If you missed our first article about what Google Adwords is all about and why it’s important to your dealership, you can find it here.

First of all, it’s important to point out that there’s no such thing as a ‘Perfect Google AdWords Account’. There is ALWAYS room for improvement. No Google Adwords account anywhere is getting a 100% click through rate with a cost of $0.01 per click. THAT would be perfect. But it’s impossible. Google effectively makes you compete with your competitors to make such a result impossible. On top of that, they change their algorithms, ad formats, and trends on a monthly basis . . . just to keep things interesting and make sure no one gets bored.

However, it’s important to constantly strive for the best cost effective results for your AdWords account to ensure your digital advertising is working for you and that you’re getting the best ROI possible.

In order to do this, there are a number of ‘ingredients’ you need to make this a reality. By focusing and optimizing these key elements, you can constantly measure and improve your AdWords account, increase your website clicks, dealership traffic, leads, and overall sales.

THE INGREDIENTS:

CAMPAIGN STRUCTURE

Campaigns in Google AdWords are broken down as Campaign>AdGroups>Ads/Keywords. There are different methods to structuring your campaigns and depending on your areas of focus (inventory, lead generation, sales, service, finance, etc.) you may find more than one way to be effective for your account.

Why it’s important: The way you structure your campaign has an effect on your bidding strategy and your ad spend. Too many campaigns can be difficult to manage and spreading your budget across multiple accounts can often be less cost effective. If you’re taking your budget and splitting it across ten campaigns, you’re not allowing the natural optimization features of Google Search to place your budget where it’ll be most effective.

How to do it right: If you can group your AdGroups into one or two campaigns, you’ll find managing them to be a lot easier and your budget will be spent where it can be the most effective to your campaign.

AD CREATION AND COPY

Google AdWords allows you to create multiple ads, both text and images, to drive to traffic to your site. Text Ads are the most common and most effective (they’re the ones you see at the top and bottom of Google search pages) and contain a headline, description, and URL.

Why it’s important: Creating compelling and attention-grabbing ad copy isn’t the only aspect of your Google Ads you should be focusing on. When Google is deciding what ads get to go at the top of a page they take into consideration your ad copy and the page you’re directing people to. If Google doesn’t believe the two are related, they’ll lower your quality score and your ads will appear less often. Maybe not at all.

How to do it right: Make sure your ad copy relates to the landing page you’re pointing to. It’s a good idea to create specific landing pages for ad campaigns, particular special events like sales or limited promotions.

KEYWORDS

Keywords are the search terms that triggers Google to display your ad when someone searched for them. There are different types of keywords including exact, broad, phrase, and negative.

Why it’s important: Keywords cost money. You’re essentially bidding on certain keywords so that customers can see your ads. If a keyword has a high competition rate it means Google will charge you more if someone searches for your keyword and, as a result, your ad is displayed. However you can limit how much you bid for each keyword so you don’t break your budget.

How to do it right: Research, research, research! Google has a great tool called Keyword Planner that can analyze pages on your website and suggest keywords to use. It’ll also let you know if it’s a high-competition keyword and what the suggested bid should be. It generally takes a couple of months to properly optimize your keywords to determine which ones give you the best results.

QUALITY SCORE

The Google Quality Score is determined by evaluating the quality of your ads and how your keywords relate to your ads.

Why it’s important: If your quality score is low, you’re going to pay more to advertise. Ideally you want your quality score to be a 7 or more. At that level, Google actually discounts your ads because you’re providing a relevant quality ad. Anything below that and Google increases your cost per click. Google uses the quality score to determine your cost-per-click multiplied by your maximum bid in order to place your ad.

How to do it right: Keep your ads relevant and accurate and make sure you’re using the right keywords for your business, ad, and landing page. All this is taken into account when calculating your quality score.

BID STRATEGY

Okay, let’s talk money. Your bid strategy allows you to control how much you spend and determine the kind of results you’re looking for.

Why it’s important: Maybe you want to drive more traffic to your site? Maybe you want people to fill out an inquiry form or request a quote? Or maybe you just want to create more awareness for your dealership and brand? The bidding strategy allows you to do all this along with setting how much you want to spend per day.

How to do it right: Once you determine your goal and set up your campaign accordingly, you can choose to allow Google to optimize your bids or you can do it manually yourself. In working with numerous dealerships we’ve found both methods have their advantages. If you’re in a larger city with lots of competition, it’s better to manually manage your bid amounts as you’re likely competing with other dealerships close by. If you’re in a smaller town, automated bidding places the bidding options in Google’s hands (though you can set a limit) and would work well for your dealership.
When combined and used effectively, these ingredients can create a powerful AdWords account that will deliver on the goals you’re looking to achieve. It’s by no means an easy thing to manage which is why many dealerships prefer to outsource their Google AdWords accounts to avoid spending money when they don’t need to.

We’ve optimized and streamlined a number of Google AdWords accounts for our clients and our methods have been proven to provide positive results across the board. If you suspect that your AdWords account isn’t getting you the results you want, then let us take a look.

We’ll provide a free review of your Google AdWords account and identify areas of improvement. What have you got to lose?