Google Ads remains a powerful tool for businesses seeking to boost their online visibility and drive conversions. Here are five essential tips to ensure your Google Ads campaigns are for success in 2024
1. Keyword Research & Targeting
Assuming you already know what you want to advertise on Google Ads for, one of the best places to start is by conducting some keyword research into the different types and variations of keywords you want to target. Tools such as Google Keyword Planner can provide insights into search volume, average cost-per-clicks (CPCs) and the competition level.
You should also look into leveraging other tools such as Google Trends and Search Console to discover any patterns in search demand and if there are shifts in certain keyword themes being used in recent times. As well as simply searching your keywords on Google, this way you can see what sort of results are appearing and who your competitors may be.
2. Campaign Structure
Once you have established the keyword lists you want to target, the next stage is coming up with a structure for your campaigns. At Metriq Digital we use a pipe “|” naming convention on our campaigns.
e-Commerce campaign example:
[Brand/Non Brand keywords] | [campaign type] | [product brand] | [product category]
Non Branded | PMax | Nike | Mens Trainers
Lead generation campaign example:
[Brand/Non Brand keywords] | [campaign type] | [service] | [additional info such as Geo targeting]
Non Branded | Search | Personal Training | Bournemouth
The benefit of setting a strong campaign structure is to allow you to easily filter your campaigns to review specific areas of your account’s performance as well as easily identify your campaign’s purpose. So when it comes to budget or bid strategy adjustments you can easily find and adjust the campaign(s).
3. Tracking
Before launching your campaign activity you want to ensure you have robust tracking in place to measure your results. We recommend setting up dedicated PPC tracking as your Primary conversion(s), as this will utilise the full benefit of Google Ads’ attribution model. This can be done in two ways:
- Adding code via a gtag
- Using Google Tag Manager (recommended)
Then, look to link your GA4 account into Google Ads as a secondary, backup, conversion tracking solution. There are also added benefits such as using audience lists when linking your GA4 account to Google Ads.
4. Bid Strategies
Times have changed, and we are moving further and further away from manual CPC bidding. When setting up your campaign from the start you should either look into using Enhanced CPC, Maximise Conversions or Maximise Conversion Value as your beginning bid strategies. This will allow you to help best train the Google Ads machine learning when starting – typically we would recommend NOT making big swings and changes to your bid strategy for at least the first 14 days of a new campaign launch, as this could throw the Google Ads machine learning back into a new learning phase.
5. Landing Page
Finally, you could have the best Google Ads account set up in the world, however, if your landing page, and website as a whole, are not up to scratch and built to convert the traffic then you will have an extremely hard time finding success from your advertising activity.
Use tools such as Google Lighthouse to regularly check your site speed and accessibility, every millisecond counts!
Conclusion
So those are 5 quick-fire tips on running an effective Google Ads account in 2024, whether you are just beginning on your Google Ads journey or have established a small account of operations and looking to improve further.
Which takeaway did you find most useful?
If you are looking for more advanced experiments and ways to reduce your wasted ad spend you can find them under our Advanced Insights category.
