We wasted $50K on Google Search Ads and the insights we got on the way
I manage 6 figures a year of profitable Google Ads spend, and while this article isn't bad, it's a bit vague. Its strongest point is "don't hire an agency to scale." Its second strongest point should have been keyword selection, but that's buried at the bottom of the article.<p>Specifically, the things that have gotten us to profitable ad spend in the 6 figure range are:<p>-- VERY tight campaigns going to tight landing pages. The more specific campaigns you can run, the better. The keywords on your ads AND landing pages need to match the keywords people type in. Most common mistake is driving traffic to a vague landing page. We have 200+ landing pages, all matched to specific keywords. I built out an entire custom framework on top of WordPress to manage this for our company.<p>-- Manage negative keywords. Every 2-3 days, I log in and add negative keywords. Good ones to start out with: free, diy...I have hundreds now. Maybe thousands. It takes a while to scroll through them.<p>-- Track sales back and add more negative keywords. There were some items we were getting a lot of clicks on, but didn't make any sales with. I blacklisted a common keyword on one of our campaigns thanks to this insight. Google's recommendation algorithm complained that by blacklisting this keyword, I was getting fewer clicks. YUP. Tracked it for a month, 3-4 clicks per day and 1 sale that entire month. Negative keyword!<p>-- Start out with 3 ads per ad group minimum. Every week, log in and pause any ad that's not getting good CTR and add a new one. Repeat. After several weeks, you'll be in the "holy ____ I didn't think that was possible" range of CTRs.<p>It takes a LOT of effort to get to the point where we are now (highly optimized keywords, 12-20% CTR, half the price of most of our competitors.) Still, every couple days I log in and tweak even more things. And I hired a consultant on an hourly basis to get us even better. Totally worth the $ to hire him for a few hours just to see where I could improve!<p>If you are technical and think you can outsource this to an agency, DON'T. Consistency is key.<p>One of our partners decided to take the campaigns I'd written and send them to an agency. Their sales dropped 30%. They fired the agency and went back to me. And I'm the business owner, not an agency. No one cares about your money more than you do.<p>And, being technical, you can do fun things like customizing landing pages based on keywords entered (something most agencies can't or won't do, even though it boosts sales.)