Define your Google Ads strategy
Whether you're an established business or running your first advertising campaign, the following tips will help you make your campaigns more successful.
It's time to optimize your Google Ads.
Depending on your business model and industry, your Google Ads campaign will look very different.
We offer you 7 tips to achieve the highest possible ROAS (return on advertising spend) from your Google Ads campaign.
🔎 1 - Structure your Google Ads account clearly and efficiently
🔎 2 - Choose the right network: Search Network vs. Display Network
🔎 3 - Use the right bidding strategy based on your campaign goals
🔎 4 - The optimal mix of ad titles and descriptions
🔎 5 - Regularly analyze and optimize your campaigns
🔎 6 - Set up conversion tracking correctly (or have it set up)
🔎 7 - Optimal keyword search options: Focus instead of breadth
🔎 1 – Structure your Google Ads account clearly and efficiently
A well-designed account structure is crucial to the success of your campaigns.
Create separate campaigns for different products, regions, or target groups, and organize your ads into specific ad groups.
This allows you to maintain an overview and adjust budgets and bids in a targeted manner.
Every online marketing agency always starts with a precise overview of its account structure—and you should too!
Source: Google Support
Within each Google Ads campaign, you can create different ad groups with relevant keywords and offers for each product and service. These groups should be separated by product (this allows you to increase or decrease your bids and budgets for each ad group).
Use the Google Keyword Planner tool to gather new keyword ideas!
🔎 2 – Choose the right network: Search Network vs. Display Network
Think about what you want to achieve here. Where should your ads be displayed?
Google Search Network
The search network is ideal for reaching people who are actively searching for specific products or services.
Your ads appear when users search for your precisely defined or similar keywords.
Google Display Network (GDN)
The Display Network, on the other hand, is ideal for branding and remarketing campaigns, as ads are shown on Google partner sites such as YouTube and Gmail.
In addition, display ads can also be shown on any other website that has "Google AdSense" installed.
Display ads are used in particular to promote brand awareness or place re-marketing campaigns.
Performance Max
This campaign type runs on all Google channels (Search, Display, Shopping, YouTube, Gmail, Discover) and is based on machine learning.
Performance Max campaigns offer comprehensive reach and focus on maximizing conversions. They are particularly suitable if you want to run a unified campaign across multiple channels and rely on AI-supported optimization.
Source: Google Support
As a certified Google Partner agency, we are happy to help you successfully implement Google Ads campaigns.
🔎 3 - Use the right bidding strategy based on your campaign goals
The choice of bidding strategy should support your specific campaign goals.
Google Ads offers a variety of automated strategies that are optimized through machine learning:
Target CPA (cost per acquisition): Ideal if your main goal is to generate conversions cost-effectively.
Target ROAS (Return on Advertising Spend): This strategy optimizes bids to achieve the desired share of revenue from your advertising spend—perfect for campaigns focused on maximizing revenue.
Maximum conversions or maximum conversion value: Suitable if you want to achieve the maximum number of conversions or the highest conversion value with a fixed budget.
Maximize clicks: Use this strategy if your goal is to increase website visits and generate as many clicks as possible, for example, to increase website traffic.
Maximize impressions: This strategy is useful for brand awareness and reach. It allows you to achieve as many visual contacts as possible, particularly suitable for campaigns focusing on brand presence, for example by placing ads in visible areas.
By choosing the right bidding strategy, you can efficiently tailor your campaigns to your specific goals and get the most out of your advertising budget.
🔎 4 - The optimal mix of ad titles and descriptions
A balanced mix of ad titles and descriptions is crucial for targeting your audience and improving performance.
With Responsive Search Ads, you can add up to 15 headlines and 4 descriptions, which Google dynamically combines to show the most relevant version.
Vary your wording to highlight different aspects of your offering and address different user needs.
Tip: Test new combinations regularly to achieve the best results and continuously optimize your campaigns, and don't forget the call to action.
🔎 5 - Regularly analyze and optimize your campaigns
Ongoing optimization is the key to effective campaigns.
Check KPIs such as conversion values per cost, click-through rate (CTR), and costs.
Use conversion tracking and Google Analytics to gain deeper insights into user behavior and continuously adjust your campaigns.
Additional tip: Use negative keywords to avoid irrelevant clicks and increase the efficiency of your campaign.
🔎 6 - Set up conversion tracking correctly (or have it set up)
Without conversion tracking, it is virtually impossible to gauge the true success of your Google Ads campaigns and accurately measure your return on advertising spend (ROAS).
Conversion tracking shows you exactly which clicks lead to valuable actions such as purchases, calls, or form submissions, enabling you to calculate your ROAS accurately.
These insights are crucial for optimizing campaigns in a targeted manner and continuously increasing the profitability of your advertising expenditure.
We are happy to assist you with conversion tracking.
🔎 7 - Optimal keyword search options: Focus instead of breadth
Careful keyword selection is important and can avoid high costs.
Instead of using a wide range of keywords, it is advisable to focus on 5-10 highly relevant keywords per ad group. This targeted selection allows you to tailor your ads to users who are specifically looking for your offerings.
During the testing phase in particular, many people tend to use too many keywords in order to try out as many variations as possible. However, this can quickly become costly and dilute performance.
Instead, it makes sense to start with a few well-chosen keywords and adjust the focus later based on performance.
Tip: Use keyword search options such as "Exact match" and "Phrase match" to target your audience more specifically and avoid unnecessary clicks. This will increase the efficiency of your campaigns and optimize your ROAS.
In most cases, it is best to have only very similar and related keywords per ad group in order to achieve the most targeted ads.
As of 2024, there are basically three different keyword match types in Google Ads. This results in the following options:
1. Broad Match
This is a very broad query, where your ads can be delivered for all search queries related to your keyword. This also includes search queries that do not contain your keywords at all.
Here is an example of this:
Source: support.google.com
2. Phrase Match / Matching phrase
This is a slightly more limited query. Your ads can be delivered for search queries that contain the meaning of your keyword.
It may also be that the search queries have a narrower meaning and the meaning of the keyword is derived.
Source: support.google.com
3. Exact Match
This is the narrowest option for keywords. Ads are delivered for search queries whose meaning or intent exactly matches your keyword.
Source: support.google.com
Important: Negative keywords
You can add negative keywords to your ad groups, campaigns, or negative keyword lists so that your ads are NOT displayed for certain keywords. For example, if we don't offer leather shoes, then we should perhaps add "leather" to our negative keywords.
Better not [buy leather shoes] if we want to keep leather as a potential keyword, in case someone searches for "don't buy leather shoes," for example :)
Start creating more professional-looking and better-coordinated ads with onlineKarma—your certified Google Ads specialist and Google Partner Agency.