6 Essential Tasks For Your Weekly Google Ads Optimisation Schedule
You want the best results from your Google Ads account, right? So let’s take a look at the 6 essential tasks you need to include in your weekly optimisation schedule…
Task 1 – Check Your Search Terms
Check which keywords you’ve been paying for – the ones your keywords have been matched against. You need to do this with Search campaigns AND Shopping campaigns.
You can do this by checking the Search Terms tab in the Keywords section. This tab is the single most important tab in your account and needs to be checked regularly, as it will tell you what you are paying for.
It’s so easy to set up an account, add a handful of keywords and presume this is what you are paying for.. but this is NOT the case! Your keywords will always show against similar keywords and sometimes very obscure terms. I audited an account recently that sold water filters that had accidentally spent hundreds appearing for Xbox games!
It’s essential to check constantly for problems such as this, so you can either add the term as a negative keyword or consider adding the keyword into a new dedicated Ad Group (especially if it’s been converting well).
Task 2 – Check Your Placements
If you’re running Display Network campaigns – check your placements to see where your ads are showing. You’ll find thousands of impressions on poor quality sites that you need to exclude as a placement. if you’re unsure, open the placement and take a look. Are you happy for your ads to appear on there? If not, it’s time to exclude it!
Task 3 – Check your Spend and Daily Budget
Double-check that the budget isn’t being exceeded or isn’t being fully utilised. The latter can happen if you’ve added lots of keywords that don’t get searched for very often. In this case, you’ll want to add some higher volume keywords to the account.
Task 4 – Check Your Conversion Tracking
Ensure your conversions are being successfully tracked so you know precisely how much you’re spending for a conversion. You can check them by visiting Tools & Settings – Conversions and then looking for any that say “unverified” or “No recent conversions”. If you see this message, you’ll want to check the codes have been correctly placed.
Conversion tracking is essential as you want to know which keywords are bringing in sales, especially if you’re trying to justify and prove that your Google Ads account is working.
Track as many conversion types as possible, call-back request forms, Call extensions, Click to call buttons on your mobile website, PDF downloads etc.
You’ll then be able to use the conversion data to make decisions.
If a keyword is bringing in leads at an affordable cost per conversion, consider putting the bid up.
If a keyword is bringing in leads but at a high cost, you’ll want to consider getting the quality score up to get the Cost per Click down. You can do this by editing the landing page to ensure it matches the keyword and ensuring the ad precisely matches the keyword. If this still doesn’t work, you’ll need to put the bid down.
Task 5 – Split Test your ads
Ideally, you’ll be split testing ads on a regular basis. You should always have a minimum of 2 ads running in each Ad Group at any time.
Each week, check which ad has been performing the best by checking a Split Tester tool that will show you which is the winner statistically.
Pause the ad if you have a clear winner and create a new one. You can choose to edit just a single word or create a whole new advert if you prefer.
Task 6 – Keep an eye on the competition
Finally, you’ll want to keep an eye on your competitors and how your account is doing against them. You can check this by looking in the Auction Insights tab. This will show you the competitors you have been bidding against that week, along with the amount of overlap between your keywords and theirs. You can also check how often your ads have appeared above theirs.
Want more Google Ads training? The Google Ads Success Program membership will shortly be re-opening…. Join the waiting list today!
Best wishes,
Claire