• Paid Search

• By Alexander Hemedinger
• 1

Hey everyone it’s Alex with Pub Club Leads! I wanted to discuss some of the most common mistakes I see when diving into AdWords accounts. Hopefully this article will allow you to ensure not to make the same mistake, or consider this a checklist for your account structure.

1. Paying for negative keywords or not adding negative keywords in the search terms. This is by the far the biggest issue I notice in a lot of accounts. It’s a shame but not many people are aware about it or feel if they have the right match type it will eliminate any wasteful spend – not true!
Be sure on a daily or every other day to look to see what the search terms are and add accordingly for any negative keywords you DON’T want to show up for.

2. Not using extensions. Majority of these extensions not only improve your CTR and quality score, but it’s “FREE REAL ESTATE”. Use as many extensions as you can for your business – majority of the time it will make sense!

3. Not tracking conversions. I am sure a lot of us paid specialists can agree that not tracking your conversions is basically throwing money out the window! This is seen a mass majority of the time and it’s a shame I still see it to this day! But I implore anyone to go to the tools tab and click on conversions to begin tracking, even if you cannot – surely your web developer can!

5. Not Using Bid Adjustments: This is huge! For many campaigns some get a lower CPA on mobile then they do on desktop devices. If this were true, change your bid adjustment by certain percentage that makes sense. If you really want to go all out, then create a mobile campaign only. But not using this bid option is crucial.

6. Too many keywords in one adgroup. This is the funniest part of the whole article honestly, because I literally tally the most keywords I have ever seen in an adgroup and so far that number is literally over 150! Please use best practice and try to keep it anywhere to maximum of 10-15! If you want to go the hardest route, some believe to go one keyword variant per adgroup – this could work out well especially if trying to optimize per keyword on call duration conversion.

7. Google Adwords Express. I really cannot elaborate too much on this as this could be the #1 sin in paid search ever! Please do not use this feature ever, even if Google themselves recommend it! You need control and the best way to do that is using Google’s Adword platform as a whole. Be sure any campaign you create especially search to use all features. You want to be able to use manual bidding – it’ll be important long term.

In summary hopefully you are not a victim on any of these top mistakes that I notice majority of the time. If you feel you ever need assistance on your paid search or just have a general question feel free to email me at alex.heme@pubclubleads.com. Have a great week everyone!