Google Ads is a tool that hardly needs an introduction in 2024. This online advertising platform, which has been around since 2004, is hailed as a savior by some marketers, while others, especially your Administrative and Financial Directors, view it as a bottomless, dark pit.
Over the years, Google Ads has evolved into an increasingly complex tool, sometimes becoming opaque and difficult to analyze. Competition has also surged, particularly during and after COVID-19, when a large number of new advertisers joined the platform. Unfortunately, simply setting up a standard shopping campaign with a fixed CPC no longer guarantees conversions pouring into your account and bank account.
With Google’s ongoing shift towards AI, managing a Google Ads account daily has become a nightmare for many seasoned users. Despite being often criticized as a profit-driven platform for Google, with the introduction of forced campaigns like PMAX (which replaced Smart Shopping), Google Ads remains one of the most significant levers in digital marketing and e-commerce.
How to Optimize a Google Ads Account in 2024 Without Losing Your Shirt?
In this article, I will try to provide you with as many tips and tricks as possible to avoid common mistakes on Google Ads in 2024 if you create a marketplace. Of course, this list is far from exhaustive and won’t fit every situation or level of knowledge. However, after years of conducting audits, I can guarantee that most of these mistakes appear in a significant majority of the accounts I check.
But who am I? My name is Matthieu Tran-Van. I’ve been assisting advertisers on Google Ads for 16 years now. I created this blog in 2011 to help you better understand Google Ads and to share as much clear information as possible. Are you experiencing problems with Google Ads? Do you feel lost? Has PMAX taken a toll on your mental health? Contact me; I can probably help you!
After this brief introduction to Google Ads and its evolution over the years, let’s dive into the main topic: the mistakes to avoid to successfully optimize your Google Ads account. For those who are a bit too rigid, this list of mistakes is not ranked by priority. Each of these errors can have a much more significant impact depending on your situation, your account, and your products.
1. Not Clearly Defining Your Objectives
One of the most common yet crucial mistakes made by many beginner advertisers on Google Ads is not clearly defining their objectives before launching a campaign. Imagine setting out on an adventure without even knowing where you’re going or how you’ll get there. Starting on Google Ads without a clear idea of your needs, how you want to meet them, and who your target personas are is the best way to waste your money.
Why Clear Objectives are Crucial
- Direction and Guidance: Clear objectives provide a roadmap for your Google Ads campaign. Without defined goals, you risk losing your way and forgetting what you’re trying to achieve. You might unintentionally pursue multiple objectives simultaneously, sometimes even conflicting ones. Set specific, measurable goals like “increase traffic by 10%” or “boost sales in category X by 20% over three months.”
- Performance Measurement: Objectives serve as benchmarks to evaluate the success or failure of your campaign. Without clear benchmarks, it will be difficult to determine what is working and what is not. We’ve all experienced this in digital marketing when asked, “Did your campaign go well?” and the reply is a vague “Yes, yes.” Thanks for the info, Roger! Google Ads is filled with data, figures, and KPIs of all kinds that allow you to understand what happened over a given period. It’s time to get out the magnifying glass and start investigating. Measuring and analyzing is the first step toward understanding.
- Continuous Optimization: Well-defined objectives allow for more efficient optimization of your ads and keywords. You won’t launch the same campaigns depending on your objectives. If you want to quickly increase product sales, a Google Shopping campaign is likely ideal. If you’re looking to broaden your brand awareness, a YouTube or display campaign will be much more suitable. You can adjust your strategies based on performance relative to your initial goals.
- Efficient Resource Allocation: When you know exactly what you want to achieve, you can better allocate your budget and time. This reduces waste and maximizes return on investment (ROI).
- Clear Communication: Clear objectives make it easier to communicate with stakeholders, whether it’s your internal team or an external agency. Everyone works toward the same goal and understands the expectations.
Using the S.M.A.R.T. Matrix to Define Your Objectives
Not sure how to set your goals? Don’t panic; you’re not alone. Fortunately, there are plenty of frameworks to help with decision-making and goal-setting. The “S.M.A.R.T.” matrix is perfect for digital marketing, particularly Google Ads. By following its model, you’ll have no trouble setting the right conditions to conduct your tests or effectively monitor your modifications.
- Specific: Your goals should be precise and unambiguous. Instead of saying “increase traffic,” say “increase organic traffic by 20% on product X pages within six months.” The more specific you are, the easier it will be to monitor progress over time.
- Measurable: You must be able to quantify your goals to track progress. Use key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure the success of your campaigns. Google Ads is full of these, so identify the KPIs that genuinely matter for evaluating your performance.
- Achievable: Your goals must be realistic given your current resources and constraints. Setting overly ambitious goals can lead to disappointment and discouragement.
- Realistic: Ensure that your objectives are realistic, taking into account your market, resources, and capabilities. Unrealistic goals can harm your team’s motivation.
- Time-bound: Your objectives should have a clear timeframe to create a sense of urgency and priority. Set specific deadlines to achieve your goals.
2. Not Knowing the Basics of Google Ads
Ignoring the fundamentals of Google Ads is a common mistake that can seriously compromise the effectiveness of your advertising campaigns. There’s no shame in not knowing the tool inside and out. I recommend updating your knowledge through content like online training. Google Ads has significantly evolved in recent years, with numerous new, hard-to-manage campaigns being introduced. Understanding the basics is essential for optimizing your ads, maximizing your ROI, and avoiding costly errors.
Why Knowing the Fundamentals is Essential
- Cost Optimization: A poor understanding of basic concepts can lead to inefficient spending. For example, not knowing how to set up geographic targeting correctly or bid adjustments based on devices can result in unnecessary budget expenditures.
- Ad Performance: The basics of Google Ads include understanding ad types, keywords, and the importance of ad quality. Poorly written or poorly targeted ads will have a low click-through rate (CTR) and a low-quality score, increasing the cost per click (CPC).
- Tracking and Analysis: This is often the most neglected yet most important aspect. No one said you should invest hundreds or thousands of euros without checking if it was profitable! Take the time to check campaign performance and set up effective tracking systems.
- Continuous Improvement: Following a few YouTube videos isn’t enough to master Google Ads. Solid foundational knowledge is crucial, and you should supplement this with more recent content to keep up with the latest developments.
3. Neglecting the Google Merchant Center Feed
This is also one of the most common mistakes, often due to a lack of knowledge. The feed is crucial for the proper functioning of your Shopping ads, as it provides Google with all the necessary information about your products. Ignoring or mismanaging this feed can have severe consequences for your campaigns.
- Impact on Product Visibility: The Google Merchant Center feed contains critical data such as the title, description, price, and availability of your products. If this information is not correctly updated or is incomplete, your products may not appear in relevant search results.
- Compliance and Account Suspension: Google has strict requirements for product data. If your feed does not comply with these requirements, your Google Merchant Center account could be suspended, causing your Shopping ads to stop appearing, resulting in an immediate loss of traffic and potential sales.
- Feed Quality and Ad Performance: The quality of your feed directly affects the performance of your Shopping ads. A well-optimized feed not only improves the relevance of your ads but also their ranking in search results.
4. Failing to Use Negative Keywords
One of the worst mistakes, unfortunately one of the most common and costly in Google Ads campaign management, is not using negative keywords. Negative keywords are terms for which you don’t want your ads to appear. Ignoring this crucial aspect can lead to significant budget loss and disappointing campaign performance.
- Importance of Negative Keywords: Without negative keywords, your ads might appear for irrelevant search queries, resulting in useless clicks. For example, if you sell luxury shoes, you don’t want your ads to show for terms like “cheap shoes.” These unqualified clicks consume your budget without generating conversions.
5. Not Having Functional and Effective Tracking
A common but critical mistake in Google Ads campaigns is neglecting to set up a functional and effective tracking system. Without accurate tracking, you miss out on essential insights into your ad performance, making it difficult to understand user behavior, optimize your campaigns, or achieve a strong return on investment (ROI).
Why Effective Tracking is Essential
1. Performance Measurement
Tracking is essential for measuring key actions taken by users after clicking on your ads, such as purchases, newsletter sign-ups, and app downloads. Without these insights, you cannot determine if your campaigns are achieving their intended goals or generating value for your business. Tracking provides a window into the effectiveness of your campaigns, helping you assess whether you’re reaching the right audience and driving meaningful engagement.
2. Data-Driven Campaign Optimization
Accurate tracking unlocks a wealth of performance data across your ads, ad groups, and campaigns. With this data, you can identify which elements are performing well and which need improvement, enabling you to make informed adjustments that enhance campaign results. For example, if certain keywords consistently yield low conversion rates, you can adjust your bids or replace them with more effective options. Effective tracking thus supports a continuous cycle of optimization, leading to progressively better outcomes.
3. Efficient Budget Allocation
With tracking in place, you gain a clear view of which campaigns, ad groups, and keywords provide the highest ROI. This enables you to allocate your budget more effectively by investing more in high-performing areas and reducing spend on underperforming elements. Without this data, your ad spend is essentially a gamble, risking unnecessary costs and missed opportunities for greater profitability.
4. Understanding User Behavior
Tracking not only shows the results of user actions but also provides insights into user journeys. By examining metrics like time spent on site, pages viewed, and bounce rate, you can gain a deeper understanding of what users are looking for and how well your ads and landing pages meet their expectations. This user behavior data can be valuable for refining your ad copy, targeting, and landing page experience to better align with user intent.
5. Enhanced Reporting and Goal Setting
A functional tracking system provides accurate, real-time data that supports clear reporting and goal tracking. You can easily identify progress toward campaign goals, adjust KPIs as needed, and set realistic benchmarks for future campaigns. Well-documented performance metrics also make it easier to communicate campaign value to stakeholders or clients, demonstrating the tangible results achieved through Google Ads.
Setting Up Effective Tracking in Google Ads
To maximize the benefits of tracking, ensure you have properly set up conversion tracking in your Google Ads account. Connect your account to Google Analytics for a complete view of user interactions on your website. Use tools like Google Tag Manager to streamline tag management across campaigns and ensure your tracking is both comprehensive and accurate.
In short, investing time in a functional tracking system is a fundamental step toward maximizing the effectiveness of your Google Ads campaigns, making it a top priority for any advertiser looking to grow their business.
