While these two should have complimented each other, you must have found yourself in the middle of striking a balance between your monthly budget and Google Ads spending. And this is a secret that apparently everyone knows, Google Ads consume nearly half of your budget.

And do you know what’s more heartbreaking???

You don’t even get half of the ROI you expected. Even with an amazing landing page, the best conversion copy, and a good audience, the results are so-so.  Yes, I have been there and felt that frustration and disappointment. 

But I did find a way out of this cycle.

Do you want to know how I did that? Well, that’s what I am exactly here to do. I will share some expert Google ads optimization tips that will help you get better ROI. As they say, good results call for minor improvements (I don’t know who said that but the world is big, someone must have been intellectual enough). 

These strategies are used by our PPC experts and with mutual understanding, I am sharing their strategies to help you not lose your budget and your job at the same time. Guess, hitting two birds with one stone is trendy these days. 

So, get on the ride and learn how to use these strategies to maintain a healthy and loyal clientele while maximizing conversion volumes. 

Seems like today is a ‘buy one get one free offer’ day, with these 13 Google Ads Optimization tips I will also guide you on how, when, and why you should optimize your Google Ads campaigns.

Interesting Information Ahead

The Ultimate Guide to Conducting a Google Ads Audit for your business

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Google Ads Optimization – What is it? 

Maximum Google Ads Optimization – Just 13 Tips Away

1. Keyword Research And PPC Tools – A Shot On Expansion 
2. Keep Playing The Keyword Game 
3. Controlling Your SKAGs
4. Use RLSAs To Target Your Audience 
5. Use Display Ads To Maximize Reach
6. Your Intent and CTA Should Be On The Same Page
7. Keep A Close Look At KPIs and Metrics 
8. Use Geolocation To Make Your Spending Worthwhile 
9. Spend Money During Traffic Hours
10. Demographics Count
11. Search Partners: Keep Them Or Lose Them, Your Call
12. Make Adjustments For Better Results
13. Test, tweak, and optimize your ads 

The Bonus – The To-Do List While Optimizing Google Ads

1. Quarterly Reflection: How to Optimize Your Google Ads Strategy
2. Optimizing Google Ads Monthly – All Efforts In
3. Making Regular Improvements: How to Optimize Your Google Ads Weekly or Biweekly
4. Google Ads optimization on a daily basis: Is everything working fine?
5. Quick Fixes for a One -Time Google Ads Optimization

The Optimization Shall Begin Now

Google Ads Optimization – What is it? 

Before digging into the big stuff, it is important to get the gist of what exactly Google Ads Optimization is and why is it boggling everyone’s mind. Did you know Google Ads was formerly known as AdWords and the name has nothing to do with its optimization? It’s good for the GK though.

Optimizing Google Ads means you use some strategies to enhance the performance of your Google Ads campaigns. For example, these strategies could be an amalgam of various aspects of your Google Ads campaign like keywords, targeted areas or audience, bidding process, etc etc etc. All these strategies are used to achieve one and ONLY one goal i.e. to get more conversions and maximize return on investment (ROI). 

Note that Google Ads optimization is not a one-time thing. If you are thinking to run a Google Ads campaign with the same keywords or settings for two months or so then you are definitely doomed. Digital marketing strategies are evolving at a fast pace, the keywords that brought conversions last month might drain your budget this month because the very same keywords are increasing your CPA. So, as a counter move, you might wanna pause those keywords and change the settings to cater to this month’s needs. 

Moreover, an informed and strategic optimization of Google Ads campaigns generates relevant leads. You just don’t need conversions, you need leads that bring business.

Staying up-to-date by using relevant keywords and timely optimization of the settings can get you better ROI, conversions, and ranking.  By continuously analyzing and improving campaign performance, your business can minimize wasteful spending on irrelevant clicks and increase the likelihood of reaching its target audience with a message that resonates with them. Optimization is an ongoing process that requires constant monitoring, testing, and adjustment to stay competitive in a dynamic market.

Maximum Google Ads Optimization – Just 13 Tips Away

Time is money, which remains an uncontested fact of all times. Before searching for strategies and ways to optimize your Google Ads campaigns, you need to first optimize your time and thinking. Seriously, wandering from Google to Google Ads settings, without having a clear picture of whether the strategies would bring results is a complete waste of time. Streamline your time, and spend hours on strategies and settings that you are fully aware of. Once you know how the strategies work, whatever challenges come your way, you’ll be able to tackle them timely and effectively. 

Don’t worry while it may seem a difficult task to you, it could be challenging for the experts as well. Knowing the solutions but not knowing when, where, and how to apply them is a nightmare.

Believe me! 

Dropping the pessimism here, let’s walk through the steps and tips that can better optimize your Google Ads campaigns and will help you improve ROI. 

1. Keyword Research And PPC Tools – A Shot On Expansion 

Every single person who has done keyword research once in their lifetime can relate to you, totally agree it could be painstakingly boring. 

Lack of thorough and relevant keyword research can hamper progress significantly. You wouldn’t want that, would you? While the process can be a slow poison the results, however, are sweeter than honey. 

Frequent keyword research can get your stagnant Google Ads account moving. Let’s see what tools can help you with proper, detail-oriented, and result-driven keywords. 

1. Google Analytics:  Provides insights on user behavior to optimize Google Ads campaigns. It identifies keywords driving traffic and conversions, and shows where visitors drop off. By analyzing metrics, marketers can optimize landing pages and ad copy to improve Quality Scores, lower cost-per-click, and increase conversion rates.
2. Keyword Planner: It provides data on volume, competition, and suggested bids. Marketers use this data to identify high-performing, relevant keywords, expand campaigns, and improve performance. It also suggests new keywords and ad groups.
3. SEMrush: Helps to analyze competitors’ ad copy, landing pages, and keywords. SEMrush also provides data on competitor ad spend, impressions, and click-through rates, as well as insights into their ad strategy and targeting.
4. AdBeat: Users can monitor and analyze their competitors’ campaigns across various platforms, including Google Ads, Bing Ads, and Facebook Ads. It provides data on ad copy, landing pages, and targeting, as well as insights on ad spend and traffic sources. AdBeat also offers features like keyword research and competitive benchmarking.
5. SpyFu: Allows users to monitor and analyze their competitors’ campaigns on Google Ads and Bing Ads. It provides data on ad copy, keywords, and landing pages, as well as insights on ad spend and traffic volume. 

Paid or unpaid, use keyword research and PPC spy tools to stay ahead of your game. 

2. Keep Playing The Keyword Game 

Playing with keywords could be a tedious process, but one has to play this game to stay in the game. Make sure your keywords don’t lose their purpose in the middle of the optimization.

Filter your keywords: To prevent paying for clicks that don’t wish to display, regularly examine search phrases for any irrelevant keywords. Although broad keyword match types are crucial, phrase match and precise match can sometimes occasionally fail. Use a Google Ads filter to display only search phrases with clicks larger than or equal to 1 or impressions greater than 100 to make it easier to view search terms.

Refine and Expand: Data is essential for optimizing keywords, and it’s crucial to spot areas where the keyword list is wasting money while avoiding developing a sentimental attachment to the keywords. Data will assist marketers in identifying the most pertinent keywords to utilize and in optimizing them for a favorable Return. Research and PPC spy tools can assist increase keyword prospects, but a technique like a search terms report can offer conversion statistics on keywords that are required.

For example, One beauty supply store, for instance, does not yet target the phrase “anti-aging serum,” despite the fact that it has already generated ten sales. The store may increase its chances of success by looking through the search phrases and finding out which campaign has the greatest conversion rate to date.

3. Controlling Your SKAGs

The use of Single Keyword Ad Groups (SKAGs) is a great way to control Google Ad campaigns. SKAGs allow you to build up PPC campaigns with one keyword per ad group and then construct a series of advertisements whose headlines use that keyword at least once. They offer a 1:1 ratio of keywords for advertising, providing you greater relevance to the keyword when visitors search for it or phrases that are related. This gives you the greatest flexibility and precision. This phenomenon is called the “Iceberg Effect,” and Google enjoys seeing it in its ad auctions.

4. Use RLSAs To Target Your Audience 

Remarketing Lists for Search Ads (RLSAs) from Google are tools that enable marketers to layer targeting from their remarketing lists with search campaigns. They are not just limited to display campaigns and offer the potential of finding more relevant queries and traffic as they can identify individuals who have already interacted with a website. When setting up an RLSA, it is recommended to build sizeable lists, duplicates prevailing campaigns for testing purposes, and run both non-RLSA and RLSA campaigns simultaneously. For efficacy, ensure that the remarketing list is appropriate for the target audience.

5. Use Display Ads To Maximize Reach

Display ads are an effective way to expand recognition and visibility. Unlike in-market list targeting, similar-to targeting, affinity targeting, or custom audience targeting, they typically don’t generate many conversions. To make sure your account reaches its full potential, it’s important to look at your sales funnel as a unit and target the people at the end with the most promising prospects. Google search ads often attract those with intent while display advertising, which is less purposeful but still PPC, supports search efforts and helps populate the bottom of your funnel.

6. Your Intent and CTA Should Be On The Same Page

Each stage in the conversion cycle got its own temperature. This concept is generally referred to as a PPC thermometer. Serving the right call-to-action (CTA) at the right temperature and to the right visitor is all it takes to generate leads and maximize conversions. For example, you don’t slap a warm visitor (people returning from a search) with a warm conversion intent with a cold CTA. Instead, they’d be expecting a warmer CTA threat. Likewise, a cold visitor with cold conversion intent should be met with minimal CTA threat. 

Visitors coming through the top of the funnel can improve your conversion rate audience and click-through rate (CTR), if you keep the CTA threat level and gradually take them to the end of the conversion stage. You can do so by not bombarding with them 2 or 3 pages of survey form asking for their personal information. Simple information like name and email address can bring them in through micro-conversion.

This will make them remember your brand and product thus increasing the likelihood of improving conversion rates.

7. Keep A Close Look At KPIs and Metrics 

Have you ever thought why micro metrics like CTR, impression share, optimization score, etc all look great but they are not producing THE outcome i.e., SALES? 

No, obviously you were living a happy life in the woods, putting all your faith in these minor statistics and hoping that they will generate the leads someday. Believe me, when I say, some have lost their jobs and some have lost their business to bankruptcy in the hope of the leads/sales. 

Time to wake up and start painting the big picture. Undoubtedly, these metrics help you in progressive PPC campaigns but are they bring in enough sales? Or are they reciprocating your Google Ads spending? 

If not, then you need to make more precision-based decisions. One way to do that is by having Offline Conversion Tracking. You can bring deals that close later into Google Ads and attribute them to the clicks they came from, which will help you make precision-based decisions when examining sales relative to conversions during your optimizations.

8. Use Geo-location To Make Your Spending Worthwhile 

When targeting a specific country or city, it is important to follow the data and increase the competitiveness of your advertising in areas where you’re seeing results. The “Locations” tab can be used to get a quick idea of how each location targeted by your campaign is working and to break down performance data by location and campaign. Leaving your locations as they are is not necessarily the best course of action; increase the size of your net to target 10 countries you think are of higher value, but only one of them is converting and bringing you sales, so why should you spend money on the other 9?

In three ways you can make spending adjustments with respect to each location:

1. Adjust the bids for locations: You may set a bid adjustment % for each location under the “Locations” tab. Put positive bid changes for places that perform well, and negative bid adjustments for those that perform poorly.

2. Eliminate under performing areas (preferable): Get rid of the locations that have been costing you money and maintain the ones that are performing well since this is the simplest approach to optimizing your locations. 

3. Group places according to the campaign: Make separate focus campaigns for each of your top-performing regions and increase funding there. Reduce spending on campaigns with under performing locales.

9. Spend Money During Traffic Hours

The most crucial information to take into account while presenting advertisements may be found via time reports. Google can devote more of its money to the periods when conversions are highest, but visitors who use the site after business hours would still lose a few hundred dollars. A negative bid adjustment to the time of day can also be included to improve account health and performance. Choose a campaign and enter the “Ad Schedule” tab in the edit pencil to specify when advertisements will appear.

10. Demographics Count

Different family income levels, genders, and ages can have a big impact on Google’s performance. Users may access statistics from each demographic range by selecting “Show Table” under the “Audiences” tab to view their demographic information. Google is directing a portion of its advertising budget towards groups of people who traditionally haven’t converted or bought anything, in order to save money.  If you are spending too much on a certain group of people who aren’t generating enough revenue then you have to cut down ties with them before all your spending goes down the drain. 

11. Search Partners: Keep Them Or Lose Them, Your Call

Search partners in Google are a good way to start but sometimes they fail to meet our expectations. There are times that even having a stellar landing page, you might encounter irrelevant leads even with all the filters in place. It goes without saying, bots have a knack for generating such leads. 

One way to improve the performance route is by removing search partners, just to be sure that the traffic from the partner site is not generating these bot leads. When we applied this, the results did improve. 

Instead of taking all the roads to optimization why not take one that’s near and looks less strenuous? Removing search partners could get you a relevant audience.

12. Make Adjustments For Better Results

Every effort and every spending you make should count for something…..

By making a little adjustment to your bid, you can actually cut down on negative budget spending. I have already mentioned bid adjustments with respect to demographics, locations, and ad schedules. However, there is another teeny-weeny bid adjustment that can boost your Google Ads optimization i.e., audiences and device adjustments.

If your business is getting good results from mobile searches and desktop searches are a handful then you must adjust that. Cut down the spending on desktop searches and allocate more budget to mobile searches which are likely to sore up conversions. 

It can also be beneficial to adjust bids based on audience. Even when your audience is in Observation Mode, you may still engage them in this activity. For instance, if you see that the audience of “business professionals” is significantly increasing conversions, boost your bid adjustment there.

13. Test, Tweak, And Optimize Your Ads 

Ad testing is a smart approach to make sure you’re always improving. Update your advertising often to prevent outdated copy over time. Making tiny adjustments to your advertising at a time makes it easier to evaluate your testing since you can identify the cause of the change you observed. Even if your advertisements are performing well right now, you can always improve them.

The Bonus – The To-Do List While Optimizing Google Ads

Now that you know how to optimize your PPC campaigns, you must know when to do it. 

There is always a right time for everything, as they say!

 It all sounds like a piece of cake, but it could actually be challenging. Google Ads needs time to absorb the changes and learn from them. Many marketers, however, get mired in a loop of daily adjustments, and if the adjustments don’t have an impact, making more adjustments might result in big adjustments the following day. 

Marketers should take their time and invest in marketing strategy in order to maximize the time spent optimizing an account. This will enable them to establish a schedule for when and how frequently the optimizations should be carried out. 

However, we do have a solution for this in the bag as well. Following this small to-do list will give you better insights into when exactly to optimize.

Let’s walk through it together.

Quarterly Reflection: How to Optimize Your Google Ads Strategy

It’s time to evaluate how well your Google Ad campaigns performed as the end of the quarter draws near. Taking some time to think might help you make more thoughtful decisions based on where you’ve been and where you want to go, even if you don’t make any changes right away. In other circumstances, a bad performance could call for a more significant change, like reorganizing your accounts or shifting your budget to a new platform. Regardless of your outcomes, take this opportunity to gather your ideas and facts, and develop a strategy for the following quarter.

Optimizing Google Ads Monthly – All Efforts In

Monthly optimizations call for more effort, and large performance adjustments, and analyzing these changes might take up a lot of time. 

You can optimize your time and efforts by not spending much time on the following

1. Allow new ads to run for at least a month to see their performance. Turn on the “Optimize for the best-performing ads” setting to let Google Ads show the best ads for your campaign.
2. Reassess bid adjustments on a regular basis, such as weekly or biweekly, and make changes as needed.
3. Look at demographic data that hasn’t generated results and consider removing or adjusting targeting.
4. After a month, evaluate campaigns that aren’t performing well and either scrap the idea or restructure the campaign to improve performance.
5. Increase the budget for locations that perform well and decrease or remove the budget for those that perform poorly. Modify bid adjustments on locations as needed.
6. Analyze conversion times and decide whether there are certain hours or days when ads shouldn’t be shown.

Making Regular Improvements: How to Optimize Your Google Ads Weekly or Biweekly

Weekly or biweekly optimizations entail additional changes that are meant to make a bigger effect. You’re essentially making little adjustments where you notice performance gaps.  Depending on how complex the adjustments were and how soon your account received data on your adjustments, you may choose to make these changes weekly or biweekly. Biweekly is the best option if you look back and notice that your modifications could be beginning to make an impact after a week, but it would need more time to be definite. 

Here is what you need to do when optimizing your Google Ads weekly or biweekly:

1. Analyze search term reports and add negative keywords to exclude money-wasters.
2. Implement bid adjustments in locations, devices, or audiences to improve performance and exclude money-wasters with negative adjustments.
3. Revise and expand the keyword list by cutting out non-performing keywords and adding new ones based on converting search terms.
4. Consider adding new keywords on a biweekly basis to properly evaluate their performance.

Google Ads optimization on a daily basis: Is everything working fine?

Well, we did say that you shouldn’t necessarily make large daily changes to the account. Nonetheless, you continue to visit the account every day. As a result, many of the everyday improvements you perform can require extensive inspection and required adjustments.

1. Analyze budget trends to ensure you are on track to meet your spending targets for the month. Adjust daily budgets as needed to avoid overspending or underspending.
2. Look for and fix disapproval alerts for your ads or extensions. Check your email for alerts or use a filter to quickly identify any issues in your account.
3. Keep an eye out for sudden performance changes of 10-15% and make necessary changes to settings, bidding, etc. to address any red flags.
4. Check your bids and bid strategies to ensure that you’re not falling too far below the estimated first-page bid. Set up automated rules to increase your keywords to the first-page bid daily, if needed.

If you’re employing a smart bidding technique, on the other hand, you’ll want to be sure that it isn’t overloading your pace or having trouble delivering due to a lack of data. While you can’t determine if your smart bidding technique is “effective” overall after one day, you can make sure it isn’t doing too much damage to your account while it is still learning.

Quick Fixes for a One -Time Google Ads Optimization

In our list of optimization suggestions, there are a lot of one-time adjustments that might significantly alter the health of your account. 

For your account, we advise the following one-time optimizations:

1. For greater control, limit your keyword usage to one per ad group.
2. You should create RLSA copies of your most successful campaigns.
3. To develop your bottom-of-the-funnel audience, get in front of your top-of-the-funnel audience.
4. Adapt your CTA and offer to the level of traffic.
5. If necessary, check to see if disabling Search Partners improves performance.

 The Optimization Shall Begin Now

Equip yourself with all these strategies for Google Ads optimization and you are good to go. 

Google Ads optimization is crucial for account growth and facing your competition head-on. While regular optimizations within the Google Ads platform are crucial, it’s equally essential to optimize your landing page to enhance its performance. If optimizing seems overwhelming, qualified assistance is available. The Google Ads experts at Ad Labz can handle all the tedious labor.