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(Article first published in Nov '08. It has been modified slightly to suit its publication on our site)
I am seeing a pattern emerge of businesses wasting a lot of money on poorly implemented Google Adwords campaigns. So this article is going to focus on identifying the top 5 "Adwords Rookie Mistakes".
1) Simple Campaign vs. Advanced
To use Adwords correctly and therefore to generate revenue with it requires quite in-depth knowledge of the inner workings of the system. Most people don't have the time or inclination to learn the many details of the system and they often don't want to pay an expert to build their campaign. Google realised this too and that it was impeding their potential sales and so they created a "simplified" system that allows businesses to setup a campaign quickly and easily.
Do NOT use the simplified version! This is a sure-fire way to waste money.
The simplified interface has a number of restrictions that limits your control over your campaign settings and so you will end up wasting clicks and money, so use the advanced interface instead.
2) The Content Network
As well as the search network, (where your ads are shown on the search results page along with the organic results, as shown in image 1 - showing my own ad for logo design at the top), Adwords also displays your ad on the content network by default.
The content network displays your ad on relevant websites that have signed up to show Google ads related to the keywords that the user has typed in. This means that if you were selling iPods and someone was on a music site then your ad for iPod sales would be shown.
Turn Off The Content Network Ads.
The content network works for people who are selling high-volume consumer items or very unique services, otherwise you will simply get lots of clicks from "time-wasters" and so waste money.
3) Regional Targeting
Adwords allows you to select the country/ies that you want your ads to be shown in. But most people don't realise that the system is sophisticated enough to allow you to be very specific about your targeting and tell it to show ads only within a specific distance of your offices or you can even draw one or more lines around particular towns and cities. Used correctly, this will save a lot of wasted clicks from people who are too far away from you to be of any value.
4) Broad Matching
By default Adwords uses "Broad Matching" to link your ads to search terms. This means that it will look at the keywords that you have associated with your ad and match them as broadly as possible to the keywords that a user has typed in. So for instance, you might have "iPod Players" associated with your ad and Google would match up "Players iPod", "iPod Music Players", "Music Players", "iPod Nano", "MP3 Players", etc... This means that your ad could easily show for search terms that you wouldn't necessarily want it to be linked to, which will mean wasted clicks.
To get around this you simply use either the "Phrase-Match" or "Exact-Match" techniques.
5) Poor Website
The main goal of running an Adwords campaign is to get people to visit your website. But if it looks bad, then it's just like a potential customer walking into a cluttered, poorly kept shop - they'll just leave!
If you wouldn't buy a product or service from your website, then don't waste money paying to bring people to it. Spend the money on a decent website that will work hand-in-hand with your Adwords campaign in the long-run.
In Summary, Google has created a system that is meant to generate revenue for them and their focus is to get you as many clicks as possible, whereas your main concern should be to get as many relevant clicks as possible. If you don't feel confident enough to achieve the results you need at the lowest cost, then get the help you need to setup a campaign and training on how to maintain it.
Franco De Bonis has worked in the field of sales and marketing promotion since 1990 and was most recently the global marketing manager for a major international technology company before setting up DG Group in January 2007.
DG Group is dedicated to delivering all the marketing solutions any company may require. Whether it's a website or leaflets and brochures, or even some product packaging; DG Group will manage the whole project and even provide guidance along the way.
The content in this section is the original creation of DG Group and is protected by copyright. You may use this content on your site or in other materials providing you acknowledge DG Group as the author and include a link our site.
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