4 Tips for Competing in Google & Facebook Ads

by searchenginenews787

Managing your pay-per-click (PPC) marketing can be daunting, especially when marketing is just one of the tasks on your to-do list. Google and Facebook are already highly competitive advertising platforms, and if you’re not routinely optimizing your accounts, it’s easy to fall behind the competition.

Don’t fret, though—we’re here to help. In WordStream’s upcoming webinar, our very own Associate Director of Managed Services Chris Panetta and I will show you eight tips to help compete in Facebook and Google Ads. Today, we’re giving you a sneak peek of these tips: two tips for competing in Google Ads and two tips for competing in Facebook Ads.

Register for the webinar to get all of our tips for competing in Google & Facebook!

How to compete in Google Ads

In the keyword and data-driven world of Google Ads success can often seem distant and fleeting, and knowing where to start can be daunting with all the settings, features, and options available. Below we’ll give you two helpful actions to take in Google, but to get all the details and tips you’ll need to sign-up for our webinar!

1. Add negative keywords constantly

You’ve likely heard this hundreds of times before, and you’re about to hear it again: You should always be adding new negative keywords! This seemingly simple and straightforward tip is one that we feel needs to be repeated and is an area that most-all advertisers fail to routinely optimize. Every year the volume of Google searches grows by roughly 10% AND between 16-20% of searches are brand new to Google. These statics are both important and scary for us marketers: not only is search volume naturally growing month over month and year over year, but also upwards of 20% of these searches have never been seen by us or Google before.

So what does this mean for you, the advertiser? If you become complacent in doing your routine negative keyword additions, you’re going to have a bad time.

Remember, Google is a constantly changing network that is driven by the users and their evolving search behaviors. If you fail to consistently go through your search terms and add negatives you, too, could find yourself in the above or similar scenario with no immediate way out. To help facilitate adding negative keywords and build good PPC management habits in general, we recommend adding negative keyword research to your weekly task list or even set a recurring calendar reminder.

2. Understand your match types

Continuing the keyword theme from our first Google Ads tip, we’re going to shift from negative keywords to your actual keywords! This year has seen dramatic changes to Google Ads match types that we’ve outlined in some of our previous blog posts; however, it’s still crucially important to leverage the keyword match type(s) that work best with your budget and strategy. Different match types have different levels of quality and search volumes associated with them, and improperly leveraging them can cause disastrous results.

The example above helps showcase the inverse relationship quality and search volume have with match types. Generally speaking, exact match will be the highest quality match type but have the least overall search volume behind it, and broad match, on the other hand, will be the lowest quality but highest search volume.

Understanding the differences in how the match types perform and function is a crucial step we find many advertisers skipping during campaign setup. When considering which match type(s) to leverage advertisers must also consider the following factors: campaign objective, daily budget, and expected average cost per clicks. Time and time again one of the biggest pitfalls we see advertisers succumb to is match type strategy or, really, a lack of one.

Want more Google Ads tips? Join us for the live webinar on Nov. 13!

How to compete in Facebook Ads

Managing Facebook Ads is a challenging task in its own right, and being successful can often seem like a pipedream for advertisers. Have no fear, though, because WordStream is here! Below we’ll give you two useful actions to take in your Facebook Ads account to help you improve, however to get all the details and tips you’ll need to attend our webinar!

1. Tailor ads to your core platform

In Facebook, ad formatting best practices can differ depending on the platform your ads are showing on. For example, if your ads are primarily showing on Instagram, you’ll need to ensure your ad copy doesn’t run over the available preview space and that you have a clear visible call to action that makes sense for your campaign objective. Here’s an example of a Facebook ad for an imaginary dog toy company:

Notice how all that great headline copy is cut off from the ad? The CTA button is less prominent because of all the bulky text. The text looks crowded, and there are multiple CTAs in the same ad. Basically, this isn’t an ad that we expect to perform well.

We want the main focus of the ad to be the creative (who doesn’t love cute dogs?) and one clear call to action where we tell the user the next step they should them to take. With this in mind, let’s look at an ad that follows best practices.

Slight changes give the ad a more polished and professional look. The text at the top of the ad is no longer truncated, meaning anyone who sees the ad is shown all of it without having to click “see more.” Plus, my “Shop Now” button is now my main CTA with fewer distractions.

Don’t miss out on even more Facebook ad strategy—register now!

2. Align your bid strategy with your campaign’s core objective

Facebook has numerous campaign objectives that advertisers can choose from, and it can feel overwhelming at times. These options will change depending on the buying type you select. The “Auction” buying type offering more choices than the other option, “Reach and Frequency.”

Selecting the proper buying type and campaign objective is the key to your campaign’s success, and we’re here to help you make the right choice! We won’t cover every option and choice in this teaser—but if you’re interested, register for the webinar—for now, we’ll cover the basics. 

At a high level you want to make sure your campaign objective matches your campaign goal. For example, select the “Auction” buying type and “Catalog Sales” campaign objective if you’re an ecommerce company selling products through Facebook. What you don’t want is your campaign’s goal and campaign objective to be at odds, such as selecting the “Reach and Frequency” buying type with the “Brand Awareness” campaign objective if the campaign’s goal is still ecommerce sales. Unfortunately, once a campaign has been created, you can’t go back and edit the buying type or campaign objective, so consider this an action to take with any new campaigns you build out. Plus, it’s still a good idea to check your currently active campaigns and make sure they’re configured properly.

We hope this little teaser for our up-coming webinar has proved beneficial, and as always don’t forget to attend the webinar for all of our actionable tips!

from Internet Marketing Blog by WordStream https://ift.tt/34YpZOn