Google Adwords is a boon to online marketers. The major attraction in using Google Adwords is that marketers pay only when their advertisement is seen by a potential customer. This means, the return of investment from the online marketing campaign completely depends on how the marketers choose the Adwords.

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Here is a list of 10 common mistakes users make while using Google AdWords

1. Choosing Incorrect Keywords

This is a common mistake made by first time AdWords users. When using Google AdWords for your online campaign, you must use specific, relevant and targeted words. Vague and broad keywords gobble the budget and don’t offer any conversions. The best solution is to use Adwords Keyword Planner when you are looking for help in choosing the right keywords.

2. Using Incorrect Keyword Matches

Not only should your keywords be relevant, but also the keyword match you choose should match your expectations from the online campaign. Google AdWords offer 3 types of keyword matches.

• Broad Match: This means your ads are displayed if your keywords are used in any order. For example, if the keyword for your ad is “Beaded Jewellery”, your ad will be shown when someone searches for “Beaded Fashion Jewellery”, “Beaded Junk Jewellery”, etc. To use broad match, just enter the keyword without using any punctuation mark like a single or double quote, before or after the keyword.
• Phrase Match: This means your ads are displayed when someone uses the phrase or keyword in the same order as you entered in AdWords. In the same “Beaded Jewellery” example, your ads will be displayed when someone searches for “Beaded Jewellery Online Shopping”. To use phrase match, you must mention the keywords within double quotes. For this example, you enter “Beaded Jewellery” as a phrase match word
• Exact Match: As the name suggests, your ads will be displayed when someone searches for the exact keyword. In this example, your ads will be displayed when someone searches exactly for “Beaded Jewellery”. Your ads will not be displayed when someone searches for “Beaded Jewellery in India” or “Beaded Jewellery online shopping”

Why is it so important to choose correct keyword matches?

It may seem that broad matches will fetch good results as your ads will show up when customers use any of your keywords, however, there are chances of your ads being irrelevant to the customer’s search requirement. So you as an online marketer end up paying anyway. The phrase and Exact Match can fetch you desired leads; however, the conversion rate is lesser than what you will get with a Broad Match. So the solution is to adjust the matches according to your requirement. Some experts suggest that you start the campaign with exact matches and then move on to phrase and broad matches.

It may seem that broad matches will fetch good results as your ads will show up when customers use any of your keywords, however, there are chances of your ads being irrelevant to the customer’s search requirement. So you as an online marketer end up paying anyway. The Phrase and Exact Match can fetch you desired leads; however, the conversion rate is lesser than what you will get with a Broad Match. So the solution is to adjust the matches according to your requirement. Some experts suggest that you start the campaign with exact matches and then move on to phrase and broad matches.

3. Overlooking Negative Keywords

Using negative keywords is a way to omit keywords that are not relevant or related to the campaign and eventually the product that is marketed. For example, you own a retail store selling ethnic, formal and casual clothes for women and not winter clothes; you don’t want your ads to be displayed when someone searches for “winter clothes for women” instead would want to be displayed when someone searches for “clothes for women” or “formal clothes for women”. In such case, you can add “winter” as a negative keyword.

4. Tracking Performance

This is something seen in beginners. They do not properly track the conversion rate and the success of the campaign. They are only worried about getting traffic to their site and in the process completely overlook the tracking part. It becomes extremely difficult to gauge ROI (Return on Investment) if there is no proper tracking. Users can use Conversion Tracking or lead your AdWords traffic to a dedicated page that will give you conversion results of your online campaign.

5. Incorrect Grouping of Keywords

One of the common mistakes made while using Google Adwords is that users use a group of keywords for the same set of their campaign. So their ad shows up whenever the users search using any of these keywords. Instead, when they group their keywords and use a different campaign for each set of keywords, the chances are more that their ad campaign is closely relevant to the keywords. This means more relevant traffic to the site and hence more business.

6. Setting Expiry Dates for the Campaigns

Ad campaigns are like edible food products, i.e. they also have an expiry date, after which the ads become over familiar for the users. To avoid this, users must set up an end date for the campaign. They must keep updating the campaign by using more relevant keywords, enriching the landing page experience, etc.

7. Not Considering Optimal Ad Position

This is another mistake that every Adwords beginners make. Users don’t do enough testing to find out the optimal ad position. This can be done by increasing or decreasing the bid on CPC (Cost Per Click). For example, if Google recommends $2 to $4 per bid, you may test and see with $2 per bid. See how the results are and then think about increasing or decreasing the bid

8. Goal Setting

First, you need to know what you want out of the online campaign. You need to know what you want to accomplish and the success criteria to measure the conversion rate before doing anything with your Google Adwords account. Lack of goals means lack of directions and they tend to panic when things go wrong. A lot of users make this mistake of just spending money without a goal in mind.

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9. Being Unaware of the Competitors

Now, this is common for all, however, this is more evident with online marketers. You need to keep yourself abreast of what your competitors are doing, what kind of ads they are advertising, what type of keywords they are using and what is the landing page experience like. These are some of the factors you must pay attention to when analysing your competitors. This can prevent poaching of your customers by your competitors and most importantly, this will help in staying competitive and alive in the business.

10. Managing Expectations

It is a very common attitude of online marketers to get frustrated because of low results. It is important to analyse the reason for the low results. It can surely be the case of over expecting from an online campaign with a shoe-string budget. So ensure to have the considerable budget to test and tweak your online campaign so that you get the desired result. Another important criterion is patience. Stay with the campaign so that you can track the performance. In the meantime, you can also get familiarised with how the Adwords work and how to make most of it.

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