5 Common Strategic Mistakes to Avoid When Using AdWords AdWords is such a powerful advertising medium that people think they can't get it wrong. That's a serious error.
By Rocco Baldassarre Edited by Jessica Thomas
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Creating successful AdWords campaigns is not only about making things the right way but also avoiding mistakes that might cost your business a lot on the long term. Here are five mistakes you should definitely avoid:
1. Overly broad remarketing campaigns. Remarketing campaigns are a convenient way to target any visitors who did not convert. These campaigns usually have a high conversion rate at a low cost but there is a better way to do it.
Target only those visitors who visited a specified number of pages, spent a certain of time browsing the site and visited a page that might indicate their interest to buy from you. Avoid everyone who bounced off right away. It is not difficult to set up and has proven to be effective for both small and large budgets.
Related: 3 Things You Probably Don't Know About Google Adwords
2. Using generic ads for all keywords. Generic advertising messages are neither eye-catching nor differentiating. Test several features or benefits of your products and calls to action to find out what works best.
Be specific with your ads to stand out from the competition. The best way is to structure adgroups by theme and write ads that offer a solution to your customers' needs.
3. Having an agency open a new account with their email address. A common mistake that both agencies and their customers make is opening a new AdWords account with an agency email address. If the company and the agency part ways, the client risks losing access and the entire history of the account. Not all agencies like this but I do I see customers with that problem every now and then. Either use the company's existing account or open a new account and then link the agency to it.
Related: Top 11 Money-Wasting AdWords Mistakes
4. Underestimating the power of peer pressure. Split testing, or A/B testing as it is sometimes referred to, is quite common among advertisers but few utilize the principles of behavioral economics. While tracking customer behavior has been around for a while, sociology professor Jeni Cross from Colorado State University has brought a new level of awareness and a better understanding of common sense to the general public with her TED Talk on behavior change.
One of her case studies describes that hotel visitors would rather reuse their towel if they thought other people who have stayed in the same room reused their towels versus obeying a sign that politely asks them to reuse it to protect the environment. While caring for the environment seems to be a noble cause, peer pressure wins every time. Utilize that for your ads and landing pages with little changes such as "Join" vs. "Sign Up", or "63 percent of website visitors who scrolled down to this point also downloaded XYZ".
5. Failure to align brand, landing page and social media. Too many businesses are underming their campaign by not making the effort to create a consistent brand experience throughout their landing pages, websites and social media pages. Font and colors should be exactly the same across the board. Wording and imagery can sometimes be different if fits the same style. Consistency makes your brand familiar, and more trustworthy, which increases the likelihood of converting.
Starting an AdWords campaign and avoiding common mistakes will jumpstart your campaigns.
Related: Set up Your Google AdWords Campaign in 9 Steps
