Deciding Your Conversions Makes or Breaks Your Google Ads Success
As a professional Google Ads account manager, I see all kinds of accounts – healthy ones, sick ones, and those that simply need to be started all over. One thing that I have seen consistently is an issue with conversions and what clients decide to track has a big impact on performance. Especially when automated bidding driven by AI is turned on.
In the image above, you can see that this client has no conversion tracking working. This new client is using conversion maximizing automated bidding, but is not tracking any conversions as the codes are all broken.
Here’s what I like to track when it comes to conversions:
- Sales
- Email form completions
- Phone calls from the website after 40 seconds
- Click to call from ads – sometimes
- Whitepaper downloads
- Newsletter subscriptions
- Free Demos or Trials
Here’s what I do not like to see as tracked:
- Visits to a page
- Time on a page
- Number of website pages in a visit
Set up for a disaster are:
- No conversion tracking at all
- Broken codes for conversion tracking
- Clicks on a button – in most cases
I have also found that changing from 1-conversion to many-conversion can be good, but moving from many-conversion to 1-conversion can be very problematic, for reporting history as well as communicating a strong success story in Google Ads.
From my point of view not tracking the “right” conversions in an account makes it very hard to utilize the Google Ads bidding algorithms to maximize performance and to drop the cost per conversion effectively.
If you do use any automated bidding tools with a conversion boosting focus and your conversion tracking codes are broken or not working, you set yourself up for incredibly high bids as Google has no historical data to base bidding upon.
If you are looking to optimize your Google Ads account join our clients and get quality review by our experienced team. We take a no-nonsense approach to getting you more business.
Not Advertising on Mobile in Google Ads? You Should Be.
I have been managing Google AdWords accounts for around thirteen years. This depth of experience has given me a unique point of view.
Here are a few nuggets to share with you on the topic of mobile.
1. Advertising in the mobile space has to be a part of your Google AdWords strategy. For some clients all leads will come in via mobile, for others just a part, and for some none.
2. If you are a lawyer, dentist, or a doctor where you have a mix of patient age groups, you will see strong activity in the mobile ad space and strong conversion activity there.
3. If your product or service deals with immediate decisions such as an animal emergency room your activity will be in the mobile ad space and nearly all of your lead conversions will be by phone.
4. Even if your business is tech software, know that although you may not get leads from mobile, early decision making and research is being done initially on mobile. It is better to control your ad spend on mobile in that case instead of totally moving out of mobile.
5. There is no single combination of what works best for businesses in mobile at this time and there does not seem to be one pattern of behavior that is repeated across diverse industries. What I have definitely seen is that mobile should be a very important part of every AdWords program.
If you need help with your Google AdWords campaigns I invite you to review our services and qualifications. We may just be the perfect match for your pay per click management needs.
Just Started Advertising on Google Ads? Tips on Determining Your Ad Budget
When you start advertising on Google Ads, how do you determine your starting budget?
There is no mystery to deciding your budget for Google Ads. I use the Keyword Planner to determine the best budget for starting out. Here are my tips.
- Create a list of 10 two to three word phrases that you feel will help drive qualified traffic.
- Go to your Google Ads account or ask your Google Ads consultant to run the numbers for you, but putting each keyword in the Google Keyword Planner to check for traffic, competition, and typical bids.
- Plan on these potential bids being about 20% lower than the real auction for clicks when your account is set up.
- Take the average of these ten keyword’s click costs and then decide how many clicks you would like to have a day before your ads stop showing.
- Look at the number generated in step 4 and determine if you can realistically live with this number. Never get over your head in regards to a budget that is way beyond your means. It is not typical to get leads in Google Ads the day ads serve. For some account it can take as long as three weeks for optimization to start to see the first lead conversion.
- Remember a lead conversion or beneficial action you are recording as a conversion is not always a sale. Sometimes it is just the first step in the sales process.
- Understand that it takes time for a Google Ads account to become profitable. Google Ads is a dynamic auction with bids changing for each query and many factors determining if your ads show or not.
- Work with a professional Google Ads account manager or consultant like McCord Web Services to get the most out of Google Ads.
I invite you to visit our website to learn more about Google Ads and our Google Ads consulting and account management services.