So you’ve taken the leap and started using AdWords. Congratulations! The road doesn’t end there, however. AdWords can get very sophisticated and, not to mention, you are competing with other advertisers during every search of your targeted keywords.

AdWordsHere are five easy steps to beating out your competitors:

1. Understand Your Strategy

AdWords is a great addition to marketing efforts and shouldn’t be on an island all by itself. Your campaign structure should reflect your goals and supplement your other strategies.

For example, if you have a strong presence with your main SEO keywords, you can target new keywords through SEM to broaden reach and customer base. Alternatively, create a new marketing message with your ads with additional incentive to capture the click and/or lead.

2. Optimize Regularly

Once you set up your account, don’t forget about it. Optimization is crucial not only to your campaign’s success, but to your wallet, too. A few places to begin improving include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • A/B test ad copy for higher CTR’s and Quality Score
  • Create landing pages specific to your campaigns and ad groups
  • Keyword mining and adding negative keywords – one increases your reach while the other refines your target audience.

Improving the quality of your campaigns will decrease your cost per click, allowing you to branch out into other areas with the same budget.

3. Forecast

While in your account, be sure to look at multiple time frames and see where your budget is going throughout each. By monitoring the daily budget of your campaigns you will be able to predict a campaign’s spend over the next few days. It is important to practice forecasting so you aren’t missing impressions, clicks and conversions.

4. Create Relevant Landing Pages

Send your potential consumer to the most relevant page possible. High bounce rates occur due to misleading ads or incorrect landing pages. Think about your own experience; nothing is more frustrating than landing to a page with irrelevant information. Put yourself in your consumer’s shoes – what would you like to interact with after clicking your ad?

5. Get Creative

Provide yourself with some time to step back and look at your account. Not being complacent with your strategy will go a long way. Just think – making one small change a day can add up to big changes (and success) in the long run. Also, being innovative is a great way to stay ahead of your competition. So make sure you stay on top of the industry and Google AdWord changes.

What are ways you optimize daily? Tweet at @PCGDigital and let us know!

About the Author

PCG Digital Marketing is an award winning digital agency headquartered in Eatontown, NJ. We help our clients get found online through innovative search, social and online advertising campaigns.