10 Ways To Increase Sales Using Google Ads

As part of the Small Business Expo, I had the opportunity to give a lecture on Google Ads advertising where I have talked about 10 ways to increase sales.

1. Track conversions

This is advice that you probably hear all the time when it comes to Google Ads. Setting up conversion measurement is essential because how do you know if your campaign is successful and which segment is delivering results if you can't see conversions.

But equally important is which conversions you track and how you set them up.

There are a lot of actions you can measure on your website - filling out forms, clicks, subscribing to the newsletter, downloading documents, and even engagement on the website.

My advice is to always simplify things as much as possible.

In general, when we talk about performance campaigns we have two kinds of conversion:

• Lead generation - the goal of these campaigns is to increase the number of inquiries (leads) and here you want to measure completed contact forms, calls, clicks on email / phone links and possibly live chat interactions
• Sales - the goal of these campaigns is to increase orders, and here you want to measure just sales with configured conversion values to see revenue generated through Google Ads.

How will you measure conversions?

If you have conversions set up in Google Analytics, the simplest solution is to import conversions from Google Analytics to Google Ads.

This is better than not having conversions measurement set at all, but my advice is to measure conversions via Google Ads code whenever possible.

The main reason for that is attribution.

Attribution tells us which credit is assigned to a particular channel on the way to final conversion.

Let's say this is the path to the conversion, from the first user interaction with the advertiser to the time of the final conversion:

So, the user first came to the web via an organic search on Google, the second time he came to the web through a paid Google ad, then returned through organic traffic and finally made conversion by typing the URL directly into their browser.

What's interesting to us is the way Google Ads and Google Analytics will measure this conversion:

Google Analytics uses a so-called last-non-direct click model, which means that conversions will be allocated to organic traffic.

Google Ads uses the last Google Ads click, which means that the conversion will be assigned to Google Ads.

This means that if you import a conversion via Google Analytics, you will not see this conversion in your Google Ads system.

However, it is important that you see it because then you’ll have more data to optimize.

That’s why it’s good to measure conversions via Google Ads code because you’ll have more data on conversions in the Google Ads system that will enable better optimization decisions.

But there are other reasons why it is better to measure via Google Ads code -? you can measure call conversions, you can see View-through conversions, store visits, and generally have faster reporting because conversions are visible in the system sooner.

So, whenever possible, set up conversions via Google Ads code using the Google Tag Manager.

Another thing we need to mention when measuring conversions are the attribution models. This is important to understand because we need to be aware that every conversion is a process and that the user very rarely buys right away on their first visit.

Previously, the default model was Last-click, which you generally want to move away from. Because the last click gives all the credit for the conversion to the last interaction.

However, as we generally have more pre-conversion interactions, we want to give credit to other interactions, so I prefer to use the Position-based model - which gives 40% of the conversion to the first and last interaction, and 20% to other interactions along the way.

Here are all attribution models with a description:

I should note that from now on, Data-driven is the default model, which is recommended by Google. This model is great for accounts with a good history of conversions and a lot of conversion data.

What you want to know is how many customers you get, not just leads. If a particular keyword generates 100 leads, it doesn't mean it's good. What matters is how many customers came through it. This is where offline conversion measurement comes to the fore.

Importing offline conversions requires a little more technical knowledge, but it can raise the account to another level for the quality of data.

2. Create audiences

Google Ads has amazing targeting capabilities and you need to take advantage of that.

Create remarketing audiences

Here are some of the audiences we create for our clients:

• Converters list
• Non-converters list
• All visitors (in 30, 180, and even 540 days if it makes sense for your business)
• Specific page visitors (for example, if you are an App development agency and you have two goals - one is to attract clients and the other is to attract employees, you want to have a special audience for users who have visited career pages and show them ads that communicate that you are a desirable place to work)
• Engaged users (for example, users who visited more than 3 pages and were on the site for more than 30 seconds). This is a great list if you have a low budget and want to target your ads to people who are relevant and interested.
• Visitors who started the purchase process but haven’t completed it
• If you have a lot of visits you can go a step further and build lists based on demographics, traffic channels, technological characteristics (such as browsers they use, devices, operating system, etc.)

It’s good to use Google Analytics here because it offers more options to create better-targeted lists. Then just import these audiences into Google Ads.

Based on remarketing audiences, you can also create a list of users with similar characteristics (something like a lookalike audience, only it's called a similar audience in Google Ads).

Custom segments

Here you have very powerful targeting options that you need to take advantage of.

Did you know that it’s possible to, for example, target users who visit your competitors' sites (this is not 100% reliable, but Google determines which group of users responds and visits such page profiles and serves ads to them).

In addition to URLs, you can target by keywords. You can target users based on the words they search on Google services, which is also a very powerful way of targeting.

So be sure to create at least an audience based on the pages they visit and the priority keywords they search for.

Customer match?

In November of the last year, Google made Customer match widely available and easier to use.

Before your Google Ads account had to meet certain requirements - a good history that complies with the rules, at least 90 days of activity and $ 50,000 spent - but now it’s available to all policy-compliant advertisers.

Of course, with some limitations.

The full set of Customer Match features will continue to be available for advertisers with 90 days of policy compliance and more than $50,000 in lifetime spend. Advertisers that are only policy-compliant (for less than 90 days or have less than $50,000 in lifetime spend) won’t have access to the targeting setting or manual bid adjustments, and they will only have access to similar audiences for Customer Match to observe performance and exclude audiences from their campaigns.

Imagine that you are, let's say, an insurance company and have a list of users whose policy is about to expire. You can create campaigns only for those users that remind them to renew.

Or you can exclude your customers from seeing your ads. The possibilities are great, you just need to make good use of them.

3. Google Ads bidding strategies

A common question in the industry is whether to use automated or manual bidding?

The answer is of course - it depends.?

My general approach is to start with manual bidding and then as the campaign gets more data (clicks and conversions) switch to automated or smart bidding.

Manual bidding is a good and safe start. We select priority keywords, secure high enough bids for them, and track results.

However, things get complicated when campaigns become more demanding to run. And that means having a lot of keywords, a lot of competition, and a lot of segments that affect results (audiences, locations, devices, ad positions, and the like).

In that case, it is better to rely on automated bidding because one simply does not have that power of processing speed to be able to make so many decisions.

The general advice is that as your campaigns get more data and become more complex, you switch to automated bidding.

But here also, we have a great variety of choices because there are few strategies for automated bidding - maximize clicks, maximize conversions, maximize conversion value, target impression share, etc.

Choosing a method depends on what your campaign goal is.

If your goal is to increase the number of leads then it's a good idea to use ‘maximize conversions’ with a defined target cost per conversion.

If you are an e-commerce and your goal is to increase sales then it is better to use ‘maximize conversion value’ with a defined target ROAS.

If you want to ensure maximum visibility and good ad positions for your brand keywords then you could use target impression share.

When your goal is to increase website traffic, try ‘maximize clicks’ (also, this is a good bidding strategy when you're just starting your campaign).

One great way to see what bidding model is best for you is to try a feature called - bid experiments.?

This feature enables you to test various bidding strategies and see which one brings you better results. When in doubt we always use this feature and then decide on the winning bidding strategy from that experiment.

4. Keywords

One of the most important Google Ads issues is targeting, and when we talk about search engine advertising it refers to keywords.

You can use the most advanced features, but if you target the wrong people it’s all in vain.

To find the best keywords you can use Google tools (the Keyword planner, Google trends) and one great tool we like to use - KeywordTool.io.

When doing research, detect those keywords that should be a priority for your business. You determine this based on the search intent and the search volume.

You also want to pay attention to the estimated cost-per-click and the competition for a particular keyword. In general, if a word is expensive and if there is a lot of competition for it - it doesn't have to be a bad thing, because it could mean that the keyword brings results since so many advertisers bid on it.

While doing keyword research, you want to pay attention to those irrelevant keywords for your business and add them as negative, so that you can use your budget more efficiently.

5. Use all relevant ad extensions

Ad extensions are simply additional information that is displayed with the ad. They don't always show because Google decides when to show which extension.

It's good to use them because the extensions highlight your ad and it takes up more inventory on Google, so it attracts users' attention better.

Here are the extensions you have available:

• Sitelink?
• Location?
• Call?
• Message?
• App
• Callout
• Structured snippet?
• Price
• Promotion
• Image

Pay attention to the sitelink extension as it can be a distraction in case you lead users to irrelevant pages. Be strategic about it and look to land users to pages that are optimized for conversion.

6. Don’t forget the basics

As Google continually serves us with new features and capabilities, we sometimes forget the basics - how to get the user's attention and motivate them to take action.

Sometimes it’s better to be simple and think about the user than to test the latest features that won’t make such drastic differences.

With the advancement of artificial intelligence and machine learning, Google is increasingly taking control of optimization and oftentimes does it very well. But it still can’t understand your customer’s motivations or your business and why it is unique.

And here lies one of the greatest potentials for drastically better results. How to stand out from other advertisers, what is important to your customer and how to attract their attention?

Ask yourself how you can be the best possible answer to the user question. How can you provide him with an offer he can’t refuse?

And then - when you are the best solution, and in combination with Google’s smart technology, it’s a winning combination.

Highlight your ad

Don't forget the basics and always think about how you can improve your copy in ads and landing pages.

Here are some tips on how to increase CTR's of your ads:

• Insert a keyword into your ad to make your ad stand out more (you've probably noticed bold words in your ads)
• Communicate your unique benefits
• Personalize your ads using IF functions (e.g. special ads for users who have already been to your website)
• Use all relevant ad extensions to take up more space
• Test RSA ads and generally test your ads regularly with different messages.

7. Work smarter and save time

For Google Ads professionals Excel (or Google spreadsheets) and Editor are indispensable tools for efficient and fast work. If you're still setting up campaigns via Google Ads, it's time to switch to Editor because you'll save a lot of time.

A handy feature of Google Ads are automated rules that allow certain actions to be run automatically without your manual intervention.

Examples of automated rules we like to use are:

• Pausing campaigns during holidays
• Pausing keywords that reached a CPA higher than your target
• Pausing keywords when they reach a certain cost without having conversions

Use Google Ads scripts

Google Ads scripts allow you to make automatic changes to your Google Ads account. This allows you to edit bids directly, pause ad groups, and add keywords with written scripts instead of adding them manually.

Link Checker - works by iterating through all of your ads, keywords, and sitelinks, checking that their URLs do not produce "Page not found" or other types of error responses, emailing you when error responses are found, and saving the results of its analysis to a spreadsheet.

Query to Keyword - Automatically adds high-performing search queries as keywords to your Google Ads campaigns.

Convert existing ETAs (expanded text ads) to RSAs (responsive search ads) - The script creates an RSA based on an existing ETA.

Account Anomaly Detector -? alerts the advertiser whenever a Google Ads account's behavior differs significantly from how it performed in the past. When an issue is encountered, the script will send the user an alerting email.

Automatic Placement Exclusion - The Automatic Placement Exclusion script allows you to automatically identify and exclude placements (not YouTube URLs) that just aren't resulting in the views you'd expect on your video ads.

8. DSA campaigns

DSA campaigns are ideal for sites that have a lot of content and are SEO optimized.

What you need to know is that these campaigns work in such a way that when a user searches for terms related to your products or services Google generates an ad and a corresponding landing page to give the user a relevant answer to his query (based on the titles and texts on your page).

So with this type of campaign, you don't need to enter keywords manually, Google will show ads based on the content of your website.

DSA campaigns are a great complement to existing search campaigns because they will expand your reach with keywords you wouldn’t otherwise include (don’t forget that 15% of daily searches are never seen by Google before).

9. Test other tactics and functionalities of the Google Ads system

I already mentioned how often Google Ads develops and offers us new advertising opportunities.

I believe that what distinguishes a good Google Ads manager from a top-notch one is not only knowledge of the system's features - but their application. Because not all features are for all users.

You won’t use local campaigns if you are a webshop that relies solely on online business. DSA campaigns won’t work so well if you have one minimalist landing page.? You do not need a lead form extension if you are selling a complex B2B product, etc.

Therefore, the right formula for success is how and where to apply which feature.

Here are some of the tactics we like to test on accounts and have shown us very good results:

Pure broad targeting + smart bidding + audiences + RSA - so the use of broad match keywords combined with smart bidding, implemented audiences and RSA ads with data-driven attribution. In short, a tactic where you give control to Google, and if the account has enough data this can work incredibly well.

Google Local Campaigns - if you're a local business and have a Google My Business profile associated with Google Ads, spend a small portion of your budget on local campaigns to increase visibility on Google Maps and the Display Network.

Mobile-only campaigns - although we don't see big differences in performance between mobile and desktop campaigns in practice and generally don't separate these campaigns, there are times when this may be relevant. If most of your visits are via mobile phone and you sell something where the user is motivated to solve their problem quickly (eg. plumber, gas delivery, etc.) an interesting tactic is to have special mobile campaigns with a customized mobile landing page, call extension and even call-only ads.

YouTube Advertising - if you have the resources to make a quality video ad YouTube is great because it's still not too saturated with advertisers, and it delivers great results.

Performance Max campaign - a recently new advertising option in Google Ads. We tested it on several accounts and it works well for us. Its performance will also depend on the quality and quantity of data you have.?

10. Test and experiment

The tip for the end is that there are no ready-made and safe formulas but you just have to test, see what works and optimize your campaigns.

If automated bidding works great on one account, it doesn't mean it will work on another. If you’ve seen on a blog that smart campaigns work great, that doesn’t mean it will work for you either.

But that’s why you have to test and see.?

So you want to test new features and functionalities (new Performance max campaigns, for example), test bidding (automatic vs. manual bidding), be sure to test your ads (have at least 2 ads per ad group and continuously improve them), test keywords and matching options, audience, etc.

The beauty of this business is that everything is measurable and we can always find room for improvement.