Why You Need to Stop Searching Google for your Ad Now!
Offline marketing is notoriously difficult to measure and track which is why online marketing methods such as Google AdWords are growing more and more in popularity.
When you first sign up to traditional advertising methods, such as television, radio, and print, there is always a certain amount of satisfaction you feel when you see your ad. A smile spreads across your face as you see the result of the money you spent for the advertising as you imagine how many other people will be exposed to your ad as well (see what I did there?!). How do you measure the success of your ad beyond seeing it yourself?
With online marketing methods, you can measure and track the effectiveness of each ad, and each campaign. But what happens when you go to Google your ad and you don’t see it? A frown appears across your brow and you wonder why you can’t see it. Where is it? You search again and still you can’t find it; what is going on?! I’m here to tell you exactly why this might be the case and what you could be doing to actually hurt the intentions of your AdWords campaign.
We need to sit down and have a chat…
- Firstly, why your ads will not always show when you search for them
- Secondly, why you shouldn’t be searching for your ads full stop (!)
- Thirdly, what you should be doing instead.
To properly understand why your ads will not always show when you go looking for them, we need to run over some Google AdWords basics. When you start running AdWords you will probably recall some of the terms listed below. To refresh your memory…
Impressions: An impression is counted whenever your ad is shown, which happens when it is triggered by keywords.
Budget: Your maximum daily spend
Quality Score: Comes from the quality of your keywords, landing page and your ads.
Click-Through-Rate (CTR): Clicks ÷ Impressions = CTR. You want a high CTR (scored 1 – 10).
Ad Rank: This determines where your ads are located on the Search Results Page.
Ad Delivery: This setting lets Google know how quickly you want Google to use your daily budget for each day. This will affect when your ad is shown during any particular day. This is calculated using our Quality Score and bidding amount. It is constantly recalculated every time your ad receives an impression.
Cost-Per Click (CPC) OR Pay-Per-Click (PPC): what you pay when someone clicks on your ad. You will set a maximum cost you are prepared to pay if someone clicks on your ad, all within your daily budget spend.
If your ad acquires impressions but no clicks (which is what occurs when you search for your ads) Google will give your ad a lower Click-Through-Rate. A low CTR affects your Quality Score, which in turn tells Google your ad is not relevant because even though it is being triggered by your chosen keywords, it is not being clicked on.
Google remembers what keywords have been used in a search and if a user is not clicking on the particular ads, Google will deem that the ads are not relevant to the user and will discontinue showing the ads, even if they are still using the same keywords. This is why you should not be searching for your own ads!
There is a tool which Google provides AdWords users so you can check your ads to see the number of impressions they are receiving. It’s called the ‘Ad Preview and Diagnosis’ Tool and you can use it in the same way you would use the Search Bar in Google. It will not impact on the number of impressions your ad accrues. As tempting as it may feel to check out your ad, you really must not mess with the data which is what happens every time you do search for your ad.
Of course, if you need any of the above to be explained further or verified, give your Account Driver a buzz on 1300 332 256 and they will be more than happy to explain. Or, visit our website. In fact, not Googling your ads is something they want to encourage!