6 Tips for Starting an AdWords Campaign

Taking the plunge into Google AdWords can seem overwhelming, especially for small businesses that lack the resources of large companies. AdWords can appear extremely daunting, but it’s actually not as complicated as it seems once you get the hang of it. Still, there are many moving parts, and finding success takes time and effort. How do business owners with no Google advertising experience get started? Here we'll review six tips for new businesses that are starting up AdWords campaigns. When you finish reading this, you'll feel less like you're falling and more like you're taking your first steps toward a worthwhile goal. Tip 1: Do Your Homework Before you log in and start setting up a Google AdWords campaign, it’s critical to take a step back and do your homework. For example, you’ll need to answer the following basic questions: Who exactly are you targeting with your ad campaign? Where (which geographic locations) are your ideal customers? Which product or service are you promoting? Are you going to present a special offer in your ads? Why should a prospective customer choose to click on your ad and purchase from you versus all the other options? What is your monthly budget? How much can you afford to spend to generate a lead or sale from your ad campaign? As you can see, these questions are not specific to Google AdWords. They are specific to your business and your advertising goals and the answers will determine how you set up your campaign. Tip 2: Set Up Conversion Tracking How will you measure the success of your Google AdWords advertising campaign? Is it the number of phone calls? Or the number of online sales? Or the number of demo requests? Once you identify the goal(s), then you need to set up conversion tracking so that you can measure whether or not your AdWords campaign is meeting expectations. Think of conversion tracking like a report card. You need to have a report card so that at the end of every month you know if your AdWords campaigns are passing or failing. Luckily, AdWords has built-in conversion tracking to measure just about any goal you would want to track. But you need to set this up before you turn on your ads! It’s not retroactive. Tip 3: Get Into the Testing Mindset No matter how much you invest in planning, researching, and meticulously setting up your ad campaigns, there is a very good chance that your ads will not be profitable right away. That’s because it’s impossible to know until you start to collect data from your target keywords and ads. For this reason, I recommend all new advertisers get into the “testing mindset” for the first 1-3 months of a new campaign. During this testing period, you’re essentially investing in research data that you can then use to improve the performance of your ad campaigns. It’s OK if your ads are not profitable right away as long as you’re actively collecting data and making improvements that will later make the ads profitable. This leads us to tip No. 3 ... Tip 4: Always Be Testing When you launch your ads, make sure you have at least two ad variations in every Ad Group and let AdWords rotate those ads evenly. Over time, you’ll see which ad performs the best so that you can use that newfound knowledge to create even better ads. But don’t just test your ads.. You can also test different landing pages. The landing page is the page your prospects “land” on after clicking your ads. Make sure you’re always testing new pages to improve performance even further. Finally, test all of your ad targeting options. Test time of day, location, devices, and demographics. All of these variables play a critical role in the performance of your campaign. Tip 5: Optimize for Conversions, Not Clicks Watching the clicks and impressions pile up can be thrilling if you're new to Google AdWords. Remember, though, that the goal of online advertising isn't to get clicks — it's to get leads and sales. That’s why in tip No. 2 I recommended setting up conversion tracking. Then once you start to collect conversion data, it’s important to use that data to improve performance. For example, you can increase bids on the keywords that are driving more conversions. Conversely, you can decrease bids or pause completely the keywords that are not driving conversions. Tip 6: Leverage Remarketing Remarketing is an AdWords feature that puts your ads in front of Web users who've already visited your site. Why is this valuable? Think about it — if people have already expressed interest in your product or service by visiting your website, then they're more likely to click on your ads and ultimately make a purchase. Remarketing gives you a second chance to bring prospects back to your website. Conclusion Google AdWords is a great advertising platform for small business owners. Advertising on AdWords isn't free, but the payoff is more immediate than organic SEO strategies. With patience and attentiveness, you can eventually build quality ad campaigns that expand your reach and boost your bottom line. Just take it one step at a time. Want more Google AdWords tips? Click here to grab your copy of the Ultimate Google AdWords checklist.

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6 Tips for Starting an AdWords Campaign

Phil Frost

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