3 Advanced Techniques to Stretch your AdWords Budget
As an Adwords manager, I’m always searching for unique and alternative ways to stretch my client’s budget. After negative matching, geo-location changing, scheduling ads, and pausing ineffective keywords, what else is there? Well, years later and after working with dozens of unique businesses, I’ve learned new tricks to make the most of a limited AdWords budget.
- Lower your keyword bids
If you lower the price you’re willing to pay per keyword, you’ll be able to get more clicks with the same budget. Try lowering keyword bids 10%- 20% of your Max CPC. You can check your ad’s position with the Ad Preview and Diagnostic tool.
You can also go to Keywords>Columns>Attributes and add “Est. first page bid”, “Est. top page bid”, and “Est. first position bid” to get an idea of how much you’d need to pay for a different ad rank.
Pros: Your CPC will be less, you have more money for more clicks and reach more people.
Cons: Your ad rank may fall, you may get fewer clicks, and competitors may rank higher.
2. Add negative keywords found in Google’s Keyword Planner
Negative keyword matching from the search terms report is great, but it doesn’t tell you all the queries your ad appears for. The search terms report only shows you the queries which triggered your ad and were clicked. Use Google’s keyword planner to find other words that are irrelevant to your business and add these to your negative keyword list.
Pros: Your CTR will go up which will improve your max CPC.
Cons: none.
3. Get rid of Display Campaigns
I’ve never been a big fan of display campaigns. They look spammy and millennials know it. If your client’s goal is to convert customers, stop your display campaigns and allocate budget towards campaigns that convert (search or re-marketing). Display campaigns are used for brand awareness and to bother people.
Pros: You won’t spend money and time on the display side. You won’t look spammy and annoy people.
Cons: You may lose out on people who like display ads, if there are any. Your marketing may lack a visual branding cue.
Recommendation: Use display ads with as re-marketing campaign instead.
I go through these tactics when working with a limited budget. Where can we save money? What campaign are worth keeping and worth pausing?
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