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Paid Strategy

Do This, Not That: How to Supersize Your Paid Ads Impact

Not sure how to improve paid ads performance? Here are 5 paid ads dos and don’ts to supersize your existing and new paid search advertising campaigns.

7 mins read time
Sidney Deboever
Sidney Deboever

Mar 02, 2023

The best thing about paid ads is that you get targeted traffic instantly to your desired URL. While organic traffic has its own perks and is our preferred method, it fails to beat paid search advertising in terms of immediate results. But are you running your paid ad campaigns to their fullest?

Are you getting the results you should expect from paid ads?

The following paid ads dos and don’ts will help you improve the performance of paid campaigns irrespective of the ad network you are using.

1. Use Google Ads Scripts for Automation

Most advertisers don’t know, but Google Ads has a huge collection of ready-to-use scripts that help you automate your paid ad campaigns. Google Ads scripts let you control your ads, campaigns, and account.

For example, you can add a script to detect account anomalies that alert you via email if there is an abnormal change in your ads account, such as low CTR, high average cost, etc. 

You can create your own scripts or use existing pre-made scripts from Google’s library.

Scripts are helpful when you are running multiple ads across several campaigns or managing several client accounts. You can save time by automating tedious tasks.

Choose a relevant script from the library and add it to your account in Bulk Actions > Scripts under Tools and Settings:

google ads graphic


If you want to create your own script (JavaScript knowledge required), you can control pretty much everything with scripts. Google has defined concepts and rules such as iterators, selectors, IDs, etc.

Consider testing Google scripts because it can significantly help you improve paid ads performance.

2. Do Not Use the Default Settings

Don't make the mistake of sticking with the default settings when creating a paid search campaign or any other PPC campaign.

What’s wrong with the default ad settings?

The built-in advanced settings are suitable for new advertisers and aren’t customized. You will lose money if you don’t tweak settings based on your ad goal and campaign objectives.

For example, the default target (and recommended) setting is set to Presence or interest. This means your ads will show to people who are not present in your target location, and this sends irrelevant traffic to your landing page.

You need to change it to Presence to show ads to people who are present in your target location:

presence graphic

There are other default settings that look like this:

presence settings graphic

Notice that your language is automatically selected, your ads run all day throughout the week for all devices, there is no end date, and no content is excluded. Running Google Ads with these settings won’t help you much.

You need to adjust these settings based on your campaign and business strategy. For example, if you are running a campaign to drive traffic to a physical store that remains open from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. six days a week, there is no need to show ads throughout the day. With default settings, your ad will continue to run when your store is closed, and it isn't healthy for the daily budget and brand reputation.

Also, exclude content that isn’t relevant to your business philosophy. How’d you feel if your shoe ad is shown next to inappropriate content?

So personalize and customize your ad settings. Always check the More settings option and tweak it.

3. Use Power Words in Headline

Plain, simple, and boring headlines do not work for PPC. They never worked.

Use power words in the headline to emotionally connect with your target audience. For example, using words like empower, thrive, cheer, healthy, wonderful, amazing, and inspiring evoke feelings of joy in the readers.

When it comes down to what type of specific power words boost conversion, using a number in your headline is a top tactic:

Chart, bar chart

Description automatically generated

Source

This makes more sense when you look at this:

Chart, waterfall chart

Description automatically generated

Having an exact number in the headline makes it clear and sets the expectations. Check out the following search ad:

Graphical user interface, text, application

Description automatically generated

When you see and click this ad, you expect to see 10 project tracking apps. It clearly sets the expectation, and this leads to a higher conversion rate.

Also, "top" is a power word, so this headline uses both a power word and a number in the headline to boost CTR and conversion rate.

4. Add High-Quality, Non-Stock Images for Display Ads

If you are running a display ad campaign, do not use low-quality images. The image quality is more important than you think.

You'll especially want to avoid using stock images.

The images you use should have the following:

  1. Visual appearance (this is the most important part; keep visuals simple and distinct)
  2. Branding (in the form of a logo, brand name, color scheme, etc.)
  3. Headline (follow the same rules as discussed above)
  4. Call to action

Here is an example:


This is a perfect display ad that keeps it simple and clear with a CTA, headline, description, and image.

Instead of using the same image and text for different ad formats, it's recommended to use different creatives that are customized for each ad format.

Here is an example:

image ad best practices banner copy example
image ad best practices copy overlay example

Source

The first ad looks decent, but the same image and text on the second image looks weird because it has too much text. This can happen when you use the same image and headline for all the ad formats.

So, when creating ads for display campaigns, choose the appropriate ad formats that work best for your image and headline.

5. Use Landing Pages

Stop sending PPC traffic to your homepage or other non-marketing pages, it ruins return on ad spend (ROAS).

Instead, create customized landing pages that are relevant to individual ads or ad groups for a better conversion rate and higher ROAS.

Even a single landing page (or a few) isn’t enough for PPC ads. Create at least one landing page per ad. For example, if you have a search ad targeting "buy red shoes," the landing page should have red shoes. Create a separate landing page for "buy blue shoes," "buy white shoes," and so on. Deliver your target audience exactly what you have promised them in the ad.

Research shows that the more landing pages you use, the better it is for lead generation:

lp impact on lead gen resized 600

Source

Apply this to PPC ads to convert paid visitors into leads and customers effortlessly.

Time to Take Your PPC Ads to the Next Level

If your paid search advertising campaigns aren’t delivering desired results, you need to apply these best practices to boost conversions, ROAS, and ROI. Tweaking and optimizing your ad campaigns is an important practice that you shouldn’t ignore. Not all techniques and tips work immediately, and you might have to make several changes to see improvement.

Learn how we can help you increase your paid ads performance with our expertise, experience, and systematic process that has helped hundreds of businesses.

 

Get the Most Bang For Your Buck  Time to put your money where your mouth is — and nothing speaks quite as loud  as paid markerting.  Learn How We Can Help

Sidney Deboever

Sidney is a growth marketing expert with over 8 years of experience in paid media. She has worked in a variety of channels, from Meta to TikTok to Google. Sidney lives in Bend, Oregon, with her husband. In her free time. she enjoys skiing, hiking, exploring local breweries, and baking lots and lots of bread.

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