Is it possible to beat your competitors in Adwords while paying less?
The short answer to this is yes however it is achievable but as easy as we would like but then I hear you say, well if it was, we'd all be doing it and no one would have the advantage but yes can be done.
Depending on your experience with using Adwords, if you are not experienced and you are looking at it saying I need it but don't know where to start, well I feel your paid and we have all been there at some point. If you are more experienced then you will have figured out most if not all of what I am saying but however is less often implemented than I would like to see.
How Google ranks ads in your typical three pack excluding the Google Guaranteed ads are all based primarily but not exclusively on a quality score rating, For anyone who does not like reading here is a video to explain quality score:
If quality score is one of the main factors that drive your position within the google rankings, then we need to look at how to increase our score level so we can save on our costs and pay less while getting a higher overall ranking position than our competitors.
Average cost associated with your score and savings for higher quality scores here outlined by Wordstream:
Factors that impact your quality score are as follows:
So the remaining piece is how do we improve our quality score in order to outrank our competitors and pay less overall on what we spend on Google Adwords which should all things being equal get more leads and sell more product or service and over time be in a better position than our competitors.
Quality Score is Google's rating of the quality and relevance of both your keywords and Ads. This will determine your cost per click or CPC and multiplied by your maximum bid to determine your ad rank.
Quality Score will be assess on some of the follow factors:
1. Click Through Rate (which can be seen on your dashboard)
2. The Relevance of each keyword to its ad group
3. Landing page quality and relevance
4. Relevance of your Ad text
5. Historical Google Ads account performance.
So in simplified terms, higher ranks will give you lowers costs which leads to the outcome we are trying to achieve, how to beat your competitors with higher rankings while paying lower costs to do so.
Questions to ask your self when running ads to achieve high scores and low costs:
- Is my CTR rate high - CTR is the number of clicks that your ad receives divided by the number of times your ad is shown: clicks ÷ impressions = CTR. For example, if you had 5 clicks and 100 impressions, then your CTR would be 5%. A high CTR is a good indication that users find your ads and listings helpful and relevant. CTR also contributes to your keyword's expected CTR, which is a component of Ad Rank. The average CTR rate across industries is 1.91% according to Wordstream, if you want to check out the average CTR in your industry go here. I personally find anything above 3% is good. Id aim for between 2%-3%.
- Split your keywords into tight relevant groups that are targeting a specific category.
- Optimise your landing pages to the copy and headlines are relevant and the ad groups of keywords are being sent to their relevant landing pages that are directly relevant to the keyword category.
- Test and improve your headlines and ad copy to improve relevance and make sure it is relevant to the intention of the prospect.
If you would like some help with your ad campaigns, get in touch to see if we can help you.