Ad spend gets wasted because businesses overlook simple but impactful Google integrations.

If you invest in Google Ads, you inevitably waste money. It happens with EVERY advertising medium.

Google Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising compared to other mediums, has proven to be the most efficient in many instances when implemented strategically.

No one can guarantee a customer with every click. No one believes such a scenario is plausible. Five percent to 10% conversion rates make many digital marketing departments scream with joy.

But you can make your ad campaigns more cost-effective with some simple setup and integration of free—yet extremely powerful, tools from Google.

Set Up a Google Analytics (GA4) Account

Too many, this sounds like a “No Duh” statement. Too many others, more than those in the first group realize, don’t realize the importance of a GA4 account.

If you’re in the second group, we know you already have your favorite analytics tool. Shopify offers a very robust analytics package that shop owners should definitely use.

But even the Shopify app itself includes a free plugin for Google Analytics.

Setting up Google Analytics, allows you to communicate actionable information about your website or app visitors to your Google Ads account.

Let’s look at a generic scenario.

There will be conversions not attributable to one of your Google Ads. If you’ve set up Google Analytics to recognize these conversions, they’ll be recorded.

GA4 will not only record the conversion, but metrics associated with the conversion will be recorded as well. Metrics about where the visitor may have been referred from, the types of searches and keywords they’ve used and behavior on your website or app.

If properly integrated, GA4 will share this information with your Google Ads account, allowing it to better target the users with the highest chance of converting. Converting means not just at the click level, but with proper set up, but at other conversion points in your sales or lead funnels. It makes your Google Ads campaigns much more efficient and particularly impacts ROI in a positive way.

Don’t misunderstand the Google Ads integration as being the only advantage to GA4. For the price, FREE, there’s not a more feature rich analytics tool. It may not be as simple to configure out-of-the-box, but it’s a premium product.

GA4’s most basic default reports provide a treasure trove of actionable insights if you understand how to read them.

Set Up Conversions in Your Google Ads Account

This one seems to be a big oversight based upon many of Google Ads accounts we see from client to client.

If you’re an eCommerce business, obviously a sale will be the most important conversion to define. Be careful not to miss the forest for the trees. Make sure you’re defining conversions for all the steps in your checkout process.

It’s just as important to know how many people don’t get past the first page of checkout. How many users leave after completing the shipping section? Do users with iPhones convert at a higher rate than those with Android devices?

If you’re utilizing Google Ads for lead generation or nurturing, defining conversions will be a critical component of your digital marketing strategy.

With lead nurturing campaigns, you can discover what service or messaging works best for certain segments. Maybe you notice an uptick in a conversion from a particular region. With research you can decide whether or not to increase bids for that region.

Simply put, how can Google Ads know how to maximize conversions if it doesn’t know specifically what constitutes a conversion? It can’t, at least not with any sense of precision.

Without well-defined conversions, your Google Ads campaigns have plenty of room to lower costs. If you’ve already configured your GA4 account with the proper conversions, you can simply share them with Google Ads without the need for a technical specialist.

You’ll be up and running in literally minutes.

Know Who You Want to Click Your Ad

If you go fishing, you have to use the correct bait. Different fish eat different things. To catch the fish you want, you’ll need to use the correct bait.

What bait works best for your targets? If you sell car accessories, should you target men or women? The answer will depend on whether it’s a safety accessory or something cosmetic.

If you haven’t done your research, you could be wasting money on clicks and not sales.

How should your ads that display in forums differ from those on other websites? Auto forums attract a much different audience than a website with modified show cars in many cases. Both will be good places to invest your ad spend. Getting the maximum conversion rate, and thereby reducing wasted clicks, will depend on how you present your product/service to each respective group.

One key to take away from both examples, look at subsets of your general targeted segments. Do 3 or 4 websites in particular generate more conversions than others? Go to those websites and better understand their core visitors; age, income, location, etc.

You’ll want to create a persona. A personal is a document that details who you want to target. It will describe basic demographics such as age, income, education. It will also describe how they use and interact with businesses like yours. It will identify solutions your company can solve, and how to pitch the solution in an ad.

If you don’t utilize personas, you’re carrying bloat in your clicks. Poor messaging can turn a high-value visitor into a missed opportunity.

Want More Value From Your PPC Campaigns?

Acute Angle Marketing provides digital marketing services and consulting to businesses like yours. We’re unique in that we work on a performance-based approach to PPC advertising management. Our clients only pay for our services when we achieve an agreed upon result.

We also specialize in helping businesses with existing digital marketing campaigns find ways to improve their performance or efficiency.

We offer a wide array of services such as SMS & email marketing, content marketing, video marketing and editing services.

Sound like something that could help your business? Contact us today for a no-obligation phone consultation to discuss your needs and questions.