When optimising Google accounts, it can be a minefield knowing what to change and when. You may spend most of your time picking through the search terms and adding/excluding keywords, but are you making the most of the other optimisation options on your account? Here are 5 top tips to reduce wasted ad spend….

1. Recommendations

There’s a tab on the left of your Google Ads dashboard called Recommendations which should be your go-to page every week. This content changes to give you handy optimisation tips, including removing redundant keywords with one click, creating new ad groups based around keywords, budget optimisation tips and more. Review this tab regularly and make sure you complete all tasks to keep your account in tip-top condition.




2. Ad Schedule



This tab allows you to optimise when your ads show by day of the week, but also by time of day. If your office is only manned weekdays 9-5, you can change your call ads to only show at these times and avoid wasted ad spend. This section also allows you to review your ad performance based on time of day and day of the week, so you can ensure ads are only showing when they are most likely to convert.

3. Devices



This tab allows you to review ad performance for customers browsing on mobiles, tablets and desktops. This allows you to turn off ads on certain devices if they are less likely to convert, but also may flag any issues with your website. For example, if 90% of your traffic is from mobiles but only 5% of the conversions track from there, you may have an issue with your website usability on mobiles. Dive deeper into this with Google Analytics if there are signs of an issue.

4. Demographics



Very often when accounts are set up, demographics are not altered to fit the audience. Some businesses have very clear targeting on demographics, for example maternity-wear performs best with women aged 24-40, however others need testing. We often see patterns with home improvement services appealing more to a male audience, so it’s worth analysing your performance split by gender and age group and try pausing some of the groups to optimise ad spend, and in turn hopefully generate a higher conversion rate.




5. Audiences 




The audiences tab allows you to add or exclude audiences from your campaigns. You can use this for retargeting activity, reaching people who have visited your website, watched your video, engaged with your app or shared their contact information with you. You can also target customers who are in the market for the products you provide or similar, increasing your chances of a sale.

When testing, it’s useful to go slow and run just one or two tests at a time, otherwise it can be impossible to know what has made the difference to your results. Also bear in mind that when making changes to campaigns, this can rock results temporarily, so leave changes for a good few weeks before reversing them to give it time to settle.

Want some help with your Google Ad campaigns? We offer a no obligation account review, and if you decide to sign up, free setup of your campaigns with no tie-ins to continue. Contact us today for more details.