As a seasoned Google Ads specialist, I understand the challenges and opportunities that arise when starting a new campaign. In this no-nonsense tips guide, I’ll provide you with valuable tips and insights on launching successful Google Ads campaigns for both search and shopping types. Whether you’re new to Google Ads or looking to optimize your existing campaigns, this guide will help you drive targeted traffic and boost sales for your e-commerce website.
So, let’s dive in!
Define Clear Campaign Goals: Before diving into the world of Google Ads, it’s crucial to define clear campaign goals. Are you looking to increase website traffic, boost sales, or promote specific products? Clearly outline your objectives to ensure that your campaign is tailored and aligned to achieve these goals. Each Goal coincides generally with a type of campaign that can be run. You will be asked about these goals when setting up the new campaign such as Traffic(Search campaign), Brand awareness(Display campaign) and Sales (Shopping campaign). These are the main three, the other types such as performance max and discovery are similar but helped or controlled by Google’s Machine learning.
Thorough Keyword Research: Keyword research is the foundation of a successful Google Ads campaign. While Google does give you keywords suggestions when your first registering your campaign, It’s best to use a third party tool to make sure the keywords have the Volume you need. No point advertising on Keywords that have no traffic now is there. Use tools like Google Keyword Planner (Inside Tools section of Google ads) or professional tools such as SERanking (What we use), SEMrush, or Ahrefs to identify relevant keywords with high search volume and low competition. Focus on long-tail keywords specific to your products to reach a more targeted audience.
Crafting Compelling Ad Copy: Writing compelling ad copy is essential to grab the attention of your potential customers. It can be difficult to write good ads. Writing Engaging Ads is an undervalued talent. Highlight unique selling points, discounts, or special offers. Use strong call-to-action (CTA) phrases to encourage clicks. Remember to align your ad copy with the keywords and landing page content for better relevancy. With the birth AI use it to your advantage and have it brainstorm Ideas for your Ad titles and descriptions as some starting points. But always make corrections where necessary.
Effective Ad Extensions: Make use of ad extensions to enhance your ads and improve their performance. Sitelink extensions, call extensions, and structured snippets provide additional information to users, increasing the chances of engagement. Experiment with various extensions to find the ones that work best for your e-commerce website. Adding sitelinks bolsters your ads by making them larger, subconsciously making them more important to the Google search user.
Optimize Landing Pages: Ensure that your landing pages are optimized for conversions. Make them visually appealing, easy to navigate, and mobile-friendly. Incorporate persuasive copy, clear CTA buttons, and trust-building elements such as customer testimonials. Tools like Elementor Pro (Which we love) can help you create stunning landing pages without the need for coding skills.
Set Up Conversion Tracking: To measure the success of your Google Ads campaigns, set up conversion tracking. Use Google Analytics 4 or Google Tag Manager to track key actions like purchases, newsletter sign-ups, or form submissions. This data will provide valuable insights into your campaign’s performance and help you make data-driven optimizations. GA4 might be the easier of the two to do but it does take a bit of work to get it in place. When in doubt reach out to a professional to do this part properly. It will affect your ad performance if this is not done correctly.
Constant Monitoring and Optimization: Google Ads campaigns require ongoing monitoring and optimization. Regularly review your campaign performance, and analyze key metrics like click-through rate (CTR), conversion rate, and cost per conversion. Check Auction Insights where available to see how often your ads appear vs competitors. Identify underperforming keywords, ads, or placements and make necessary adjustments to improve results. Ad negative keywords to your campaigns and remove keywords that are underperforming if necessary.
Leverage Remarketing: If your budget permits, implement remarketing campaigns to target users who have previously visited your website. Create customized ads tailored to their specific interests and remind them about products they viewed but didn’t purchase. Upsell, Cross-sell or give discounts to entice those customers.
Google Shopping Campaigns: For e-commerce businesses, Google Shopping campaigns are highly effective and generally cheaper with more reach. Ensure your product feed is well-structured, including accurate product titles, descriptions, and high-quality images. Optimize your product feed for relevant keywords and monitor your product performance to maximize visibility and sales. Again utilise Google Ads or Keyword tracker such as SERanking to see what prospective users are searching in Google for those related product keywords. You will need to setup a product feed connected to a Google merchant center account to run these types of ads. Platforms like Shopify offer this functionality ot of the box, while WordPress has a few plugins that can take care of this work. But it is definitely worth it for product-based ads.
Budget Management: Carefully manage your campaign budget to ensure optimal results. Google tends to spend more of your budget at the beginning of the month possibly showing a traffic shortfall towards the end of the month. In their terms and conditions, you agree to allow them to overspend where they see fit(to get you conversions). Start with a conservative budget and gradually increase it as you identify profitable keywords and ad placements and remove what’s not working. Regularly monitor your spend and adjust bids to ensure you’re getting the best return on investment (ROI).
Bidding Strategies: Generally start with a maximize clicks campaign to get the necessary conversion data into your new campaign and then switch to a bidding strategy that utilizes Conversion tracking to hone in on your target audience such as maximize conversions. Following that switch to a target CPA or ROAS strategy once you have a good amount of conversions attributed to the campaign that isn’t fluctuating too much.
Launching a successful Google Ads campaign for your e-commerce website requires strategic planning, keyword research, compelling ad copy, optimized landing pages, and continuous optimization. By following the tips and insights provided in this guide, you’ll be well-equipped to drive targeted traffic, boost conversions, and maximize your e-commerce sales or at the least, know what that digital marketing company your working with is talking about 😂. Remember to constantly monitor and optimize your campaigns, leveraging tools like SERanking and Elementor for enhanced performance. Good luck with your Google Ads journey, and may your e-commerce business thrive in the digital landscape!
If you are interested in getting Google ads specialist such as myself involved don’t hesitate to get in touch.
(Note: The above content was written by a professional digital marketing manager, but please note that it is recommended to review and make any necessary adjustments to align with your specific business requirements and preferences.)
