- Poor targeting allows ads to be shown to irrelevant people, wasting spend.
- Incorrect spending settings that are too high or too low a budget can increase costs or limit impressions.
- Inaccurate tracking could result in not knowing where traffic and leads are coming from.
- Not understanding the business goals means keywords may miss the mark.
Growing a business can be an expensive exercise. When you’re busy managing everything else that business throws at you, it’s easy to go for months without looking at an ads report, or understanding what’s going on in your ads accounts. The side effect is that you are potentially burning thousands on bad ads
Below are just some of the things we find when taking over a new account, what can go wrong and why hands-on ads management is so important.
In This Article: 7 of the Ways Your Ad Spend Can Get Burnt
- Inaccurate tracking
- Poor targeting
- Incorrect spend
- Your website performance
- Neglect of your account
- Poor understanding of your business and your goals
- No follow up for repeat business
Inaccurate Tracking
Tracking is vital to good ad account management.
What is it? Tracking when it comes to trade business should be a lead, in the form of a phone call, an email or a form fill on your website.
The Essentials
- Know where your traffic and leads are coming from. How much is free organic traffic, and how much is paid traffic?
- Know exactly how a “Lead” is being recorded on you website. Get an audit to know if this has been set up correctly.
- Once your tracking is accurate, you can understand you cost per lead and start to make beneficial changes within your ad account.
Poor targeting
Getting your ads infront of the right people is essential. Google loves to make it easy for you to waste spend in the wrong areas. Often your geographical or keyword types are defaulted to show your ads to irrelevant people. This ads up to wasted spend.
The Essentials
- Know your “search terms”. This is a list of words that people typed to see your ad. You’ll know if your spend is being wasted.
- Ensure your account is targeting people living in your area only. Google’s default setting is for people living in or interested in.
- Once your tracking is accurate, you can understand you cost per lead and start to make beneficial changes within your ad account.
Incorrect spend
Finding the sweet spot for your ads takes work. Setting a high budget or aiming to spend without a strategy can cause Google to over bid on keywords that are irrelevant and increase your conversion cost dramatically. A low budget causes problems with account learning and and you can limit your ad impressions.
The Essentials
- Know your “search terms”. This is a list of words that people typed to see your ad. You’ll know if your spend is being wasted.
- Ensure your account is targeting people living in your area only. Google’s default setting is for people living in or interested in.
- Once your tracking is accurate, you can understand you cost per lead and start to make beneficial changes within your ad account.
Website Performance
If you’re serious about growth and serious about ad performance, then your website performance should be TOP OF MIND!
What’s the point of spending money on ads if your website is struggling to convert?
The Essentials
- Track your website so you can understand your key performance indicators like, how long are people spending on my pages, where are my conversions coming from and conversion rates.
- Make sure your website is up to scratch with good branding, clear messaging, good images and clear call to actions will all assist in converting your ad triffic to paying customers
- Test landing pages. The more you test, the more you understand what converts and what doesn’t convert. Page design, images and offers will all have an impact. By testing you will find the perfect recipe for conversions.
Account Neglect
Unfortunately, Ad accounts can be setup poorly and then forgotten about in the ads management industry. If you’re feeling as though your ads aren’t being worked on. Ask for a “Change History” report. This will show you what is being worked on in your account.
The Essentials
- Choose an ad manager with experience in your industry and who is proven to get results for their clients. Try not to lock yourself in to long contracts. A good ad manager won’t feel the need to do this.
- Ask for a change history report if you feel like you are being swindled. There is a lot to work on in an ad account, so if there are no changes being made… What are you paying for!?
Poor understanding of your business and goals
If the person actually working on your ad account doesn’t have a grasp of your business strategy or doesn’t understand your industry well enough to identify keyword opportunities, then you can oay a higher cost per click for common or incorrect keywords.
The Essentials
- Ensure your keyword lists are correct and that your negative keywords are blocking incorrect traffic.
- Ask for some digital marketing initiatives from your ad manager. They should be able to produce new marketing ideas for your business to trial through your ads.
Following up on old leads
Ads are expensive! So once you have a new client on board, don’t forget to retarget them through email ad campaigns. An essential part of your sales process and By far the cheapest cost per lead of all digital marketing!
The Essentials
- Automate the link from your invoicing and quoting systems to a email marketing software. This will be one of the best investments you can make to increase the return on your adspend.
- Make it easy for people who are not ready to buy to join your mailing list so you can stay in touch.
- Once your tracking is accurate, you can understand you cost per lead and start to make beneficial changes within your ad account.
Summary
Most of these points boil down to finding an ad manager who actually gives a shit about you and your business and who finds ways for you to minimise your ad spend while maximising your return.
We like to think we’re one of these ad managers. If you want to chat about driving your business forward or want someone to look over your account. We would love to help.
Our advice is free and our ads management is all hands on deck!
Share your comments or feedback and let the Pinpoint team know if you have queries to do with your digital marketing.
