Every month it seems like Google is coming out with more targeting features for its AdWords product. Device, gender, age, income level, location, and schedule are among the core targeting options you have to determine who sees your ad. And of course there are the keywords options like which keywords to show ads on and what match types to show them with. The point is that there are a ton of targeting options in Google AdWords these days.
And with all those options come responsibility. Google gives us the tools to figure out what the best keywords are to show ads on and who the best people to show those ads to are. And since we have access to that information, we have the responsibility to take that information and make good use of it.
One way to make good use of all the information we have access to is to always run a “Best Campaign” inside of our AdWords accounts. The Best Campaign should take into account all of the targeting options mentioned at the beginning of this post, and have those options set in the most profitable and productive way possible.
The reason to do this Best Campaign is to ensure that you’re maxing it out and spending as much of your budget as possible on this Best Campaign.
For example, let’s say you run a law firm in southern California that practices multiples areas of law and you’re advertising on tons of different legal keywords to all of southern California. And after three months of running ads, you determine that your most profitable, highest conversion rate clicks come from men, in the top 20% of income, in Anaheim, on mobile, searching for a divorce attorney (not lawyer, they specifically use the term “attorney”), and they are searching for it with an Anaheim geographic modifier, like divorce attorneys in Anaheim CA or Anaheim divorce attorneys.
Well, if you can get this specific and find out that this is your best targeting combination, then I recommend creating a Best Campaign that targets men, in the top 20% of income, in Anaheim, on mobile, and have all divorce + attorney + Anaheim keyword combinations as keywords. And you can then re-format your existing campaigns so they don’t compete with this demographic in this area and for these keywords.
Now you’ll have your Best Campaign set up, and you’ll be able to get search impression share data on this campaign. You’ll know what percent of the time your ads are showing to this demographic on these keywords, and you’ll be able to make the necessary adjustments to maximize this campaign. And once you maximize your traffic volume on this campaign, you’ll be able to know that you’re getting as many clicks and leads as you possibly could be from this Best Campaign demographic.
If you are able to spend your full budget on this Best Campaign, okay great, then you’re set. And if you have budget leftover, then you can figure out what your second best audience is, dedicate a campaign to that audience and keywords, and so on and so on.
The reason I suggest knowing who your best audience is and having a campaign set up for them specifically, is because the performance from this campaign can be real outlier performance. I don’t want to get into conversion rates here because the numbers can be so high it looks silly on paper, and of course the definition of a “conversion” matters greatly, but the point is that the average 3%, 10%, or whatever, lead conversion rates can be absolutely crushed when you hone in on your top performing audiences and dedicate a campaign just for them.
AdWords gives us a ton of information, but the information is useless if we don’t use it. Extremely high AdWords performance is possible, but it takes skill to determine your most profitable audiences, and then it takes discipline to isolate and spend the most possible budget on those audiences.
