In the competitive arena of Adwords PPC, you need every weapon in your arsenal and every edge you can get if you want to stay on top of your competitors. This blog, we look at 6 Adwords features that can give you that edge, increase your CTR and drive conversions.
Ad Extensions
What are Ad Extensions?
Ad extensions provide extra information for potential customer that can help entice them into clicking on your ad. Such as;
- Site Links – As well as linking to just one landing page, you can include links to other popular or relevant pages. You can have up to six extra site links to landing pages.
- Location Extensions – You can include your address with your ad that can link into Google Maps, helping your customers find you easier.
- Call Extensions – Call extensions displays your telephone number and can have a call button, making it easier for potential customers to make inquiries.
These ad extensions cost nothing extra to implement and can really help increase your CTR. By providing your potential customers these snippets of extra information, you are enticing them to buy before even viewing your products.
These extensions are simple enough to implement and are easy to track through Adwords, giving you more control over your campaign.
Compelling Ad Text
Despite the range of ad extensions, what really sells your business, its products or services you provide is the copy in your ads. So writing and creating compelling ads is important.
Here are some ways you can create more compelling ads.
- Say why are you unique – Remember to say why your business is unique. Are your products handmade? Do you offer free delivery? Include any prices or promotions in your ads as these are will certainly catch your customer’s attention.
- Landing Pages – Don’t make purchasing difficult for your customers. If you ad, for example, was promoting a sale on leather bound editions Jane Austen, have your URL in your ad link directly to the product. Send your customer directly to the product.
- Use Keywords – Remember to include keywords and search phrases in your ads as, because your customers would be searching for these terms, they will pick look out for these keywords in their results.
Have a look at this Trivago ad I’ve came across when searching ‘London Breaks’ as an example. I’ve been thinking of visiting friends in London for the weekend and came across this ad.
Straightaway, they’re providing me with a lot of relevant information. Their URL link goes directly to a landing page that targets my needs, making sure I get to what I need to know as quickly as possible.
The ad lures me in with the potential to save up to 78% on my hotel bill as well as talking about amenities when considering hotels. Now, when searching, I was not dead set on going to London and hadn’t thought about amenities but now I have. I do want Wifi, I don’t need parking but a 24 reception is ideal, so now I’m considering these factors and makes me more likely to click.
It is a wonderfully written ad that is supported with extensions that help invite me to click.
Keyword Match Types
What are keyword match types?
When you enter keywords for your ads, keyword match types help determine which searches your ads will appear on or don’t. These match types are broken down into six categories.
Broad Match
This is the default matching option. With broad match, your ad can appear on search terms that can contain your keyword terms in any order or with other terms.
For example, if you use the keyword ‘used books’ as a broad match keyword, your ad could appear on searches for;
- Used Books
- Used books for sale
- Previously owned books
- Used Books on Auction
- Buy Rare Books
- Used & Rare books
- Buy Used Books
- Vintage Books
- Auction Rare Books
- Sell Used Books
- Buy Used Comic Books
- Used Textbooks
Broad Match Modifier
You can add a modifier, this is done with the ‘+’ next to any terms that are part of a broad match phrase. This mean your ads will only appear when someone searches phrases with those terms. With a broad match modifier, you can begin to focus your ads on searches around those keywords.
Imagine we did this to the search term ‘+used +books’, it would change which terms our ad would appear on.
- Used Books
- Used books for sale
- Previously owned books
- Used Books on Auction
Buy Rare Books- Used & Rare books
- Buy Used Books
Vintage BooksAuction Rare Books- Sell Used Books
- Buy Used Comic Books
Used Textbooks
Phrase Match
With phrase match, your ad is targeted towards searches for your exact keywords or your exact keywords with additional words after it. This is done by added “ “ to your keywords and can help you reach a wider audience while not veering too far from your keyword terms and keeping your ad relevant.
When applying phrase match to the keywords “used books”, we can see changes
- Used Books
- Used books for sale
- Previously owned books
Used Books on AuctionBuy Rare BooksUsed & Rare books- Buy Used Books
Vintage BooksAuction Rare Books- Sell Used Books
Buy Used Comic BooksUsed Textbooks
Exact Match
The ‘exact match’ does what it says in the title, through adding “[ ]” to our keywords, we find only searches that match the exact keywords. This allows you to specifically target keywords and works well for long term keyword phrases.
So when applied to our example, [Used Books], this would mean our ads would only appear in searches for used books.
Negative Match
Negative match is about preventing your ad from appearing for searches that are not relevant to your business, products or services, or you simply do not think is a good investment of your AdWords budget. This can be done by simply adding a “ – “ next to keywords that you don’t want to appear for.
Keyword Match Types are all about helping you have better control over which searches your ad appears on and doesn’t as well as helping you get the most for your AdWords budget.
Negative Keywords
Negative keywords can help you reduce your costs for your campaigns while increasing your return on investment. This is done by adding terms as negative keywords or as keywords exclusions, so your ad will not show for searches with those keyword terms.
As well as reducing your AdWords spending, implementing negative keywords would mean less traffic is driven to your site but this traffic would be more likely to make a purchase or engage in your services. This is because your ads are not appearing on irrelevant searches and you’re focusing more on relevant search terms.
Bid Adjustments
Imagine you run a sandwich shop that delivers to offices locally and you are running AdWords campaign to drive revenue. Naturally the best time of day for you to get conversions is between 11 am to 2 pm as it is around lunch time and your ideal customer would be no further than 5 miles from your premises. Bid adjustments can help you target those customers better.
Suppose your starting bid is £1. You can set up a bid adjustment so, between 11 am to 2 pm, you AdWords bid increases by 50%. This means within that time, you are more likely to get more clicks and drive conversions while not having to increase your AdWords budget greatly. If you want, you can reduce your bid. So for this example, they would reduce their bid by 80% for after 6 pm because your sandwich shop is closed. Again, you can target searches within your location, helping you drive
These were our 6 Adwords features that will help you increase your CTR and drive sales for your business. If you are interested in how else can you increase your CTR and drive conversions through your AdWords, get in touch today!
