I used to work with a company that had me for SEO and someone else for ad management. She used to describe her most important task as going into the Google Ads dashboard on Monday and checking to see if anything horrible had happened. I can relate, but that’s more a humorous comment than an accurate description of Google Ad management.
So what’s involved in Google Ad management?
Check your recommendations
Google really tries to help with ads. They give you recommendations all the time, and they give you a score based on how much you do what they tell you to do. Frankly, Rosie can get pretty miffed when they don’t give her 100% because they want her to increase the client’s budget. It doesn’t seem to her that it’s fair to grade her on whether or not she is willing or able to spend more money with them. But that’s the trade off.
A lot of recommendations are very sensible.
They’ll tell. you if you haven’t uploaded your company logo, or if you need to jazz up your headlines. They’ll point out redundant keywords. They’ll also suggest new keywords for you, and sometimes they make good suggestions — though not always. If they are doing a good job on one category of recommendations and you feel comfortable allowing them to automatically apply that groups off recommendations, you can, but having a human check first makes sense most of the time.
Check your campaigns
Are you seeing a lot more traction with one ad than another? Is one ad getting a 10.8% click through rate while another just has 2.1%? Are some of your ads limited by budget or policy, or does the cost per click for one keyword far outpace the others? Google gives you charts that allow you to see issues of this kind at a glance.
If you know where to look.
You can adjust the columns to show the ones you find most useful and avoid scrolling. Once you have a clear idea of where to find the information you need, look for surprises and warnings. Warnings will be helpfully posted in red, but you will need to identify the surprises yourself.
When you see a need for optimization, make changes to your ads, your keywords, your budget, or your landing pages and watch to make sure the changes have the results you want.
Check your keywords
The Insights report shows the search terms you’re being offered for. If some of them are bad choices — say, “foot clinic in Bowie, Texas” when your outfit is an orthopedics clinic in Rogers, Arkansas — tell Google not to show your ad for those searches. You can do that by using the “Ad as negative keyword” button. Sometimes Google just misunderstands what’s going on.
Sometimes your website may be misleading the machinery, so have a look at that, too.
On the other hand, you may see keywords that you hadn’t realized would be as good for you as they are. If your medical spa usually focuses on skin treatments but you see an explosion of searches for weight loss support, or if you notice that brand names of products you carry are getting a lot more love than the generic terms, you can use that information. to add keywords.
These three checks are not all that you can do for ad management, but they will usually show you if something horrible happened — or if you have an excellent opportunity and you should take advantage of it.
Google ad management may not be the best use of your time. If you need help, don’t hesitate to ask us. We are a certified Google partner agency.
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