The ‘Lite’ version of Google AdWords, Google AdWords Express can be a good place for Small Businesses to test online advertising without investing a lot of time or money.  Launched in 2011, the slimmed-down version of Google AdWords can be set-up in around 15 minutes.  It’s often appealing to businesses because after the initial set-up the platform automatically manages your ads.

Over the past 7 years a number of enhancements have been added to the platform.  Last week, Google launched the capability for advertisers to rate calls and be notified of missed calls – a great addition.  So, if you’ve been running a campaign and haven’t kept up with the changes or are about to set-up your first campaign, below are 5 ways to ensure you’re getting the most out it.

1. REVIEW YOUR KEYWORDS TO BUILD YOUR AD TEXT

When you set-up your campaign in AdWords Express you will be asked to select your business category.  From this category, Google generates a list of keywords.  Review these keywords, find the most relevant keywords in the list and make sure you include them in your ad.  This will increase the chances of people clicking on your ad as it will match the words they have searched to find you.

2. REMOVE IRRELEVANT KEYWORDS

While you are unable to choose your own keywords or match type with AdWords Express, you are now able to pause irrelevant keywords from your campaign.

Make sure you carefully review all the proposed keywords and switch off irrelevant keywords which are not appropriate for your campaign or business. You don’t want to be broadcasting your ads on irrelevant search terms which can turn costly if people start clicking on them.

3. UPDATE YOUR SETTINGS: TURN ON LOCATION TARGETING & AD SCHEDULING

LOCATION TARGETING

You can make your ad appear in certain cities, states or countries.  If this is too broad for your business, you can choose to target a radius around your business instead.

AD SCHEDULING

Make sure you set the hours you’d like your ad to run.  If your main conversion is phone calls, make sure your campaign is only turned on while your business is open so your customers can reach you.  You can choose either ‘custom hours’ or link to your ‘Google My Business’ account to automatically run your ad during business hours.

4. USE CALL REPORTING & NOTIFICATIONS

The lack of conversion tracking has been one of the biggest gaps of AdWords Express vs the full AdWords platform.  Since launch, this has been enhanced by incorporating call tracking (Verified Calls).  When set-up, Google assigns a Google Forwarding Number which is displayed in your ad instead of your actual business phone number.  All calls answered (regardless of length) are counted as verified calls.  Reporting includes call time, duration and location.

As I touched on, last week Google launched two new notifications – Call Rating and Call Back.  Call Rating allows advertisers to give feedback about the relevancy of a call from an ad which aids future targeting and drives higher quality calls over time.  Call back is a massive win for the platform.  It’s a pop-up alerting you that you’ve missed a call from an ad.  You can click “call back” to get in touch with the prospect.  To set-up both of these notifications all you need to do is go into the AdWords Express app and opt in for account updates within Settings.

A couple of years ago, Google launched the capability to link AdWords Express with Google Analytics.  This gives you the ability to see goal tracking data in your AdWords Express dashboard.  The insights are amazing! You can see goal completion data like sign ups, online enquiries or sales as well as behaviour metrics like new visits from the ad, time on site and page view averages.  

5. DOWNLOAD THE PHONE APP

To easily keep track of your campaign, download the AdWords Express app.  It offers all the same functionality as the desktop version, an easy way to quickly check your campaign while you’re out and about.

To wrap up, the above five tips will help you get the most out of AdWords Express giving you more targeted, higher quality leads.  The enhanced reporting and tracking will give you more visibility of what is going on with your campaign and allow you to make informed changes.  In a future post, I’ll talk more about when the full AdWords platform starts to make sense.  It requires a larger investment in time but the returns are worth it.

If you have any comments or other topics you’d like me to write about let me know in the section below.