When starting a Pay-Per-Click (PPC) ad campaign, Google AdWords can be a valuable resource to help get your campaign off the ground.

Google AdWords is the largest PPC platform available, and since Google is the primary search engine in the US and abroad, it is easy to see why. Google’s research has shown that on average companies can see a return of $2 for every $1 they spend on advertising with AdWords.

Getting started on AdWords can be difficult; there are many different elements to it that can make it hard to master right away. Here are some tips to help you get your PPC campaign going on AdWords.

OPTIMIZE FOR CELL PHONE TRAFFIC

Mobile phone web traffic has been on the rise in recent years, with many people preferring using their phones to browse the web than their computers. It is because of this that it is vital for you to optimize your ads to handle mobile traffic.

One good way to optimize your ads for mobiles users is to add sitelink extensions to them. This allows users to find what they are looking for through the ad, instead of going to your site and searching internally from there. Everything is about convenience, so you need to make your mobile ads as convenient to navigate as possible. If they have to wait for your site to load, they may decide to go somewhere else instead.

Mobile optimization is vital to your AdWords strategy, but it is also important to have desktop driven ads too. While the majority of users will find you through their phones, there are still some who prefer to use a computer for their searches. A solid advertising strategy covers both forms of media use to reach the most people.

OPTIMIZE FOR NEGATIVE KEYWORDS

There will always words you do not want your ad to appear for in a search. Putting together a negative keyword list is an important part of putting your campaign together, and it really is a must. This list tells Google what your ad is not, which helps it determine what your ad is.

Many companies will include “free” and “jobs” in their negative list, because if someone has “free” in their search, they are likely not going to want to pay for your product; having “jobs” in the search bar mean they are likely looking for a job in your industry, so putting that on the negative list will help weed those out too. You can apply the negative keywords to your entire account, so you do not need to spend time creating a new list for every single campaign.

This is important because, in a PPC campaign, those clicks can waste the money you put into your campaign. Taking the time to put effort into your negative keyword list will help get you the clicks you want and weed out the ones you do not.

PAY ATTENTION TO ALL THE METRICS

There are several key metrics on AdWords, and it is important to give them all attention. Only focusing on one or two of them can make your campaign less successful. The key metrics are:

• Clickthrough rate (CTR): This can be used to help you gauge how your ads and keywords are performing. A high CTR is an indication that users see your ads as relevant and helpful, therefore helping you determine what is and is not working.
• Clicks: This is a simple metric to define. If a person clicks on your ad, it counts as a click, even if they do not actually make it to your site for some reason.
• Conversion: This is when someone interacts with your ad in some way and then takes an important action, like making a purchase or contacting your business through phone or email.
• Conversion Rate: Your conversion rate is the average number of conversions per interaction and is displayed as a percentage.

Take all of the important metrics into account when looking at your ads, to ensure it is successful on all levels. Looking at just the number of clicks your ad has received can be tempting, it is not the only metric, and your number of clicks can be misleading when it comes to your ad’s overall success.