14 MarSimple Steps to Maximise Your Adwords Spending

If you’re a small business or just on a tight budget, there are a few simple steps you can take to ensure you get the biggest ‘bank for your buck’

1. Track conversion and ROI (Return On Investment)

Track everything. Google will track impressions, clicks and click through rate. Just because an ad has a high CTR doesn’t mean that it is making you money! You can use Google’s own conversion tracking codes, or you can use your own software. If you don’t know how each keyword is performing – then you won’t be able to optimise your campaigns, by turning off the keywords that aren’t working and investing more in the keywords which are.

2. Work out your CPA (Cost Per Acquisition)

How much is each sale costing you? Are your Google adwords listings performing as well as your Overture listings? Your SiteMatch listings? Your offline marketing? You should know how much you’re paying for each order/sale/download/enquiry/whatever on each channel – only then will you be able to set CPA targets to work towards and know which channel is best for you.

3. Don’t enter into bidding wars

It is easy to get into bidding wars with your competitors. You want to be number one and so does your competitor. The best thing to do is to take a step back, ten deep breaths and consider how important it really is to be in the number one spot. If you can justify it, fine but otherwise: let your competitor be number one, slot into the number two slot and wait. If you have a better product, your clickthrough rate will get you to the top – and you’ll still be paying the same as you were in the second position.

More and more people are using automated bidding software. This software will update at a set interval to keep the ad in the desired position. Doing battle with this kind of software is even more frustrating and less rewarding than trying to outbid a competitor.

4. Set a weekly budget and stick to it

When you’re first starting out this is really important. adwords is addictive, and like anything else addictive, it can quickly get out of hand. A keyword may convert like nobody’s business one day and die the next. Make sure you know a keyword is working (more importantly, know why it is working) before you invest more.