Google AdWords is one of the most powerful advertising platforms available, and does wonders for businesses. Adwords maximizes your reach by default through targeting a broad audience. This strategy is great for bringing in a ton of visitors, but it can also deplete your budget in a short period of time. If you’re a business owner or marketer experiencing this, ViM is here to help! Check out our three tried-and-true methods to reduce Adwords costs.
Method 1: Avoid Broad Match
Broad match is the least restrictive keyword match type. Using this match type will tie your ads to many irrelevant search queries. For example, if your keyword is “gold buyer” in broad match, you may get searches like “gold stores” or “jewelry for sale”, because Google tends to match search queries to a wide range of related words.
Now, there are certainly times when broad match is useful. In cases where very low search volume keywords are being used, a broad match could help bring in more traffic. But, you would still need to keep a close eye on the search queries coming in.
Method 2: Use Negative Keywords
You could also use negative keywords to combat the irrelevant search queries from broad match keywords. Negative keywords allow you to exclude words or phrases from your campaigns. For example, if you sell chocolate bars, you wouldn’t want people searching for chocolate recipes to click on your ads. In this case, you can add “recipes” as a negative keyword. Once you build a large negative keyword list, you can focus on keywords that matter to customers and increase your return on investment.
Is Your Business Wasting Valuable Adwords Dollars?
Method 3: Pause Low-Performing Keywords
After spending hundreds or thousands of dollars on AdWords, you’ll realize that some keywords you’re bidding on don’t work. Low-performing keywords will continue to accumulate costs and produce zero conversions. But before deciding to pause or “kill” a keyword, consider these important questions:
- Can you improve on the ad text associated with the keyword?
- Has the keyword contributed to assisted conversions?
- Would the keyword convert at a lower bid?
- Is the landing page relevant to the keyword?
If any of these apply to your keyword, pausing it could mean cutting out a big portion of your conversion opportunity. Pausing a keyword is the last resort when you’ve already considered all the above options.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
We recommend the above techniques for every AdWords account. Even if your campaigns are running well, it doesn’t hurt to give them a quick checkup every week. You may be surprised at what you can find!
Have a question on PPC? Drop in your comment below, or leave us your contact info. Good luck!
Kai enjoys innovating marketing strategies and staring endlessly at spreadsheets of complex data. In his free time, he enjoys movies, eating raw organic foods, and reading tech news.