5 Advertising Mistakes In Google Ads And How To Avoid Them - Semalt Expert


Google Advertising Mistake №1 - Not conducting keyword research properly

You will be amazed at how much you do not know about what your customers are looking for. Properly conducted keyword research will reveal to you what your customers are already searching for on Google.

Any business owner, regardless of their field of activity and the number of years worked, cannot imagine all the possible combinations of search terms that their customers are looking for.

Usually, new Google advertisers are caught advertising in general terms that don't accurately describe what they are selling. This ultimately results in a quick waste of budget and very few inquiries or sales.

What, for example, is the person who types the word "mortgage" looking for? Does he/she want to take out a mortgage? Maybe refinance a mortgage? Or maybe he/she is looking for a mortgage course and even wants to check if a mortgage is written with an A or E? Just a moment, there are more options for those looking for a mortgage: they may be debating between a mortgage and a rent; it is possible that they are looking for advice on how to handle a mortgage in case of divorce or maybe want to check mortgage eligibility and these are just some of the options.

So, in order not to waste your time and budget on the wrong keyword, it is better to do thorough research on each keyword with the help of a proper tool.

Of course, there are many paid SEO tools that you can use to achieve your goal. Nevertheless, we would like to introduce you here to the Dedicated SEO Dashboard, which is, in our opinion, the most popular tool. Indeed, this tool is best suited for keyword research and analysis.



The particularity of this tool is its ability to perform several SEO tasks to the point where other tools are no longer needed to perform the larger SEO tasks.

The Dedicated SEO Dashboard has 14 days of free trials to appreciate its performance and usefulness.

Google Advertising Error №2 - Not defining match types

There are several types of fit, ranging from wide fit to exact fit.

The exact fit

An exact match is a match in which the search phrase that the surfer typed is exactly the same as the keyword phrase that the advertiser defined. For example: if an advertiser competes for the exact phrase "double bed", then only those who search for the phrase "double bed" will see the advertiser's ad. If the surfer types "adjustable double bed", Google will not activate the exact keyword "double bed" defined by the advertiser, and the ad will not show.

The wide fit

A broad match means that Google recognizes some connection between what the surfer was looking for and what the advertiser defined, and that is enough to activate the key phrase and display the ad. For example: if an advertiser is competing for the broadly matched "double bed", then any search term typed by the surfer containing the word "bed" or the word "double" or any variation of at least one of them activates the ad. A surfer who types in the search phrase "pin bed" will activate the keyword "double bed" in a broad match defined by the advertiser, and the advertiser's ad will be displayed. Agree with us that it is irrelevant. There will be searchers who will see the ad, and even if they understand that the ad is not for them, they will click. What do they care? Does the click cost them money? No!

This may surprise you, but the default type of match is a broad match. In other words, if you do not define a match type, the match type chosen for your key phrases is a broad match.

Most new Google advertisers have no idea that when they enter a list of keywords, they are broadly defined. This means that Google will activate your keyphrases if it has the possibility. Whenever there is even a slight link between what the user was searching for and the advertiser's key phrases in a broad sense, there is a chance that your ad will be displayed. So your ads will be shown to irrelevant surfers, and if they click on your ads, and they do click, it will cost you a lot of money, and nothing better than that will develop for you: no inquiries and no sales.

Google Advertising Error №3 - Not dividing advertising into campaigns and ad groups

Your advertising on Google should be relevant all the way: from the key phrase through the ad to the landing page. Google advertising that contains one campaign and one ad group is a common mistake many business owners make in advertising on Google. 

Putting all the keywords in one ad group that will show one ad and lead to one landing page is a mistake that will cost you a lot of money. You want the ad to be relevant to the search phrase typed by the surfer, and for that, you need to open a lot of ad groups.

Suppose you provide mortgage services, including mortgage recycling and single-parent mortgage. For your ad to be relevant to those who apply, you will need to make sure that those who are looking for "mortgage recycling" will see an ad that talks about mortgage recycling and clicking on it will lead to a landing page that talks about mortgage recycling. Anyone looking for a "single-parent mortgage" will see an ad that talks about a single-parent mortgage, and clicking on it will lead to a landing page that talks about a single-parent mortgage. Makes sense? Certainly.

Placing all the key phrases about 'mortgage' in one ad group does not allow for high relevancy, and therefore you will get a low-quality score. It means you pay much, much more.

Google Advertising Error №4 - Not taking full advantage of advertising options

Google allows:

Search advertising, in which advertisers' text or product ads will appear only on the search results page of Google and search partners,

Multimedia advertising, in which text, image and video ads will appear on millions of sites worldwide, including YouTube, Gmail and mobile applications.

Google will do its best to get your ad on Google. Google search is limited to text-only ads, but in media, Google has a much wider range of options to deliver your ads to a network of millions of sites. So what's wrong with display ads? It's very bad, and it will cost you a lot of money.

If you are not on the GDN media advertising taps, your budget will be wasted very quickly on low-quality traffic that will bring you: no inquiries and no sales.

We recommend advertising on the search network first and switching to advertising on the media network only after you have exhausted the potential of the search one. Amateur advertising on the Display Network is much more "painful" financially than amateur advertising on the Search Network.

Google Advertising Error №5 - Not measuring conversions



Form inquiries, telephone calls, online sales - these are all conversions. Conversions need to be measured. Conversion is an action that you, as advertisers, ask the user to take. You buy Google traffic with money, and you need to know, at the end of the day, "what you got out of it: how many inquiries and how many sales?

Advertising on Google without being able to measure conversions is "blind" advertising. You "pay" money, and you don't know what happens as a result of the advertising that is supposed to promote your business.

It is easy to measure form filling and online sales but harder to measure phones. As most internet users use a mobile device, it is easier for them to call than to fill in a form, and if you are the advertiser who does not measure phone calls, you have a very big "blind spot" that does not allow you to calculate ROI and you cannot make data-driven business decisions.

Feelings are good, but not when it comes to feasibility calculations. If you don't measure inbound phone calls to your business and know how to match them to the advertising channel they are coming from, you won't be able to know for sure: which Google advertising is working well for you, what goes well for you and what does not.

To be able to measure, you need infrastructure and, of course, measurement tools that will provide you with data such as the cost per conversion.

Important tips to consider for success in advertising on Google Ads

Other than the 5 points listed above, which are real pitfalls for Google Ads enthusiasts, here are some important tips to consider as well:

Be tolerant

It may take a day, or it may take 6 months to adjust the advertising to make it profitable.

Anyone who expects that after 20 minutes of advertising. as promised by Google, the phone won't stop ringing, and the emails will explode with inquiries is not connected to reality.

To make decisions, you need numbers, and to get numbers like the number of exposures, number of clicks, number of conversions, and more, it takes time, and you have to invest money.

You can't make a decision based on one or two conversions!

Google Ads is not guaranteed to work for you according to the goals you have set

Depends on who your target audiences are. It depends on whether you are selling to the general public, the so-called B2C, or to B2B companies. And within each of these groups, there are other niches that behave completely differently.

Until you are there, building advertising and investing money, you will not know, really, whether Google Ads is for you.

Often our customers tell us the following: "We advertised on Google three years ago, advertising didn't work, so we decided not to invest in Google Ads anymore!" Just a minute! Not necessarily what did not work three years ago, will not work today. Things have changed: customers have changed their behavior, technology has changed and there are lots of other parameters.

When you find a profitable advertising channel, you need to invest more and more in it as long as it is profitable



This means that you must measure CPA and you must measure ROI, or in other words, you must measure inquiries and conversions from climbers and telephones and associate every inquiry and conversion to the advertising channel from which the surfer came. In beautiful language, this is called scalability, which means the ability to increase investment in advertising as long as the advertising is profitable - you must measure forms and phone calls, otherwise, you will not be able to accurately calculate CPA and ROI.

Many people ask themselves questions related to advertising on Google: How much to invest in advertising?

And the answer is simple: as much as possible!

We know it sounds weird, hallucinatory, and incomprehensible to you but think about it for a moment. If you know how much it costs to lead, whether it is via a form or phone from any paid advertising channel: Google, Facebook, etc., then why not invest more money?

Want to grow?

The way is to calculate the CPA conversion cost per paid advertising channel.

If the conversion price is profitable, it makes sense to bring in more and more customers and stop being a small business.

This is called scalability.

Profit is all that matters

Ignore people who claim that what determines whether advertising is good is the CTR (% of people who clicked on your ad from all those who viewed it). If you are not making money from advertising, you should stop unless your purpose of advertising is branding.

High CTR is definitely a parameter to be proud of, but unfortunately, you cannot buy it in a supermarket. As far as we know, supermarkets cash in dollars or euros, and therefore, all that should interest you is profit, and profit should be calculated.

As long as you are in the digital circle, for example, you have an online store where the only way to purchase is online, then you have no problem measuring profit. You know how much you spent on advertising, you know how many purchases there were and from which channel, and all you have to do now is calculate a profit with accounting data of how much the product cost you (an accountant can help you with that).

The thing is that for most businesses that advertise online, things are a little more complicated:
You need to take care of the infrastructure that will help you measure data so that you can calculate profit.

Summary

Advertising on Google is possible for any business of any size, on any product or service, in accordance with Google's advertising policy, but along the way, you should avoid making advertising mistakes that will cost you a lot of money, and we have just described them.

Advertising on Google requires a lot of preparation, proper construction, and management over time to make sure you meet your business goals.