5 Common Mistakes That Kill Google Ad Campaigns

Ok, peeps, ghouls, and Hyrosians. Have you ever launched a Google Ad campaign that failed to bring in the desired results?

I’m sure you have; it’s part of the process, but even though it happens, avoiding the more costly mistakes about why Google Ads don’t work and what you can do differently is part experience and part know-how.

Google Ads is an excellent platform that offers businesses an opportunity to reach a vast audience while driving traffic to their website. However, running a successful Google Ad campaign requires more than just setting up an account and selecting keywords.

In order to achieve success and avoid wasting your advertising budget, it’s essential to understand the common mistakes that lead to failed Google Ad campaigns.

What are some of the most common mistakes that kill Google Ad Campaigns?

• Not understanding your keyword strategy
• Choosing the wrong keywords
• Ignoring negative keywords
• Identifying unwanted search terms
• Your bidding strategy is wrong
• Boring, uninteresting content
• Poor tracking leads to misguided and wrong ad campaigns

These are some of the most common mistakes that cause ads to underperform or even fail, and if you’re spending any kind of money on ads, which I assume you are since you’re here, well, you need to learn the 5 most common mistakes that can destroy any Google Ad Campaign and what you can do differently. 

You Need Help: Why Your Google Ad Campaigns Are Struggling And What To Do About Them

If you’re spending money on ads and are getting less-than-ideal results, there are a few things to consider doing differently.

Most advertisers will set up a campaign, do some targeting, set a budget, and launch their ads. They may get some results, whether it’s sales, subscriptions, or whatever. But their dream of conquering their market with game-defying results falls flat.

So what gives? Well, the truth is that the ads could be performing better based on improving the advertiser’s use of better data to create and adjust the campaigns for optimal results.

And that comes down to tracking.

But before we get into the importance of tracking, let’s talk about the other factors about why Google Ads don’t work and what you can do about them.

5 Reasons Why Your Ads Aren’t Performing

Look, your ads aren’t trained seals. You can’t teach them to clap and bark for a piece of fish, their algorithms, and code. But like trained seals, if you know the right tweaks and improvements to make, you can get your ads to perform better.

1. Targeting the Wrong Audience

One of the biggest mistakes advertisers make is targeting the wrong audience. It’s easy to do but can be a costly mistake.

If you’re selling high-ticket digital products for businesses and entrepreneurs, and your target consumers are looking for passive income streams, you’re not going to get the results for your ads that you hoped.

Sure, you may stumble upon some lucky sale or two, but in general, your ad spend will just be throwing money away.

To create better results with your ads, it’s essential to understand your target audience’s demographics, interests, and behaviors to create ads that resonate with them.

Of course, you can start by using Google’s audience targeting options, such as location, age, gender, and interests, which can help you reach the right audience. It’s not the only way to dive into targeting, but it’s the easiest way to get started.

Here’s the thing, though. With Google, you’ll only be able to see some basic information about who to target, from basic demographics to the types of devices they prefer. And if you’re working on a keyword strategy based on that information, you’re probably going to make some decisions that lack critical insights that can improve your ad outcomes.

2. Poor Ad Copy

Ok, so what comes first with poor ads, bad copy, or bad targeting?

I could have started with this point because if you have great targeting but a horrible copy, you’re not going to get very good results, and vice versa.

Writing compelling ad copy is crucial to grab the audience’s attention and to persuade them to click on your ads.

Ensure that your ad copy is clear, concise, and relevant to your target audience’s needs and interests, but also avoid using generic language and focus on the benefits of your products or services.

More important is that your ads are interesting and compelling.

So listen up. This is simple.

If your ads are garbage, they won’t work.

Instead of throwing more money at them, maybe admit they’re just bad.

Writer Stephen King knows this too, and he calls it “Kill Your Darlings.”

Advertisers should learn from him. If your ads aren’t getting any love, it’s lacking in creativity. You know, the ad’s visuals, text, and overall look and feel.

If it looks boring, no one will click. So you gotta fix it ASAP.

And creating engaging content for ads and landing pages is vital for effective digital marketing.

Ads and landing pages are often the first points of contact between a brand and its potential customers.

Engaging content can capture your audience’s attention, so communicate the message clearly, and persuade them to take action.

Look, nobody likes boring stuff, and nobody has time to waste on content that sucks. So if you had one hour to watch Netflix or whatever, and you chose a show that was just terrible, but you stuck it out for 10 minutes before turning it off, guess what?

You only have 50 minutes to watch something before you’re out of time. And your ads are similar, so create good ads people.

Creating effective quality content is essential for any successful Google Ads campaign. Failing to optimize ad content can lead to low click-through rates and poor performance, and poorly written ads can be confusing and off-putting, resulting in potential customers clicking away from the ad before they can read it.

So change this quickly.

And ensure maximum engagement with your content by creating compelling headlines, maintaining a clear call-to-action, and ensuring your ad copy is concise and engaging.

Again, you need to create compelling headlines and have a very clear, simple call to action. Finally, make your ads interesting and exciting and see your performance skyrocket.

3. Lack Of Quality Keyword Research

The foundation of any successful Google Ad Campaign is the quality of the keywords you use.

The right keywords can help your ads reach your target audience and increase your click-through rate. Proper keyword research involves finding relevant terms with high search volume and low competition.

The problem is that you’re thinking about your keywords all wrong. Most “gurus” and “experts,” tell you that you need to target long-tail keywords and phrases to rank and perform, which is not true.

You can do general, broad keywords and still have ads that perform well. For example, I did it with two terms, “money” and “make money,” and showed you all about it on my YouTube page. So go there and check out my video; I spend $25k on the keyword “money.”

Negative Keywords: Another little thing to consider is the use of negative keywords, which are essential for any Google Ads campaign.

Negative keywords help businesses avoid spending their budget on irrelevant searches and ensure their ads are only displayed to relevant audiences. This makes your ad performance much more optimized for the search results your audience is looking for.

Failing to optimize negative keyword lists can result in wasted ad spend and poor performance.

Your keyword strategy doesn’t have to be overly complicated, but mixing it up with broad terms and negative keywords will optimize your ads for better search results, which will lead to better conversions.

4. Not Testing Ads

Testing different ad variations can help you determine what works and what doesn’t.

Split testing, also known as A/B testing, involves creating two or more versions of an ad and testing them against each other to see which one performs better.

This time-tested technique can help you optimize your ads and improve their click-through rate.

Also, you should be considering using automated tools that can help you optimize your campaigns for maximum efficiency. These tools allow advertisers to automate bidding, optimize ad delivery, and track performance. For example, at Hyros, our tools dig deep into your ad performance and make suggestions that will boost your ad performance.

Failing to take advantage of these automation tools can lead to missed opportunities and decreased ROI.

5. Neglecting Analytics

Tracking your ads’ performance is essential to understanding the effectiveness of your Google Ad campaign.

Google Analytics provides valuable insights into your ad’s performance, including impressions, clicks, and conversions, but they only go so far, offering surface-level data.

Tracking conversions is the most critical type of data you need to collect to measure the effectiveness of your marketing efforts.

By failing to track conversions rather than likes, shares, impressions, or what-have-you, you’ll end up wasting time and resources that could otherwise be invested in more successful campaigns.

By not correctly tracking conversions, you’ll miss out on valuable insights into customer behaviors, how long the customer has been stalking around your products and ads before they decided to pull the trigger and convert, and which marketing strategies are working best.

This can lead to missed opportunities to optimize campaigns and generate more revenue. So don’t do that, ok?

It is essential for you to invest in proper tracking and analysis to ensure their marketing efforts are as effective as possible, and the only software I know of that tracks effectively and can guarantee a 20-30% boost in ad ROI is with Hyros.

So, for you to get the most out of your ad budget, it’s essential that you have an effective tracking system in place so that you can accurately measure the performance of each campaign.

This tracking will allow you to figure out which keywords, ads, and campaigns are generating the most conversions so that you can focus your efforts on those areas and not waste time optimizing poorly performing ads and throwing your money away.

Additionally, over time you can monitor your audience and their behavior changes, giving you insights into how different strategies are performing and allowing you to refine your approach as needed.

This kind of data is invaluable when it comes to optimizing your campaigns, and it’s all because you were able to track your ads better than just with Google Analytics.

Avoiding these common mistakes can help you create more effective Google Ad campaigns and increase your return on investment.

By targeting the right audience, creating compelling ad copy, conducting proper keyword research, testing ads, and monitoring analytics, you can optimize your ads for better performance and achieve your advertising goals.

And when people tell me why Google ads don’t work, I tell them that I can point to one area that is the problem. And the first thing I look at is their tracking. Failing to track conversions properly is a common mistake that can really hurt your Google Ads campaigns.

So get your targeting right, make sure your ads aren’t boring, do some light keyword research, test, and be sure to track your ads correctly.

If you’re ready to see massive gains in your ad spend, book your free call today.