Manage Your Google AdWords Campaigns: Advice For Generating Sales

Creating and managing a Google AdWords campaign may seem simple at first. Nevertheless, precise and meticulous work must be done during each campaign to ensure adequate sales are generated through online advertising.

The purpose of this article is to briefly explain how a Google AdWords campaign works on search networks and to offer you tips on how to optimize your campaign to generate sales.

The basic principles for managing a Google AdWords campaign

Google AdWords is Google’s paid online advertising program. With a Google AdWords account, any company can create ads online to increase their visibility. The advertiser will only pay when a user clicks on one of their ads. AdWords ads appear at the beginning of Google search results with the term “ad” to differentiate them from natural search results.

The structure of a Google AdWords campaign on a search network includes several levels to remember: campaign, ad group, ad, and keywords.

Campaign

A campaign on your Google AdWords account groups ad groups and keywords together. It is at the campaign level that you choose the start date and time, end date, schedule, geographic targeting, language, daily budget, and network you want to announce on. In this article, we’re mostly talking about “Research Network” or “Research Network with Selective Display”.

Ad group

Ad groups are available in each campaign on the account and include multiple ads related to the selected campaign. Typically, ad groups are subtopics of the campaign. It is at this level that you will be able to choose to bid on keywords.

Ad

A Google AdWords ad is the ad that appears on the search engine. The ad has a number of constraints that must be respected, such as limiting the number of characters per line, prohibiting the insertion of whole words in capital letters, multiple exclamation points, and so on.

Keywords

A keyword is one of the most important concepts when setting up and managing a Google AdWords campaign. Keywords are terms or phrases describing your products or services. These keywords allow your ads to appear when a user inputs any of these search terms to Google.

Optimizing a Google AdWords campaign

Take the example of a stationery store that wants to optimize its AdWords campaign. We suggest you use these 7 tips to help you generate sales through online advertising.

1. Structuring the Google AdWords campaign

One of the common mistakes when creating a Google AdWords campaign is to under-structure it. Google advises everyone to create different campaigns for each of your goals. If you’re a stationery store and want to promote your greeting cards and notepads, it’s best to create two different campaigns: “Greeting Cards” and “Notepads”.

By differentiating these two campaigns, you can create specific ad groups, both linked to greeting cards and notepads respectively. Your greeting card campaign will bring together ad groups corresponding to your different cards: birthday cards, greeting cards and valentine cards.

2. Pay attention to the quality level

A quality level is indicated by Google on each chosen keyword. This quality level ranges from 1 to 10 and corresponds to an estimate of the quality of the ads and the landing page. The higher the quality, the more Google will judge your ad to be relevant. Improving the quality of each keyword has a direct impact on the ranking of your ads on Google.

3. Choose good keywords

As mentioned earlier, keywords are critical in Google AdWords campaigns as they allow your ads to appear to interested users.

Therefore, it is essential to be precise when selecting your keywords. In order to promote your greeting cards, it is advisable to include keywords such as “hand-drawn greeting card” and “illustrated greeting card”. These keywords must then be included in the ad group in question (greeting card).

Promote “exact” types of correspondence

When adding keywords, Google automatically puts these words in broad match. This means that your ads can appear when your keywords are written in combination with other terms. However, we advocate the use of keywords in exact phrase or exact keyword contexts. These criteria will ensure that your ads will only show for your specific terms.

For example, if someone says they are looking for a “Montreal greeting card”, your ad may be shown because the word “greeting card” is present in the search. When a keyword is in broad match, each term is likely to show ads. Since the term “greeting card” is indicated, Google will search all sites offering these products. If your keywords such as “hand-drawn greeting cards” are in exact match, you will not run the risk of posting your ads to non-interested users.

Negative keywords

Google AdWords also allows you to make a selection of negative keywords. This feature is recommended because it avoids unnecessary clicks. Paying for each click forces you to think about an effective strategy. It is best to avoid someone clicking on your ad who is only looking for announcements for weddings instead of regular greeting cards. This Internet user will go on your site, but the probability that they end up buying one of your products is quite low. As a result, the quality level will drop and the ranking of your ad will be affected as well.

4. Write strong advertisements

When your ad eventually appears on Google, you must make sure that users click on it. How can you do this? Write a quality and powerfully-worded ad. Do not hesitate to use a call to action statement such as “free delivery” or “20% discount”.

All your ads must interest users. It is also recommended to include the main keyword in each of your ads to demonstrate to web users that your ad is relevant. Following this procedure, a better level of quality will be obtained. To learn more about it, we invite you to read our blog article on writing effective ads.

5. Optimize the landing page

The landing page is the page the user will arrive on when he clicks your AdWords ad. It is therefore essential that this page meets the expectations of the user. If your ad indicates hand-made greeting cards on sale, the link used should only relate to those specific products with the current discount.

The quality of a landing page in Google AdWords campaigns is highly dependent on the user experience. If several users leave your site soon after clicking on the ad, Google will eventually judge that your ad is inconsistent and will limit its distribution (once again lowering your overall quality Score).

6. Calendar and broadcast zones

When you create a Google AdWords campaign, you can show your ads at specific times of the day or week. This setting should be taken into consideration if you do not want your ads to appear during the day or night. If your stationery store is open from Tuesday to Saturday and your goal is to attract customers to the store, it is best to show your ads on those days according to opening times.

With a limited daily budget, the broadcast schedule allows you to pay less for your advertising but also to attract the interest of Internet users effectively. It is important to note that clicks generated in the middle of the night usually bring fewer conversions.

Targeting your broadcast zones is also recommended. If you do not deliver greeting cards outside of Canada, you do not need to show your ads in the United States.

7. Remarketing

We’ve talked about optimizing a Google AdWords campaign on search networks to generate sales. Even if you favour search networks, we strongly recommend that you create a Remarketing campaign on a display network.

Remarketing allows you to show your ads to people who have visited your website before. This means that a visitor will see one of your text or image ads when browsing the web. This feature is very interesting and offers the possibility for companies to have visibility and especially get the attention of an Internet user who did not convert the first time they came to your site. You could for example offer a 15% discount to Internet users who have already been to your site without making any purchases. This type of marketing is very effective.

Contactez nos spécialistes AdWords

Contact our AdWords specialists

There are still several features of an AdWords campaign that can help you generate sales. This is why a web marketing agency such as My Little Big Web offers a service for creating and managing Google AdWords campaigns.

Do not hesitate to contact us at 514 572 7758 or via our contact form if you wish to speak with an advisor who will answer all your questions.

Eugénie Delhaye

Cofondatrice et Spécialiste Marketing Internet et Référencement Naturel (SEO) Ma maîtrise des techniques de référencement, combinée à une analyse minutieuse des tendances du marché, me permet de créer des stratégies SEO sur mesure, efficaces et durables.