4 Tips to Dominate Google Ads in 2022 (And Generate Quality Leads)

Google Ads provides the best solutions when you need to show up for certain searches. Unlike SEO, which requires time and provides a long-term strategy for showing up at the top of search results, Google Ads are placed above all organic results and can be turned on or off at any time. However, if done incorrectly, running a Google Ads campaign can result in no return on all the money spent. Below are 4 tips that our ASTOUNDZ SEO & PPC experts compiled that help them craft successful Google Ads campaigns:

1 – Using The Best Types of Google Ad Campaigns

There are a lot of campaign types you can choose from in Google Ads now.

• Search – Text ads on Google search results
• Display – Image ads on websites or on Gmail
• Video – Video ads on YouTube
• Shopping – Product listings on Google
• App – Your app promotion on many channels
• Smart – Simplified automated ads on Google and across the web
• Local – Drive customers to a physical location
• Discovery – Runs ads across Google’s feeds when they’re open

You can learn about all the campaigns more on Google’s official support page. However, what are the best types of campaigns that generate quality leads and relevant traffic?

At ASTOUNDZ, we are typically going to choose Search campaigns for driving targeted traffic that can convert into leads and Display campaigns for increasing brand awareness, driving bulk traffic, and retargeting people that have already visited your website.

Taking the extra step to retarget paid traffic coming from search ads can help keep your brand/product top of mind for potential leads.

2 – Advanced Keyword Targeting

When running ads, people will often input keywords and phrases as broad match (show up for the main keyword and all similar phrases and synonyms/related terms), as this is the default setting. However, taking the extra step to have certain keywords that are modified or using other keyword match types can help with refining your targeted searches.

Phrase Match – input keywords using quotes around your keyword, ‘example’. With phrase match, you can reach more searches than with exact match and fewer searches than with broad match, only showing your ads on the searches that include your product or service.

Exact Match – input keywords using square brackets around your keyword, [example]. Exact match gives you the most control over who sees your ad, but reaches fewer searches than both phrase and broad match, only showing your ads on the exact keyword or keyword phrase around the square brackets.

If it isn’t clear what your target audience is actually searching for, a campaign can always start with broadly bidding on keywords and then using the Negative Keywords feature to exclude ads from irrelevant searches. After doing this for several days/a full week, you can then begin seeing the searches that matter and update the campaign’s list of broad keywords to be more targeted using Phrase and Exact Match bidding.

Note: In February 2021, Google Ads began to incorporate behaviors of broad match modifier (BMM) into phrase match, and as of July 2021, broad match modifier as a separate matching behavior is no longer available.

This change ties into the Smart campaign type, and you can learn more on Google’s official support page.

3 – Geo-Targeting Is Still Important

Google Ads location targeting allows your ads to appear in the geographic locations that you choose: countries, areas within a country, a radius around a location, or location groups, which can include places of interest, your business locations, or tiered demographics.

Any successful campaign on Google Ads includes and excludes certain geographical areas so ads can be seen more (or less) depending on where people are searching from. The key step to consider is where your customers are, not where your business is located. For example, if you have e-commerce as part of your store, target all the locations you ship to, not just where your business is physically located.

4 – Cost & Performance Saving Settings

While there are some markets that remain active late and overnight, most don’t, and clicks from 11 pm – 5 am hurt campaign budgets more than help them (especially during the 12 am – 5 am timeframe). Updating your campaign to only trigger ads when your audience is both awake and online, will help maximize your daily spend budget by only using it during relevant hours.

In addition to scheduling your ads, updating a campaign’s age demographic targeting is another easy step to optimize performance. For example, for many professional & B2B services the age demographic of people under 25 is much less relevant than the over 25 range. By excluding anyone under 25, ads will show up to more relevant users and the campaign’s budget will be used in a smarter way.

Taking both of these steps will help a campaign extend its daily budget, while also driving a greater ROI by more consistently placing ads to relevant users/audiences.

Contact ASTOUNDZ Today for Expert Google Ads Management

Looking for more information on Google Ads – check out Google’s official knowledge base here. If you simply want help to manage and implement these tips above on your campaign, contact ASTOUNDZ now to schedule a time to speak to one of our SEO & PPC experts.