Help! My Google Ads campaigns are not working!
No worries, in this article, I will cover the most common reasons your Google Ads campaigns aren’t getting anywhere and the simplest ways of fixing them.
Most people don’t realize just how many moving parts you have to manage to make your Google ads worth it.
Problems You May Have Facing in Google Ads Campaign:
You are convinced that Google advertising is an effective short-term solution to drive traffic and qualified customers, however for some reason Google Ads does not work, visits come to the website but sales rarely materialize.
From my experience working with clients and from feedback on online groups and forums, the most constant complaints are:
- They want to pay less per click and they don’t know-how.
- They receive few calls
- Too many visitors and no one buys
- Google exhausts its budget very quickly
- They don’t know what bidding strategy to use
- Don’t know what words to use in Google Ads
- They are confused about what their landing page should be.
If Google Ads is not working for your company this can happen because of poor campaign management, a website that does not provide the necessary information, and a sales team that is not aligned with the objectives of both the company and the Google Ads campaigns.
In this article, I explain 3 reasons I have seen when Google Ads was not the definitive solution to increase sales.
#1 Mistakes on your landing page that don’t allow your Google Ads campaigns to work properly
Home (home page) is not your landing page. If you are sending traffic to your home page or category pages it is one of the main reasons for Google Ads campaigns not working as expected.
Usually, this section of the site has too many options and information; in most cases even external links to social networks, which becomes the exit point of the website, thus losing effectiveness when trying to convert visits into leads.
The objective of a landing page is to capture visitor data, so the idea is to create specific and optimized landing pages as much as possible for each product or service we are promoting.
Problem: Your landing page is not mobile-friendly. Although we are in 2020 it may seem incredible but there are still companies that use websites that are not optimized for mobile devices, which end up affecting the user experience and campaigns.
Solution: Create a fully responsive website and optimize every landing page for this type of device, which means including calls to action, buttons, text, and elements that adapt to the context the user is in.
Problem: The copy is not good. The message that is laid out on the landing page does not connect with your target audience, is too generic, and does not offer a solution to the problem that the person clicking on the ad has.
Solution: When planning the entire campaign strategy, our ideal customer should be kept in mind and reflected in the ad copy and each of the landing page elements.
Where is your call to action?
You are sending people who click on your ads to a landing page that does not encourage action, there are no elements that tell people what to do when they get to your website.
What do you want people to do on your website?
- Fill out a form
- Buy a product
- Download a file
- You want them to write to you on WhatsApp
- Start a chat with a consultant
- Should I make a reservation?
First of all, you should set a campaign objective, one that is the same or similar to the one on the list, and be very explicit in inviting people to take that action.
All landing page elements, texts, photos, buttons, design, must persuade the user to fulfill that objective.
#2 Poorly managed Google Ads campaigns
Problem: Too little budget for the campaigns.
Although the company decided to invest in Google Ads, the budget is not enough to capture the necessary leads to reach the sales target.
For example, if the sales team has an effectiveness of 10% we can conclude that out of 10 contacts achieved by the campaigns on average one sale will be closed, bearing in mind to make 10 sales it is clear that it is required to initially reach 100 prospects.
So if the objective of the campaigns is to close 20 sales, it is necessary to invest the necessary amount to try to reach 200 prospects.
On the other hand, it is not profitable to advertise on Google because it is very expensive to get a customer and the return on investment is zero.
For example, if you sell a 10 USD product and it costs you 20 USD to get it, you are losing 10 USD. You must be very clear about this and review your business model to work on the loyalty of the people who buy from you.
Solution: Make a sales projection and assign a budget based on objectives. This can be done through the sales history of previous months and taking advantage of data offered by tools such as Google Analytics and Google Ads itself.
Based on data such as the effectiveness of the sales team, conversion rate of campaigns, and website you can start optimization tasks to make the most of every penny invested in campaigns.
Problem: Poor keyword selection.
One of the most common causes of Google Ads not working is choosing keywords that are too generic, encompassing terms that carry traffic that does not align with the ultimate goal of the campaigns.
Solution: When making the selection of keywords it is important to take into account the type of concordance and understand in detail how they work, the possibilities that each one offers us, and also their limitations.
It is necessary to know the user’s search intention, i.e. to understand at what stage of the buying cycle the user is at, and based on this, select the most suitable keywords.
Problem: Negative keywords can cause you to lose quality traffic.
You may not have selected the right negative words and as a result, two things are happening: blocking relevant terms that can bring you conversions or on the contrary, which happens in most cases, the campaign is receiving clicks for words that are not related to what you offer.
Solution: Know how negative words work and take the time to review the account at least once a week to find those keywords that are frustrating the performance of the accounts.
Use the shared library to facilitate the management of negative words, understand how cross negatives work and each of the options to search for, include and manage negative words in the account.
Problem: Conversion tracking.
If we are not tracking conversions correctly it will be like walking blind, because we will not know which of the campaigns, ad groups, and keywords provide better performance and thus improve their performance.
Solution: Install the Google Ads conversion code on the Thank You Page of the website. Track conversions from Google Analytics to be able to compare data between the two tools and get extra information to improve campaign performance.
#3 When Google Ads doesn’t work because the sales process is not efficient
Problem: Lack of coherence
There is no communication plan so there is no relationship between Google Ads campaigns, ads, landing pages, value proposition, and company values. In other words, the message on the ads and landing page is different when the customer is attended by telephone and when he/she visits the company’s premises or office.
Some entrepreneurs sometimes ask for advertisements and landing pages to carry certain phrases to attract the attention of customers, leaving expectations very high, but when the customer receives the product or is served, nothing of what was said is fulfilled.
Solution: The staff, not only the sales team, must be clear about the objectives of both the company and the campaigns, the sales and communication strategy, which must be aligned with the value proposition and always have the company’s customer in mind.
Problem: There is no value proposition.
The lack of differentiation or specialization is a barrier to stand out in your market, which results in not knowing which is the company’s ideal customer, so you have a very generic value proposition that does not reach a specific audience.
As soon as people arrive at your website it must be clear that what your company does is what your company does because it is the perfect solution to their problem or need.
Solution: To design a powerful value proposition everything starts with getting to know your target customer as well as possible, that is to say taking the time to create the buyer persona, when you have completed this step the creation of the value proposition will be a simpler task because you have identified many of the fears, needs, and expectations, interests of the people who are your potential customers.
Bonus Mistake: You’re selling features, not solutions to problems
Problem: Selling only features, using ads and landing pages only to talk about the features of the product or service, talking about how great it is, how fast and how superior it is, the big problem is that this type of message does not connect with your target audience and your arguments end up being the same as those of your competitors.
Solution: Work on improving all your texts, videos, and images by applying copywriting techniques to create content that connects and intimates with your target audience.
Interview your most loyal customers to determine the reasons why they always buy from you, you’re sure to find several ideas to use in campaigns and products, as well as sales pitches to break down objections and convince the most difficult customers.
If it is important to include features, mention also what the benefit of those features is, don’t limit yourself to technical aspects only.
Remember, Google Ads can’t work miracles
While both Google Ads and Facebook are very powerful marketing tools, it is not enough to run a couple of campaigns and expect to close sales as a minimum effort, it is necessary to make adjustments in each of the elements and areas,
You should not put the responsibility for sales on the marketing team or the agency that runs the campaigns, it is a job that requires the involvement of the whole company, sales is a process that must be continuously improved and learned.