Adwords Mistakes That Will Break The Bank And How To Fix Them

There is nothing worse in the world of paid advertising than running an ad campaign and watching your money drain away while your conversions or click-throughs stay resolutely still, or barely trickle in.

It’s a constant frustration for advertisers and could end up costing businesses (especially small businesses) a fortune that they haven’t got to spare to get not a lot.

There are a few simple mistakes that could be costing you a lot of money, and not having a positive effect on your campaign. There are even a few mistakes that are costing you money that could have a negative impact on your campaign and on your overall brand, so it pays to be aware of these mistakes so you can avoid them!

How Many Keywords

If you’re wondering how many keywords per ad group or how many keywords per ad to use, you’ve come to the right article!

In general, you should use no more than one keywordKeywords are the words and phrases that potential customers might search for to find your business. per ad and 20 keywords per ad group, but it’s not quite that simple.

Keywords are split up into three categories: broad match, exact match, and phrase match. Each of these has its own bonuses, and for best results, you should have a mixture of these keyword types in your ad group.

Here is an example of each one in action:

• Broad match – This is for keywords that will work regardless of the order, for example, “brightest LED flashlight” will produce results even when the user searches for ‘what is the brightest LED flashlight’, ‘which LED flashlight is brightest’, ‘the brightest flashlight LED on the market’ etc.
• Phrase match – Unlike the above, this has to be in exactly the right order. If the user searches “what is the brightest LED flashlight I can buy” they will get your result, but if they search for “which LED flashlight is brightest” they won’t.
• Exact Match – Your ad will only show for exactly the keyword you’ve designated. So, your ad will show for “brightest LED flashlight”, but it will not show if the user searches for “what is the brightest LED flashlight?”.

If you’re wondering ‘how many AdWords campaigns should I have’, Google limits the campaigns to 10,000 campaigns, so you probably have enough to work with!

Getting the Ad Copy Right

We’ve discussed how to create good ad copy before, but it’s one of the biggest mistakes we often see with some of our clients’ ads and on other ads across the internet.

Put simply, ads need to be simple and effective, to the point, and easy to understand. Having an advert with no clear direction isn’t helpful, and it will confuse your user. More than one call to action (e.g., “click the link and like the page, and comment, and…”) will lead your audience to decision paralysis, a much better approach is to have one ad per call to action.

Good ad copy also covers well-written ad copy too. Ad copy that is full of poor spelling or grammar, or that just doesn’t read right will mean your audience is unlikely to trust your advert and if they don’t trust it, they won’t click it.

As a very quick side note, when writing good ad copy, be sure to check the Google AdWords banned words list to make sure you’re not including any words that will get your ad banned!

The Money Side of Things

Let’s be clear here: paid advertising costs money. It may seem counter-intuitive to spend money to make money, but we’re reminded of that great phrase “you have to speculate to accumulate”.

The only issue is when you’re not keeping track of how much your ads are costing versus how much you’re getting in turn, ‘speculation leads to accumulation’ quickly becomes ‘speculation leads to liquidation’!

When you’re first starting out in paid ads, you need to be aware of how much you’re spending and what you expect the return to be. If you spend $10 on an ad and get $1000 of business that might be a great return for you, but if your ad is costing $1000 and your only get $10 of business, you need to rethink your numbers!

Return is not always profiting in pure dollar amount though. Often, ads are run for various reasons, such as recruitment. You may spend $50 on a social advert to advertise a new role, but if that means you’re not wasting your time sifting through resumes from people who aren’t suitable. You’ve managed to target exactly the right kind of people you want to interview, that $50 could have saved another member of staff a whole day’s wage weeding out unsuitable applicants.