Over the past few years, Google has been constantly been releasing updates and changes to Google Ads that can help save time & increase your ROI. With the removal of metrics and bidding strategies, it can be difficult to remember certain tactics that are still being used and that can improve your performance. Here are three ideas you can try to help optimize and boost your PPC performance.
1. Remarketing Lists for Search Ads (RLSA)
Remarketing lists for search ads (RLSA) is a feature that lets you customize your Google Ads campaigns by being able to tailor your ads & bids to visitors who have previously been to your website. Here are a couple basic strategies for using RLSA:
- Creating bid adjustments on your campaigns or ad groups for visitors who have previously been to your website.
- Set up campaigns or ad groups to trigger an ad only when a visitor who have previously been to your website searches on the keywords you are bidding on.
One of the benefits of using RLSA is so you can tailor your campaigns to more qualified traffic and valuable users who have already been to your website. If used properly, RLSA can increase CTR, have higher conversion rates and an overall better ROI.
2. Create Appropriate Ad Extensions
Ad extensions can expand your ad with additional information about your website, product, location & more. They can typically increase CTR while giving more visibility with your ad on the search results page. It’s important to use all extensions relevant to your business goals since Google Ads selects which extensions to show in response to each individual search on Google. Although there are many ad extensions to choose from, here are the most common ones to use:
- Sitelink Extensions: Link people directly to specific pages on your site (such as a contact page, a form page, a product page, etc.)
- Callout Extensions: Additional text that is placed at the end of the ad text with a 25 character limit (typically like “free delivery” or “satisfaction guaranteed”)
- Price Extensions: Showcase your services or product categories with their prices that can link directly to a specific landing page.
- Structured Snippet Extensions: Additional text that allows you to highlight specific aspects and services with predefined headers (“styles”, “types”, “courses”, etc.)
Adding an extension won’t guarantee that it will show all the time with your ad. Your ad’s position and ad rank (CPC bid & quality score) must be high enough for extensions to show.
3. Managing ROI while Google Search Network is Enabled
The Google Search Network is a campaign setting in Google Ads where the reach of Google Search ads expands to hundreds of non-Google websites, as well as YouTube and other Google sites. There are a few types of ads on the Search Network:
- Text ads, Dynamic Search Ads, and call-only ads
- Shopping ads
- Image & video ads
The problem with Google Search Network is that when a campaign is created, this setting is enabled by default. Google also tries to hide the metrics that the Search Network generates, so it’s easy to forget if you’re losing money with this setting enabled.
Here is how to view the Search Network metrics for a campaign:
1. Click “Segment” on the right side of the Google Ads interface
2. Click “Network (with search partners)”
You will see a column showing “Google search” along with a column showing “Search partners” and the metrics that go with each network. To disable Google Search Network, go into the campaign settings and click Networks. There you will find an option to enable or disable the Google Search Network.
If you need help maximizing the ROI on your digital marketing campaigns, contact us to speak with our PPC specialists.