Key Factors to Consider When Setting up a New Google AdWords Campaign

Planning and managing an effective Google AdWords Campaigns includes:

• Setting up ads that meet your business objectives
• Well structured Campaigns with targeted Ad Groups that achieve higher keyword quality scores and a better Click Through Rate
• Ads directed to quality and relevant landing pages
• An understanding of how you’ll track the return from your AdWords investment
• Ongoing analysis and optimisation to improve your results.

Here are the key factors that we take into account when setting up AdWords Campaigns that get noticed, get clicked on and deliver business results.

1. Campaign Settings

Networks, Target Geographic Area and Daily Budget are set at Campaign Level.

Networks

Select which Network you’d like your ads to show on; either Search or Display or Both Networks.

Read more about the Search Network and the Display Network.

Key Factors:

• Do you want your ads to run on the Search Network only, to generate Targeted Traffic, on the Display Network, which helps you reach new people, and is great for brand awareness? Or both networks?

Devices

Ads will show on all devices (Computers, Tablets and Mobile Devices) by default.

Key Factors:

• Do you want your ads to show on all devices?
• Does your website look OK on Mobile Devices? If not you can Bid -100% for Mobile so your ads don’t appear there.

Locations

Locations can be set at the level of a Country like Australia, a City like Melbourne or a Radius around an address or a point on the map. You should only run your ads in the area where your target audience is located.

Key Factors:

• Where are your target audience located?
• Do they all speak the same language or should separate campaigns be set up for different languages?

Budget

Key Factors:

• What is the maximum daily budget you can allocate?
• What return to do you need to get from your ad spend to make it a worthwhile investment?

Bidding

Select Manual if you have experience with AdWords and you would like to set the Maximum CPC bids for each keyword.

Or Select the second option (auto bidding) if you would Google to set the bids.

We often run a new campaign on automatic bidding initially, until a few impressions are accrued. Then we review the Auto bid and keyword positions to get an idea of where to set the initial Manual bid before switching to Manual Bidding.

Create Ad Extensions

Add the extensions that make sense for your business.

Call Extension: Add this if you would like people to have the option to “click to call” you from a Mobile Phone. A call extension can also let your phone number appear as part of a Desktop ad.

Sitelinks Extensions: These appear underneath the ad, making it more prominent. Sitelinks Extensions can also help improve the position of your ad.

Key Factors:

• Are there other pages of your website that you can add links to? Make sure they are different to the main Destination URL
• Write the text for your Sitelinks Extensions in an action orientated way. For example “View a Demo Video” rather than “Demo Video”.

Location Extensions: If your campaign promotes a local business, add a Location Extension so that people can easily find out where you are. You can either link the ad to your Google Plus Local Page, or type in the address details manually.

Social Extensions: If you have an active Google + page, add a link to your ads.

Key Factors:

• Do you want different extensions to appear on Mobile Devices than Desktops and iPads?
• Do you want different extensions to appear at different times of day?

2. Ad Groups

Create ad groups for each unique product or services that you would like to promote.

For example, if I was promoting my services, I could have one Ad Group for “Web Copywriting” and one Ad Group for “Google AdWords Management”.

If I wanted each service to get a specified amount of budget to spend each day, or to target different locations, I would create separate Campaigns rather than separate Ad Groups.

Key Factors:

• Plan your Ad Groups carefully as their structure can have a big impact on the Quality of your Campaign and therefore the amount of clicks you get and the amount you pay per click.

3. Ad Copy

Test different messages by creating more than one version of your Ad Copy. Provided you’ve selected the right setting, over time Google will show the ad the most that gets clicked on the most.

Also create different Mobile optimised versions of your Ad Copy to see if Mobile based searchers respond differently to different messages.

Key Factors:

• What are key messages to include in your Ad Copy that will encourage people to click on your ads?
• How should your message be different if the ad is viewed on a Mobile Device?
• Which is the best page of your website to direct the ads to? Take a fresh look at that page and imagine it is the first thing a visitor sees. Does it make the right impression?

Also read 71 Different Ways to Test your AdWords Ad Copy and find out why it doesn’t pay to run good ads to a bad website.

4. Keywords

Select the keywords that are most relevant to the topic you are promoting via your Ad.

Use different match types eg Broad Match, Broad Match Modified, Phrase Match or Exact Match to find out which match type gets a reasonable amount of Impressions and a Good Click Through Rate.

Add Negative Keywords so that your Ad Groups or Campaigns won’t get Impressions if the wrong word is used in the search term. This is particularly important if you’re using Broad Match keywords and/or Keyword Insertion in your Ad Copy.

Key Factors:

• What is the goal of your ad campaign? Do you want maximum clicks and exposure, or do you want clicks to be as targeted as possible to maximise the results from a limited budget?
• What words should be added as Negative keywords to help you avoid paying for the wrong kind of clicks?
• Are the main keywords in your Ad Group also used on the page of your website that the ads are directed to?

Find out how to create a Master Negative Keyword List and how to view your Keyword Quality Scores.

5. Conversion Tracking

Ideally before you start running your first Campaign you should set up Conversion Tracking to track the results from your advertising spend.

Find out more about Conversion Tracking, and other Factors to consider before you run an e-Commerce AdWords Campaign. 

If Conversion Tracking isn’t possible, you need to work out how you will measure the Return that you’re getting from your AdWords Investment.

6. Google Analytics

Make sure your AdWords and Analytics accounts are linked. This allows you to see how the AdWords traffic behaves after arriving at your website.

7. Ongoing Optimisation

Once the Campaign is up and running, you can’t “set it and forget it”. For best results, you or your AdWords agency needs to make regular tweaks and changes with the aim maximising your return by reducing your Cost Per Conversion.

Google regularly makes updates to the AdWords program and you or your AdWords agency needs to keep up with the changes, implementing them where they will benefit your campaigns.

Need help setting up and managing your Google AdWords campaigns?

Whether you need a brand new campaign or you’re looking to improve the results from your existing campaigns, Contact us. AdWords is what we do and we’d love to hear from you!

Whoever you choose to work with, make sure they are in the Google Partners program.