the groundwork needs to be done. This will help to ensure that your business:

• Is targeting the right searches
• Is using a variety of techniques to give  a well-rounded online presence
• Has improved in its rankings/conversions/ sales

Reviewing your campaign

In conjunction with Google Analytics you can track your companies’ online progress with great detail. There are many great features that you can benefit from, this will also help you to review and edit your campaign. As well as data on the number of views and conversions, you are able to find out the visitors’ demographics.

Demographic information can provide insight into which types of people are entering your site. If a large percentage of these people are not your target audience, and your conversion rate is low, this may be a sign that you are targeting the wrong keywords.

Cost-per-conversion

Cost-per-conversion this is another analysis tool that is available to you with an AdWords campaign. This takes into account the amount that you are paying for your campaign, and works out how much it is actually costing you for every visitor that you convert to a customer.

Types of conversion

There are three main types of conversion; these are usually specified by the type of website and the type of campaign you are running:

• E-commerce – websites that have products available to purchase online would count a monetary transaction as a conversion
• Subscriptions – websites that offer services such as a free online subscription to a newsletter would have subscription numbers to calculate conversations.
• Enquiries – For websites offering services, they usually include an enquiry form for potential customers to fill out.

Landing Pages

You can view information on:

• Amount of traffic that enters your site
• Average number of pages visited
• How people enter your website (whether it is via searches or links from other sites such as social media)
• Conversion rate – how many people who enter your site enquire or purchase

Quality Scores

A quality score in its simplest terms is a score given to you by Google. This is based on you relevancy to both the keywords that you are using, and the Ad group categories that you advertise in. The score given is out of a possible ten points, the higher the score the more relevant and effective you are.  This is very important now as Google have moved away from SEO techniques such as keyword stuffing and masses of information, to now look for quality and relevance, rather that quantity. A low score is a hint that you may be using the AdWords tool ineffectively by targeting the wrong areas.

Get an expert opinion

Having a digital marketing insider review you campaign is invaluable, getting a trusted opinion can mean that you could get the best out of your campaign. Whether you feel that it is not working as it should and would like some advice; or you are unsure of where to begin with a campaign.  A professional opinion will give you a winning start on your campaign, with advice from choosing the keywords targeted and integration with other marketing techniques.

If you liked this article and would like to read more about Google AdWords,  have a look at this article about ‘7 Mistakes To Avoid With Google AdWords Campaigns In The UK’.

Article By: Katie Torrance