Top-performing text-based eCommerce ads all have one thing in common: relevancy.
All of the ads’ information — from the click-through URL and description, to any extension — is targeted to the search in which they appear. As a result, they have a lower cost-per-click (CPC) than other ads on the page and a higher click-through-rate (CTR).
Relevance is the singular most important factor Google uses to determine an ad’s quality score, which the marketing platform uses to set the auction price for a given search. It also impacts an ad’s placement on the page.
At Inflow, we manage $20 million in ad spend each year and, in this article, we’ll show you four best-practices we use with our clients to create well performing text ads.
Note: Looking to uncover other new ways to increase your ROAS? Contact us here.
Best Practice #1: Add as Many Extensions as You Can
Ad extensions such as site links, price, and location extensions are necessary for a full ad presence and are very likely to increase search impression share.
Ad position matters a lot, but having the first position doesn’t mean that an ad dominates the page. Using more extensions equals a bigger presence on the page and more relevant information for consumers.
But having a bigger presence on the page isn’t the only advantage of using multiple ad extensions.
It’s difficult to measure the performance of an individual extension.
Google’s extensions reporting does not tell you when a user selected a specific extension in your ad. It only displays when an extension appeared and user behavior regarding the whole ad. If a user clicks on an ad, every extension that appeared on the ad will show a click and conversion.
You’re giving Google more options to choose from.
We also can’t control which extensions Google will choose to use on a given ad. So giving Google plenty of options will improve the likelihood that Google will use multiple extensions to fill out your ad.
Overall, offering Google more relevant information about your ads helps increase your quality score, which will lower CPC and potentially improve your ad position.
Best Practice #2: Tailor Extensions to the Campaign or Product Whenever Possible
Some extensions work at an account level and are relevant for all ads. However, whenever possible, tailor your extensions for your specific campaign or product, as doing so increases the relevance of the ad to specific searches.
Best Practice #3: Make Headings and Click-Through URLs Campaign- or Product-Specific, As Well
Besides extensions, your ads in general should be tailored to specific campaigns or products whenever possible.
Using general site links that are not tied to the product or service you are advertising lower your ads relevance score. It also is a bad practice simply because it takes users to a page unrelated to the thing they were searching for. This puts extra labor on the user to navigate your site.
Best Practice #4: Run More Narrowly Targeted eCommerce Ads
The very simple key to using the following the above best practices?
Run more ads.
For instance, if you sell washing machines, you’d want different brand campaigns set up for each brand that only captures searches for people looking for that specific brand of washers.
Your ad extensions and your landing page for each ad would be specific to that brand, as well.
You could maintain separate more general ad campaigns for people searching for general times like “washing machines” or “home appliances,” but ideally you take advantage of a user who knows exactly what they want.
Here’s another example.
It’s common for people to search for certain products by model number or other product-specific terms. For instance, the model number for a popular Samsung washer gets thousands of searches per month.
Even if you sell this product and have a campaign for Samsung washers, unless your ad specifically relates to the model number, it probably won’t run on this search.
Matching each ad campaign to the optimal user searches makes a huge impact on your overall ad spend.
Learn how we increased a client’s annual return-on-ad-spend (ROAS) by 1600% by tweaking what search terms were triggering their different ad campaigns.
Maximizing Ad Performance is Complicated
AdWords uses complicated algorithms to measure quality score, choosing which ads to run, and what information will be included in each ad.
There’s a lot we don’t know, but that doesn’t mean we’re helpless to improving ad performance. For instance, we recently increased the CTR of a client’s branded campaign by 50% by updating their ad extensions.
If you’re looking for more ways to maximize your AdWords presence and improve your ROAS, we can help. Contact us here.
0 Comments