Top 10 Strategies to Optimize Your Google Ads in 2022
July 18th, 2022
In 2021, businesses invested 20% more in paid ads than in the previous year, setting a new record for ad spending, according to a study by Insider Intelligence.
It’s not surprising, considering where everyone was spending their time and their money – online. Campaigns that would typically roll out across print, radio and TV, had to be reimagined as completely digital. Assets were reconfigured and budgets were reallocated. And the best place to spend digital ad dollars? Google. The platform garners over 5 billion search queries a day.
Top 10 Strategies to Optimize Your Google Ads Performance
- Have you heard of Performance Max? It is Google’s newest campaign type, allowing advertisers to serve ads across all Google properties, such as YouTube, Gmail, Display, Discover, Search, and Maps. Using a single campaign, with cohesive assets and copy, you can send your message to prospective customers across all platforms. It is automated, similar to the way responsive display ads work – plus, you can choose location, schedule and run dates.
- Select Phrase Match keywords. Avoiding broad keyword terms is the best way to get people searching for items or answers that align with what you are trying to sell. The best advice is to think like a consumer when you create your keywords list. Write down the main terms one would search when thinking about your business, and then add terms or phrases a customer would use to describe your product or services. If your keywords are too general, your ads will be placed in front of the wrong audience, which will lead to irrelevant traffic.
- Using Discovery Ads. It is a type of campaign which allows you to advertise on YouTube, Gmail and the Discover feed. With Discovery ads, you can have the ability to upload a single image or multiple images, headlines and descriptions that will use machine learning to serve on the best-performing placements. You have the option to create a carousel that will scroll with multiple images or a single image that will show on multiple ad placements.
- Responsive Display Ads. This ad format allows advertisers to upload multiple headlines, descriptions, images, logos and videos. The one major caution - your image text cannot cover more than 20% of the image. These responsive display ads will show on the Google Display Network.
- Use the Smart Shopping campaign and your ad will show on Google shopping when someone searches using your keywords. The ads will also appear within the Google Display Network, YouTube and Gmail. In this campaign, you’ll need to upload one image and include one headline, description and long headline.
- Video still ranks very high and should be a priority in any digital campaign you run in 2022. Snappy and engaging video ads should be between 6 and 15 seconds. In addition to the usual video ad placement, you can try a new forum, YouTube Shorts, which is similar in look and style to Instagram and TikTok in that it uses video action and allows you to create, edit and share short videos using the Google app.
- Think mobile-friendly first. That means full-screen layout for display ads. Yes, there is still an audience on desktop but more often than not, your audience will be spending more time on their phones and tablets. Over half of all internet traffic, about 65%, can be attributed to mobile devices. Therefore, your headlines and descriptions should fit perfectly on a mobile device screen and any navigation menu should be easy to use on a small screen.
- When someone clicks on your ad, where does it take them? Optimizing your landing page to ensure a great user experience, with all of the clear, concise information that they were searching for, front and centre. As well, consider inviting them to follow you on your social media platforms to keep them engaged with your brand. Use calls to action such as, “Subscribe to our blog” and “Connect with us on Instagram” to ensure they stick with you!
- Having Conversion Tracking in place. If you need to measure your leads, make sure you use the conversion tracking tool in Google Ads. This helps to capture leads depending on your business goal. A conversion could be counted when a customer makes a purchase through your website, signs up for a newsletter, fills out an online survey or contact form, downloads an app or whitepaper, calls a phone number from a mobile phone, and so on.
- Choosing appropriate Bidding Strategy and implementing a solid strategy for adjusting bids is critical to drive your ad costs down. If you don’t know what you’re doing, you can end up wasting your entire budget on just a few clicks. But when you make the right moves, you can take your campaign performance to a new level. Just changing the bidding strategies can lead to an increase in conversions of up to 142.86%.
| Business Goal | Campaign Goal | Biding Method |
|---|---|---|
| Increase sales, profit, or qualified leads | Get as much conversion value as possibe at a fixed budget or fixed return on ad spend | Maximum conversion value with optional target ROAS |
| Increase transactions or leads | Get as many conversions as possible at a fixed budget or fixed cost per action | Maximum conversions with optional target CPA |
| Increase website visitors | Get as many clicks to your website as possible with the given budget | Maximum clicks |
| Increase or stabilize awareness | Show at your desired location (eg., top of page) and impression share in auctions | Target impression share |
Getting Google Ads to Work for You
When selecting a Google Ads campaign and where to place your ads, it’s important to think like your target market. Where are they spending time? What would they be keying into a search bar – on Google or on YouTube? Are your images enticing and does your copy inform them of what to do next?
Finally, does your landing page offer an exceptional and memorable user experience? If you want your Google Ads to produce qualified leads, make sure you thank them for clicking on your ad and keep them engaged by telling them what to do next.
Using Google Ads is about more than just putting together digital ads, it’s about providing potential buyers a digital ad experience that takes them from thinking about a product or service, possibly in the form of a search query, to a landing page where they can shop or make an appointment to shop or learn more with an expert at your company.