We asked our Google team what they thought most people were getting wrong on Google Ads… and they had some THOUGHTS! 

Take a read through so you can avoid these Google pitfalls!

🙅‍♀️ Full reliance on manual bidding or full reliance on automatic bidding

Manual bids are good to start off, but generally it’s better performing to let the AI bidding kick in when enough conversions have come through. Then use other levers to optimize your CPAs - tips and tricks. 

🙅‍♀️  Assuming there is a one-size-fits-all approach to Google Ads

We have been able to find success by using very different approaches for each account and testing what works better - Share Lawyers and Smart Campaigns, JBW - BB regular shopping success vs Smart campaign success in Elitist. GG success with Manual Bids.

🙅‍♀️  Not spending enough time on Google Landing Pages 

Make sure your landing page matches the search term that brought them there. 

Also, explain why they should do business with your company. Very few people are going to say ‘yes’ if you ask them to marry you on a first date!

🙅‍♀️ Not tapping into YouTube’s potential

Like Facebook, people spend considerable amounts of time watching videos on YouTube and the ability to retarget and reach the right audiences on this platform is considerable.

🙅‍♀️ Focusing too much on target cost per acquisition (CPA) or target return on ad spend (ROAS) for every campaign. 

This leads to campaigns that are only at the bottom of the funnel. Business growth requires top of funnel, middle of funnel and bottom of funnel campaigns.

🙅‍♀️ Not setting up conversion tracking correctly 

The number of times we’ve taken over an account from another agency, only to find out they were double counting or at least inflating conversions in some way or another, is staggering. 

This severely skews the efficacy of every automated bidding strategy as Google will assume its audience is converting at a much higher rate than it actually is, and will not optimize your ads as effectively. 

🙅‍♀️  Not testing cold prospecting campaigns on the GDN

The Google Display Network is arguably one of the most difficult channels to run profitable ads to a cold audience, but with such a massive variety of ad types and bid strategies, and with ads that reach 98% of the accessible web, it’s borderline foolish not to at least test it. 

We’ve seen success using display prospecting, it can drive up to 40% of account revenue.