10 common Google Ads campaign mistakes
Posted: Thu Dec 05, 2024 7:17 am
When we see ads, we get the impression that they are simple to create and that we will get quick results without analysis or study, but in reality, operating the Google Adwords tool, also known as Google Ads (Google's advertising platform), may not generate the expected result if you do not know how to apply your investment. With this in mind, I have separated here the most frequent errors found in campaigns:
1. Create nameless campaigns and groups
When you first create a campaign, it will be named “Campaign #1,” and the same goes for creating an ad group. The problem is that if you leave it as #1, how will you be able to analyze the results of your campaign? How will you generate a report? How will you know which group is performing better? If you don’t give your campaign a name, you will never develop the analytical ability known as “eyeballing,” because when you do your first analysis, you won’t know what the groups’ themes are, creating the need to access campaign by campaign, which could make your analysis more difficult.
2. Create just 1 campaign and 1 ad group with all your business keywords
This mistake is also very common when you are starting to advertise on Google Ads. Your intuition taiwan number data when creating a campaign can be FATAL, study and create a rounded campaign from scratch. Campaigns need to be categorized and ad groups separated by themes. Based on this principle, when creating an account, we will certainly not have just one campaign in the account, but several. For example, a fashion e-commerce has several product categories such as: women's dresses, skirts, men's pants, women's pants, etc., so each of these categories will be a campaign and the ad groups could be the subcategories of this store, such as: Women's Dresses Category - Subcategory: Long, Medium, Short and/or Subcategory: Plain and Printed and/or Subcategory: Brands. It works this way because Google seeks the best possible experience for both you, the advertiser, and your users. When a user searches for the word “printed dresses,” they want to find options that are segmented to their needs in a practical way, without wasting too much time searching for that dress among several products that don’t interest them. Many purchases are made immediately. This categorization of campaigns involves the relevance of the ad, which is directly linked to the user’s experience. Considering that all of your business’s keywords don’t fit into the same ad, when creating a group about “printed dresses,” you should only buy words related to that topic.
3. Use only broad match keywords. You may not know what broad match keywords are, so here’s a quick summary:
Dictionary:
correspondence feminine noun : act, process or effect of corresponding, of presenting or establishing reciprocity.
exchange of messages, letters, etc.
commercial.
Therefore, keywords work as follows: you show Google, through symbols added to the words, which types of searches should correspond to them.
Ex: Buying shoes:
Broad: buy shoes will match user searches for: buy footwear, buy suits, buy skirts, buy shoes, buy shoe laces, buy shoe glue.
Please note that broad match can filter much more than our intended content, including inappropriate content. This match does not require symbols, just add the word.
Phrase: “Buy Shoes” will correspond to: buy shoes, buy footwear, buy black shoes, buy formal shoes, buy party shoes.
In this match, the words must be in the same order, being or belonging to a sentence. There are other matches that you can use, such as Exact and Broad modified. The purpose of presenting this error is for you to study how to apply matches effectively, not using only broad matches, which may stray from your main objective.
4. Using “Maximize Clicks Bidding Strategy” forever
The Maximize Clicks Bidding Strategy is a standard strategy that is already defined when you create your campaign. This type of bidding allows Google to optimize your cost per click so that you generate the highest possible number of clicks within your budget. What you may not know is that this strategy can cost you more than R$50.00 (fifty reais) for a single click when you do not set a maximum bid. What you need to know is that this strategy can be very good, but there are other testing options such as manual CPC (cost per click) in which you analyze and define the bids for your words.
5. Do not monitor
Another mistake is not monitoring your campaign through daily analysis to simply see if everything is okay. The market changes all the time, transforming people's behavior and directly influencing your campaigns, so some optimizations that worked in the past may no longer work later. Just like when using new bidding strategies, it is necessary to monitor the cost, to avoid spending your daily budget in 1 hour. I have had several consulting clients complaining about the failure of their campaigns and everything was resolved with discipline in the analysis routine.
6. Not targeting by location
It may seem silly, or even obvious, but many people who are just starting out with Google Ads overlook this segmentation and end up advertising for the whole of Brazil when in fact they only serve one state or city in the country or even a radius close to their address. This happens because Google's configuration automatically selects the “Brazil” location option.
7. Not optimizing bids
This error is directly related to items 4 and 5. Monitoring comes with the necessary optimizations, and one of them is to strategically change the value of your cost per click. When using manual CPC (cost per click), it is necessary to check at least once a week whether the strategy is following its course to achieve the final objective. To do this, analyze how much you are currently spending and how much Google suggests you should spend to reach the top positions.
8. Don't use the search terms report to negate words
This error is closely related to item 3. Regarding negative keywords, it is best to add the words you do not want right at the beginning, such as swear words, pornography, job vacancies and resumes, for example. Even though you have already added these right at the beginning, it is best to monitor them using the search terms report to identify which words are triggering your ads. In this report, you can identify new words for your campaign and also exclude words that do not interest you or have nothing to do with your business.
1. Create nameless campaigns and groups
When you first create a campaign, it will be named “Campaign #1,” and the same goes for creating an ad group. The problem is that if you leave it as #1, how will you be able to analyze the results of your campaign? How will you generate a report? How will you know which group is performing better? If you don’t give your campaign a name, you will never develop the analytical ability known as “eyeballing,” because when you do your first analysis, you won’t know what the groups’ themes are, creating the need to access campaign by campaign, which could make your analysis more difficult.
2. Create just 1 campaign and 1 ad group with all your business keywords
This mistake is also very common when you are starting to advertise on Google Ads. Your intuition taiwan number data when creating a campaign can be FATAL, study and create a rounded campaign from scratch. Campaigns need to be categorized and ad groups separated by themes. Based on this principle, when creating an account, we will certainly not have just one campaign in the account, but several. For example, a fashion e-commerce has several product categories such as: women's dresses, skirts, men's pants, women's pants, etc., so each of these categories will be a campaign and the ad groups could be the subcategories of this store, such as: Women's Dresses Category - Subcategory: Long, Medium, Short and/or Subcategory: Plain and Printed and/or Subcategory: Brands. It works this way because Google seeks the best possible experience for both you, the advertiser, and your users. When a user searches for the word “printed dresses,” they want to find options that are segmented to their needs in a practical way, without wasting too much time searching for that dress among several products that don’t interest them. Many purchases are made immediately. This categorization of campaigns involves the relevance of the ad, which is directly linked to the user’s experience. Considering that all of your business’s keywords don’t fit into the same ad, when creating a group about “printed dresses,” you should only buy words related to that topic.
3. Use only broad match keywords. You may not know what broad match keywords are, so here’s a quick summary:
Dictionary:
correspondence feminine noun : act, process or effect of corresponding, of presenting or establishing reciprocity.
exchange of messages, letters, etc.
commercial.
Therefore, keywords work as follows: you show Google, through symbols added to the words, which types of searches should correspond to them.
Ex: Buying shoes:
Broad: buy shoes will match user searches for: buy footwear, buy suits, buy skirts, buy shoes, buy shoe laces, buy shoe glue.
Please note that broad match can filter much more than our intended content, including inappropriate content. This match does not require symbols, just add the word.
Phrase: “Buy Shoes” will correspond to: buy shoes, buy footwear, buy black shoes, buy formal shoes, buy party shoes.
In this match, the words must be in the same order, being or belonging to a sentence. There are other matches that you can use, such as Exact and Broad modified. The purpose of presenting this error is for you to study how to apply matches effectively, not using only broad matches, which may stray from your main objective.
4. Using “Maximize Clicks Bidding Strategy” forever
The Maximize Clicks Bidding Strategy is a standard strategy that is already defined when you create your campaign. This type of bidding allows Google to optimize your cost per click so that you generate the highest possible number of clicks within your budget. What you may not know is that this strategy can cost you more than R$50.00 (fifty reais) for a single click when you do not set a maximum bid. What you need to know is that this strategy can be very good, but there are other testing options such as manual CPC (cost per click) in which you analyze and define the bids for your words.
5. Do not monitor
Another mistake is not monitoring your campaign through daily analysis to simply see if everything is okay. The market changes all the time, transforming people's behavior and directly influencing your campaigns, so some optimizations that worked in the past may no longer work later. Just like when using new bidding strategies, it is necessary to monitor the cost, to avoid spending your daily budget in 1 hour. I have had several consulting clients complaining about the failure of their campaigns and everything was resolved with discipline in the analysis routine.
6. Not targeting by location
It may seem silly, or even obvious, but many people who are just starting out with Google Ads overlook this segmentation and end up advertising for the whole of Brazil when in fact they only serve one state or city in the country or even a radius close to their address. This happens because Google's configuration automatically selects the “Brazil” location option.
7. Not optimizing bids
This error is directly related to items 4 and 5. Monitoring comes with the necessary optimizations, and one of them is to strategically change the value of your cost per click. When using manual CPC (cost per click), it is necessary to check at least once a week whether the strategy is following its course to achieve the final objective. To do this, analyze how much you are currently spending and how much Google suggests you should spend to reach the top positions.
8. Don't use the search terms report to negate words
This error is closely related to item 3. Regarding negative keywords, it is best to add the words you do not want right at the beginning, such as swear words, pornography, job vacancies and resumes, for example. Even though you have already added these right at the beginning, it is best to monitor them using the search terms report to identify which words are triggering your ads. In this report, you can identify new words for your campaign and also exclude words that do not interest you or have nothing to do with your business.