These top 10 mistakes are based on real world experiences from my personal use of Google Adwords, as well as experiences from many of my consulting clients. By learning from these mistakes you will save yourself hours of wasted time and money as you begin setting up and running your Adwords campaigns. So whether you are an experienced Adwords junkie or just a newbie I hope you will find something of value in this list and possibly even discover a new trick or two. So without further ado (insert drum roll here) I present you with the Top 10 Google Adwords Marketing Mistakes…
1. Not placing a limit on your advertising budget. If you don’t place a limit on your advertising campaigns you could very easily run your costs into the thousands. Google Adwords makes it very easy to setup a campaign spending limit. Use it.
2. Not knowing the conversion rate of your website. Many eager marketers end up choosing high priced words and place their bids on those words without basing their bids on anything. Don’t do this. If you don’t know the conversion rate of the product you are selling then start slow, very slow, bid only 5 cents or less on many less competitive keywords and try to get as many keywords as possible at this bid price. This will enable you to determine your market on many words as well as determine some kind of conversion rate after 500 clicks to the website. If you don’t make any sales after 500 clicks you’ve only spent $25 and you know the product is a dud. It may take you a while to receive 500 clicks, but if you figure out your average “click to sales ratio” it will empower you with the knowledge to bid on more competitive keywords.
3. Not doing proper keyword research. Most people use the Google keyword tool and so will most people that are competing against you. Do deep research with Wordtracker, or even better yet, use it in combination with old fashioned thinking to come up with related terms and topics that may be relevant to your site, then use Wordtracker to look them up and see how popular they are and if they are worth further research. The more time you spend on your keyword development the better your chances of success will be. This is one of the most neglected aspects of setting up an Adwords campaign.
4. Not placing time and effort into writing your ads. I’m gonna give you a big hint and if you are not doing this already, then start. Take all your words, run them for 3 or 4 days or until you start getting a few thousand impressions. Next, take the most popular 150 to 200 words (the words with most impressions) and do separate, yes separate campaigns for each and every one. This will allow you to write separate ads for each word and use that word in your ad. By writing your ads out by hand making each one unique and distinct for each keyword you will be leaps and bounds ahead of your competition. Am I saying you need to write 150 to 200 unique ads? No. I am saying you need to start with 150 to 200 and write up to as many unique ads as you possibly can. If you can do 1000 that’s even better. My rule is that if the word gets 100 impressions or more a day then you will need to write a separate ad just for that keyword.
5. Not tracking your daily stats. Most marketers will run a few campaigns with Adwords, then check out their sales stats, if they are making money great, if not they get frustrated and quit. You need to keep daily records. Set up each website you are advertising in a separate ad group. Then track how much you spend each day, how many clicks you got, how many sales you get, etc. This will allow you to determine your Earnings Per Click, your Return On Investment, and much more powerful data. I personally use an Excel spreadsheet to manage my campaigns, I insert some basic data and Excel will calculate the rest, saving me much time and effort. Tracking means everything as long as you are tracking everything! Once you start tracking you will know exactly to a tee what is going on and you will be able to adapt accordingly.
6. Choosing lousy products or services to promote. It boggles my mind the rationale that some people use to promote certain products over others. It could be because you saw someone else make a lot of money with the product, or maybe you read on a blog it was the next best thing. Well, please, use common sense. Before promoting a product or service ask yourself these questions…
Would I buy this product? Is this market very competitive or not competitive enough? Is the website professional, is there leakage on the site (meaning does the webpage promote products or services that don’t pay you)? Who is my market and do they have money and credit cards?
7. Quitting too soon. Yes, Adwords is not easy and many marketers give up before they learn the system. Adwords can be very frustrating, difficult, and intimidating the first time you use it. But if you make it a priority to test, track, and spend as little money as possible then you won’t have much reason to quit. You should never spend more than $25 to $40 to test a new product and advertising campaign. Many people end up running out of money too soon and are forced to quit. Don’t let this happen to you, start small and slow and don’t give up.
8. Not knowing when to give up. Give up on a campaign that is. If you’ve spent $50 and received 1000 visitors to your site and you haven’t made any sales, I would say it’s time to give it up. Don’t keep going and spending money just to try and prove yourself right, move on.
9. Not collecting email addresses. If the niche you are marketing to has any related products or services you could market to them (and just about all of them do) then collect their emails and follow up with them! If you do this your cost of advertising gets less and less with each email you send out. Plus, you make more money, year after year. Set up an autoresponder and collect the visitors email address. Using Adwords gives you extremely targeted and interested leads, don’t let them get away forever, get their email and market to them for years to come.
10. Not knowing the rules and breaking them. Many people think they can beat or cheat the system, others don’t know better and will place popup ads or link to inappropriate sites getting their account revoked. If you’re going to play the game, take the time and read through the rules and guidelines. Not only will you know what not to do, it may inspire a few ideas of what you can do to maximize your income.
