How to optimise a Google Search Campaign.

Optimising a Google Search Campaigns is key to achieving success. Left alone, your ads may perform okay, or even quite well — but there is always a way to do them better, always a way to optimise.

What is Google Ad Optimisation?

This is the process of looking at your account and your ads and making changes to ensure your ads perform at the best possible level. It is important to optimise at least every month because, due to the changeable nature of digital marketing, something that worked well last month might not be working well this month.

With so many options to look at for optimisation, it can be hard to know where to start and how to interpret the data in your account. That’s where this guide comes in! Another way to find optimisation opportunities is through a PPC Audit.

Some of the Best Ways to Optimise Google Ads

Keyword Research

Bet you’re sighing at the idea of keyword research! We know it’s a tedious process but finding new keywords to expand into can be super rewarding, especially if your account isn’t growing. For free keyword research tools, try Google Ads Keyword Planner and, for a paid version, we recommend SpyFu.

SKAGs

SKAG stands for single keyword ad group. This is the idea of only using one keyword in an ad group. This is always an interesting thing to test. With a single keyword you can match the ad copy to the keyword perfectly, making the ad a lot more relevant than if you’re using themed groups.

Remarketing

Did you know you can layer remarketing lists on top of your search campaigns? RLSA (Remarketing Lists for Search Ads) limits your search ads to only show to those people who have visited your website before. This can allow you to use broad keywords without the worry of underperformance.

Negative Keywords

Check your search term report — that’s the list which has every search term your ads appeared for. Go through the list and mark out any search terms that are not relevant. We organise by the terms we have spent the most on, which allows us to address the biggest budget drains first. Make sure you are checking conversion data for the search terms as well.

Creative

This is a huge one. Testing the different copy and CTAs can take up a huge amount of time. We’re not going to go into too much detail here, but testing and optimising creative can be a critical part of highly successful campaigns.

Geolocation

Look at the places that perform better and worse. Adjust bids according to these. If a location is performing well, then throw in some more budget and put a higher bid that way.

Days and Times

Similar to the above, check your best and worst performing days and times. Put bid adjustments based on these metrics.

Demographic Bid Adjustments

These determine how often your ads show to the preferred audience to make the most of each impression.

Optimise Quality Score

Some people claim that quality score isn’t real or necessary to think about. Don’t listen to them, it is. Quality score is a score from 1 to 10 based on how relevant your ads, keywords and landing page are to the person who sees your ad. A good quality score lowers cost per click, which lowers cost per conversion, and that makes you more money!

Trial Bidding Strategies

Google Ads has become a lot better with their automated bidding strategy, to the point where it is worth testing the different bidding strategies.

Keyword match types

Most of the time I’d recommend exact match types, however, often enough we’ve had good results from phrase and even broad match keywords. It is worth testing the different keyword match types.

Nothing stays the same in PPC for very long, but these tips should help you optimise a Google Search campaign and aim for success.