Adwords campaign optimization

You are the head of a small business and you ensure your web visibility by managing your Adword account yourself. You are convinced that you have set up your campaigns perfectly because you have followed the steps presented by Google one by one, with care. Why would you pay an Adwords specialist ?

You are also sure to manage it perfectly, moreover you check your statistics daily and refine your CPCs concerned about your budget.

Yet you wonder why it costs you so much when you are not called that much (!)…

Then you are looking for information…

The Digital Landscape in Montreal: Montreal, known for its technological and creative effervescence, has always been an epicenter of digital marketing in Canada. In 2023, the Quebec metropolis is seeing a multitude of specialized agencies flourish, including those dedicated exclusively to the management and optimization of Google Ads campaigns.

Top Google Ads trends in 2023:

1. AI-powered automated ads: The increased use of artificial intelligence makes it possible to better target audiences, predict trends, and adjust campaigns in real time.
2. Multi-channel integration: Agencies are no longer limited to Google Ads. They offer an integrated approach, combining SEO, social media ads, and influencer marketing.
3. Strengthened local approach: Local advertising through Google My Business and local ads from Google Ads is becoming predominant, reflecting the importance of local commerce.

What distinguishes our Montreal agency:

• Multilingual expertise: Located at the crossroads of English- and French-speaking cultures, Montreal offers advertising services tailored to a bilingual and multicultural audience.
• Continuing education: Montreal agencies invest heavily in continuing education, ensuring expertise is at the forefront of Google’s latest innovations.
• Personalized customer relationship: The Montreal market is known for its personalized approach, where each client benefits from a strategy tailored to their specific needs and objectives.

Challenges for agencies:

1. Increased competition: With the emergence of many agencies, standing out becomes a major challenge.
2. Google’s constant evolution: Frequent updates to advertising algorithms and formats require constant monitoring.
3. ROI and transparency: Customers are increasingly demanding in terms of return on investment and expect total transparency on expenses and results.

Going through the setup steps isn’t enough

Most bosses who create their Adword campaign themselves are surprised by the user-friendliness of the Adwords interface and the apparent ease of setup.
The steps are few, they appear clear and the detailed explanations are at hand in the form of quick and easy mini bubbles.

They feel that they have:

• Perfectly decided on the type of campaign (but for ease of reference, they may have stuck to the standard settings.)
• Selected the media ( computer, tablet, smartphone)
• selected the geographical areas of distribution
• spent sufficient time defining their CPCs.
• Well chosen their keywords for SEO
• perfectly written their ads

They think they have read and understood all the explanations and are sure that they are in control of their costs and the money they are incurring.

They think above all that everything depends on these two criteria:

1. Default bidding
2. The budget committed

But they probably missed out on such important features as:

• Product ad extensions
• Social settings and advanced testing
• Ad timing and delivery mode options
• Advanced geo-targeting options
• Advanced language targeting
• Mobile app extensions
• Advanced keyword matches
• Excluding IP addresses

And so on… Is this your case?

The basic configuration is insufficient

It is after a few weeks or months of inefficiency and minimal R.O.I* that the account manager calls an Adwords specialist.

And when this call is addressed to me, I introduce the interview with three questions:

• What are your quality scores ?
• How often do you check which keywords to exclude?
• How many landing pages do you use?

The answer to these questions is often “what are you talking about?”

I am then fixed as to the campaign management I am dealing with.

You also don’t know how to answer these questions?

Why isn’t the setup fully explained?

In fact, it is at this address (http://support.google.com/adwords/?hl=fr).

In addition, many sites offer tutorials in all forms: ebook, website, PPS presentation, etc

But here’s the thing, the bosses are very busy people who are looking to reduce their costs and don’t have the time to read this sometimes difficult to digest literature, nor the leisure to go further into the options or the different configuration settings.

I will add, because I am a bad tongue, that Google is not there to save them money, but rather to make them spend it…

It is more convenient for him to make you believe that your campaigns are perfect in 12 clicks (… you can always come back to refine, it leaves all the information at hand) while it hides by default some indicators such as the QS in the column options to display…

The role of the campaign optimization specialist

If the basic set-up seems easy (it is de facto), it must be considered that the optimization of a campaign requires real expertise, real experience, real training.

But if today I dare to say: “I will optimize your campaigns as follows:

• Your Quality Score will climb
• your CPCs will go down
• So they will cost you less in the end
• your CTRs will surprise you

It’s only because

• I read, learned and practiced
• I have acquired know-how over time and the campaigns that have been entrusted to me
• I work with two other specialists and we share tips and observations for the benefit of our respective clients. »
• Since 2012, my status as a Google partner has not been denied to me by Google (quality criteria in customer account management apply)

A campaign is envisaged as follows:

A campaign should be approached in a much more analytical and predictive way than simply filling in multiple-choice fields.

Where the SME boss points to his home page for each keyword, we will at least optimize the best page of the site for each keyword, even if it means creating it…

Research for keywords worthy of the name

Google’s suggestions are far from enough…

• Keyword analysis page
• Keyword status column
• CTR column

Landing page writing

• Relevance
• Originality
• Clarity of speech
• And direct access to the product with call to action

1. The set up is therefore X hours of analysis work depending on the importance of the project (number of campaigns, ads and keywords, writing the content of the linked page of each ad group)
2. Intensive follow-up of the first two months: campaigns require a regular visit to the campaign in order to monitor keywords and limit the cost of the inevitable “rotten” queries.
3. Regular refinement of ads by testing, management of negative keywords, putting in [exact keyword], in “exact expression”, use of the +query +large modifier and discarding negative keywords…

And I will not mention the in-depth statistical analysis of campaigns, which will be the subject of another article. Because, finally, why would Adwords provide so many analysis tools if only our intuition was enough?

If you feel concerned by the situations described or if you need to revise to understand this article,

* R.O.I. Return on investment in English