My oh my, how marketing has changed. It’s crazy busy these days to get the message out there using digital marketing. You’re writing blogs, managing social media channels, using email marketing… and then there’s also PPC (pay-per-click advertising). When do you sleep or just enjoy life?

“Pay-per-click” is a form of advertising used on search networks (like Google). The business using PPC only pays for the ad each time it is clicked. Succeeding in this overwhelming marketing landscape requires a dedicated focus on digital marketing — specifically when it comes to PPC.

If you need a reason why, here’s one: Your customers are practically always online. And your competitors never sleep. For you to reach customers and beat your competition, you need to be online too.

Most people associate PPC with Google Ads as it’s the single most popular PPC advertising system in the world.

But how can you make PPC a priority and become a pro when you have so many other business objectives to accomplish?

While PPC can be time-consuming, the rewards are well worth it, especially if you have the right approach.

In this article, we’ve compiled a list of five Google Ads tips that will help you outsmart your competition, get more customers, focus on your core business, and — yes — enjoy life more. Woohoo!

Turn these ideas into powerful email marketing for your business.

Google rules the world

You don’t have to be a professional marketer to see: Google is everywhere — Android, Google Drive, Gmail, YouTube, Google Maps, and so much more — and people embrace it.

And then there is also, of course, Google Search: more than 90 percent market share, 5.5 billion Google searches per day, or 63,000 search queries per second as you’re reading this.

This means a lot of potential customers.

As a result, the most common and important form of PPC advertising in Google Ads is running ads on Google’s Search Network allowing your ads to appear in the Google search results.

According to Google, advertisers, on average make $2 for every $1 spent.

So, expect to double your investment on the Search Network.

The bottom line is: Google Ads is and will be one of the best and fastest ways to get ahead of your competition, build brand awareness, drive traffic to your website, and grow your business.

Don’t miss your chance.

Tip 1: Size matters. Or does it?

Here’s a little secret: Many advertisers believe that it’s the size of the budget that matters most. Let me tell you, that’s a blatant misconception of how you really succeed with Google Ads.

Even though your campaign budget is important, the key factor determining the success of your ads is your website quality.

Simply put, your ads are only as good as your website.

Don’t fall into the trap of launching your ad campaigns before taking a thorough look at your website first and trying to improve it.

Make sure you have an online presence with high-value content, a strong organic approach, as well as an aesthetically pleasing and informative structure.

Have you adjusted your site for mobile use? No? Well, you should since nearly 52 percent of all internet traffic comes from mobile devices. If you aren’t focused on mobile optimization, you will end up missing out on conversion opportunities.

If proper correlation is made between the users’ search queries and your landing page quality, customers’ expectations are met, your ad position receives a boost, and you pay less for a click. Ka-ching!

Conversely, a poor performing landing page leads to negative user experience.

Is your content confusing? There’s nothing worse than reading poorly written content, either the kind filled with grammatical errors or the type that’s too complex to understand.

Not only will you lose valuable customer conversions, but Google will show your ads less frequently, which also translates into spending more money for each click.

To give your website a nice brush-up, we have to turn to what’s most important:

Your customers.

Tip 2: It’s the customer!

Traffic is good? Yeah, but only if it’s the right traffic… and this depends on your customers.

Many of us have wasted countless hours researching keywords that haven’t actualized into conversions. What’s the point? It’s frustrating, right? That’s why we focus on the customer!

In short, you need to get a crystal clear picture of your customer(s) to deeply understand their pain points and what they search for when they look for answers.

A crystal clear picture covers demographic details including age, gender, education, ethnicity, education, and income, but also psychographic details such as values, attitudes, personality, opinions, and beliefs.

Knowing these points is the key to really improving your site, selecting the best keywords, and getting the right traffic.

You can only succeed in Google Ads when your keywords reflect your website content and match the terms your potential customers use to find your products or services.

Once you’ve explored the depths of your customer base, use a keyword research tool to discover the most popular keywords in your industry, and find inspiration for “long-tail keywords,” or, longer and more specific keyword phrases.

Did you know that long-tail keywords account for 70 percent of all web searches? Not only are they important for paid advertising, they’re the holy grail of SEO (Search Engine Optimization).

You get it: long-tail keywords have lower search volumes, which leads to lower cost-per-clicks (CPCs). Yay!

This means you can reach your ideal audience while spending less of your precious marketing budget. But, did you know that many PPC marketers actually overlook long-tail keywords? Don’t be one of them.

If you manage to align your keywords with your customers’ needs, you can rest assured that your visitors won’t hit the “back” button… because they are exactly where they’re supposed to be.

Tip 3: No hocus-pocus — just focus

Your website guarantees a pleasant user experience — Check.

You understand your customers — Check.

Your keywords are in line with your customers’ search queries — Check.

Great job! Now, let’s fast forward in time…

You have launched your Google Ad campaigns, but you’re too smart to believe that this is the end of the story.

It’s important to analyze your keyword list and pause or delete low search volume keywords.

Why would you keep keywords that aren’t performing well? It’s a waste of your time and budget. If keywords aren’t going to drive any traffic for you, there’s no need to keep them around.

So, if you have keywords that are rotting away in your account with no impressions for several weeks, then pause or delete them.

Direct your focus on the keywords that are actually generating awareness, clicks, and conversions.

How can you identify your best performing keywords?

Identifying your best-performing keywords means determining ad impressions and click-through-rates (CTR).

According to a recent study, the average CTR for Google Ads was 1.91 percent.

That seems low, and it is. Imagine, for every 100 times your ad is shown, only 2 people click on it. So, as a best practice, shoot for a CTR of 4-5 percent.

To find your account’s best performing keywords, you’ll first want to use a broad enough date range to gain a true understanding of performance. For most accounts, 30 days will work just fine.

Next, you’ll want to filter your Google Ads account based on the following parameters:

CTR greater than account average is one of the two most important fields to include in your filter. This figure allows you to filter out unnecessary keywords from top performers.

Conversion rate helps you separate the keywords that are killing it from the weaker ones. Pay attention to keywords with high CTRs, yet low conversion rates. Just because your ads are being clicked doesn’t mean they’re successful, especially if they’re not converting.

Let’s say a keyword has a 100% CTR and conversion rate but only has a handful of impressions — the number of times your ad is actually shown. It’s probably statistically insignificant. If you’re running smaller accounts, a good rule is to use 100 impressions as a threshold.

Now, you can begin to uncover your top performing keywords and focus on the ones that have the potential to outperform your competitors.

Tip 4: The neverending bidding story

If you’re a small-to-medium sized business owner using Google Ads, you might find yourself limited by time to actively work on your ad campaigns.

From ad text and landing page optimization to keyword research and development, Google Ads is rife with timesucks. And, let’s not forget about bid management to get the right bids for the right keywords every single time. Whoa! It’s an entire job in itself.

But, you have a business to run, plenty of other tasks to complete… oh dear, and then there’s also family and friends.

No need to panic. I promised I’d show you how to succeed in Google Ads AND enjoy life more. What you need are some time saving tips. I mean, you only have 24-hours in a day — use them wisely.

Optimizing campaigns while saving money on PPC means the difference between success and failure, and is important for any advertiser, whether experienced or novice. When it comes to bid management, traditional PPC experts are hands-on, favoring manual adjustments over automated bidding options.

However, when you have limited hours in the day, automated bidding can save you a significant amount of time and improve your advertising results. The reason: automated bidding strategies eliminate the need to manually make bid adjustments at the keyword level, which is a huge timesaver.

By integrating advanced technology into your PPC campaigns, you can leverage the strengths of your business to garner more conversions and increase your reach.

But, if this seems a bit overwhelming, don’t worry — you do have options. Using services, like Google Ads by Constant Contact to automate your ads is a great place to start, especially if you aren’t sure where to begin.

Tip 5: Make sure your tool belt is full

As you can see, Google Ads is one of the best ways for businesses to reach more customers and increase sales. You just need to set up a proper campaign reflecting your website content, select suitable keywords, identify the ones that work best, and then do a great job in bid management to get the right bid for the right keywords at the right time.

The only problem with all this is it usually takes years to learn how to use Google Ads effectively. Saving time in Google Ads is difficult for anyone, including the most seasoned PPC veterans.

That’s why you need the right tools to help you along the way. Here is a list of how tools can help you succeed in Google Ads:

Creating campaigns — Create your Google Ads campaigns in a matter of minutes.

Generating keywords — Use AI-based tools to analyze your website and determine your best performing keywords for a maximum return-on-investment (ROI).

Optimizing bidding — Automated platforms use machine learning to set and optimize bids based on your results, so there’s no need to constantly monitor your account.

Performance Reporting — Click-of-a-button reporting visually showcases month-over-month performance trends and results (much easier to understand than Google Analytics reporting).

Certified Expertise — By using a tool like Google Ads by Constant Contact, you get to work with a group of experts to help you along the way.

Get the best results in the least amount of time

Let’s recap.

The best way to make sure you are outsmarting your competition using Google Ads is to optimize your website, understand your customers, identify your best performing keywords, and to automate your bidding.

Most importantly, as a business owner, your time is limited and must not be wasted. If you want to realize your business potential using Google advertising, don’t be afraid to let a service like Google Ads by Constant Contact do the work for you.