Google Ad Words Settings and their Vital Importance.

More often times than not, PPC account managers and specialists tend to launch Google Ad Campaigns without triple checking the campaign settings. This mistake comes as a result of various reasons; the campaign settings are taken for granted, the ad group is copied over and so one assumes it would inherit the settings of the new campaign, or just a simple oversight.

The most costly mistake you can make is to forget to check your campaign settings before firing up your ads. Some of the vital things you should check before your campaign goes live are:

• The Campaign and Ad Group Names – Oversights can cause you to forget to name your campaign and this can be a pain to correct or find especially when you are dealing with a humungous campaign or several linked campaigns. Check to see that both the campaign and ad group names are customized and are easily identifiable with the keywords in that ad group.
• Search Networks – Make sure to indicate whether you want just Google as your search platform or you want users to find you through search engines such as Ask, DuckDuckGo and several other search engines.
• Ad Rotation – Very Important. This setting would directly affect your campaign spend, so make sure to indicate whether you want to rotate ads evenly over time or allow your ads to show till your daily budget runs out. Depending on the nature of your campaign, you can decide what to do, however, if you are a business starting out, it is recommended that you evenly rotate your ads for testing and ad performance purposes.
• Location Targeting – Much more important than Ad Rotation. This setting is the foundation on which both your CPC (Cost Per Click) and campaign performance is built. You absolutely need to discuss this with whoever’s opinion you respect (or your wife) before you set your target to whatever location or locations. Why? Well, if you are a business based in Wyoming and your location is set to the United States, then your ads would be seen by everyone in the USA. This does not only hurt your CTR with the tremendous amount of impressions you would amass, but it also means that you will lose a lot of money from unwanted clicks. Your wife will not be happy. There are also advanced cases where although you are based in Wyoming, someone using a computer or laptop in Wyoming might have an IP address (or search location set) for Michigan and so would not see your ads. You can solve this by targeting certain devices for your campaign.
• Devices – Fairly easy concept, this setting targets users who might use devices that have the ability to move from place to place and so change IP addresses regularly. Switching between devices and setting up campaigns dedicated towards certain devices are purely strategy-based. A mobile campaign could yield very different results from a computer or tablet based campaign mainly due to how easily accessible those devices are, how many people own them and the location of their owners.

After this article, I do not expect you to fire off your ads before double checking your ad settings, but in case you do, drop me a mail:kwasi@eclipsewebmedia.com. I might be able to offer you a hug and great PPC help.

By: Kwasi