5 questions you must ask yourself for successful AdWords advertising

Creating a successful AdWords campaign requires expertise and time, and behind a successful AdWords campaign are hours of work.

What follows after creating a campaign is just as important as creating the campaign itself. When enough statistical data is collected from implemented campaigns, it is essential to determine the factors contributing to unsatisfactory results. Understanding the functionality of AdWords is crucial in optimizing campaigns for achieving optimal outcomes.

Here are 5 questions to ask yourself to make sure your AdWords campaigns are set up in the best possible way.

1. Do you use Ad Extensions?

Google's research has shown that adding extensions to ads increases click-through rate (CTR) by as much as 10-20%.

AdWords offers many very useful extensions. Some of the most popular are:

• Sitelinks extensions – extensions that contain links to subpages of your web
• Callout extensions - extensions with additional text, e.g. "Product warranty", "Wellness" that serve to describe the offer in more detail
• Call extensions – extensions with a phone number so that potential customers can call immediately

Structured snippet extensions - extensions that are used to list additional content, such as Wi-Fi, swimming pool, etc. Unfortunately, this extension is not available in Croatian, but it is available in several world languages if you advertise abroad.

• Location extensions – an extension with a physical address
• Review extensions – an extension with a review of your business from a credible source

For optimal results, we recommend implementing at least one of the most relevant extensions for your business in each campaign or ad unit. In this way, you will improve the CTR, consequently reduce the cost of the click, and have better results from advertising.

2. Are you bidding on branded keywords?

Paying for advertising for keywords you already rank for on Google might sound strange, but it makes sense and has many benefits. In fact, if you don't advertise for branded keywords, you may be losing more potential earnings than you would have invested in advertising for branded keywords.

Advantages of advertising for your brand name:

• Branded keywords are very cheap, so you will spend very little on clicks - ads will have a high 'Quality Score', i.e. a quality rating and a high CTR, i.e. percentage of clicks on the ad
• People who search for your brand name are usually already interested in shopping with you, and it will not be difficult to convert them into customers
• Branded keywords usually have a high conversion rate
• When you bid on branded keywords, your website can appear twice on the Google search results page. This increases the likelihood that potential customers will click on your website and visit your business.

Also, it can happen that cunning competition advertises in the name of your brand, thus winning over your customers or clients. You can partially prevent this if you also advertise for your branded keywords.

3. Do you track conversions?

It's hard to make your ads and campaigns better if you don't know how people are using your website.

This can help you get the best return on investment (ROI).

You can set tracking as conversions:

• Shopping
• Send an inquiry through the form
• Download demo program
• Phone calls
• Application downloads
• Various other actions that can be taken on the website that bring you benefit

When running a web shop, it's crucial to track purchases. For B2B companies, it's important to know how many calls the campaigns generated. If you sell software whose demo is available for download on the website, you will track the download. Depending on your business and business goals, it is advisable to implement appropriate conversion tracking. That way, you will always know which campaign, keyword, and ad bring you a good return on investment and which ones don't