Hey Google, I’m Confused… or 9 Mistakes Businesses Make When Self-Managing Google Search Ads
We work with small businesses owners and often hear about their adventures in Google Ads. The conversation inevitably goes something like this:
Business owner: So, you do Google Ads. I’ve run those for my business before.
Us: Great, how was the result?
Business owner: I don’t know.
Us: Roughly speaking, did you see any new customers from it? Or any positive effect?
Business owner: I have no idea.
Us: Hmmm.
Business owner goes on to explain frustrations like “I got billed at weird times” and “I don’t know where my ads showed up” or doubts like “Maybe I didn’t spend enough.” Sound familiar?
Google Ads can get quite technical with real-time bidding, dynamic messaging, and a multitude of optimizations around keywords, messaging, and audience targeting. While many large companies rely on Google Search Ads (also called PPC) to drive a healthy portion of profits, Google actually designs their platforms for small businesses.
Despite this, it can be quite frustrating to actually use their ad platforms. Push for automation and AI-assisted ad creation leave business owners feeling like they have little or no control in the process.
If you’ve encountered this, it’s probably because:
You’ve set up a Smart Campaign. If you create a new Google Ads account and continue through the setup process, it will guide you through a Smart Campaign setup. Few clicks in, you’ve entered your credit card and boom! Your campaign is live. But where, how, what? Google AI takes care of the nitty-gritty details like final ad copy, sitelink creation, and keyword bidding. This campaign type gets you advertising in under 15 min, but falls short in giving you controls to effectively optimize for the long run.
You haven’t established a campaign goal. What result are you expecting from your Google campaign? Do you want more phone calls to your business? More booked appointments? Products added to cart? Let’s start with just 1-2 key actions that you want potential customers to take. How many of those actions do you want in a month? These answers should guide your campaign type, budget and conversion tracking.
You haven’t structured your campaign to match your goals. Your business might offer several services or operate across multiple locations. Aligning campaign structure to your business goals will yield better results. If you run a salon in Seattle and another one in Portland, separating them into two campaigns allows you to promote local services and set separate budgets. If your salon offers both haircare and a nail bar, separating them into two ad groups allows you to capture more relevant search traffic for each.
You haven’t set up conversion tracking (Often requires working with a web developer). If you want the campaign to actually generate conversions, you first have to define what that means. First, set up a Google tag throughout your whole website. Then, 1) identify the key actions you want people to take on your website (booking an appointment or completing a purchase), and 2) set them up as conversions in Google Ads. This will allow you to see how many conversions your campaign is driving - and calculate your Return on Ad Spend (ROAS).
You’re making too many changes to your campaign. When you launch a Google Ad, you kickstart powerful algorithms to work on your behalf. These algorithms optimize messaging, evaluate search traffic, and weigh the quality of your ad vs competitors. Early in the process, Google asks you to identify your campaign goal. A single goal like Lead Generation, Drive Sales, Website Traffic. It’s a single focal point because the campaign will optimize toward this goal. This takes weeks and months, depending on your budget. Choose your goal carefully, but then let it run and focus on refining keywords. Switching up goals and parameters too often only restarts the learning process and costs you money.
You’re not refining your keywords. You’ve set your budget, your ad is live and you’re seeing clicks. So you let it run. You check back in a few weeks and realize that the top search terms the ad is driving (and that Google is charging you for) have nothing to do with your business! Ah, you’ve fallen prey to automation takeover. Managing a search campaign means consistently reviewing and identifying top converting search terms as well as negative keywords.
You haven’t read Google’s ‘How we bill you’ note. Happens to the best of us. This is a common point of confusion we hear about. Once business owners input their credit card and the ads start running, they start getting frequent billing pings that may not make sense. For brand new accounts, the charges are more frequent at the beginning and then space out. This is because Google charges both monthly and at certain thresholds (like $10, $50, $200, $350).
You’ve set up an Individual-level vs Organization-level account. Again, if you just follow the setup clicks, it will guide you to setup an Individual-level account vs one meant for businesses. In the future, this will hinder you during Ad Verification, Call ad setup, receiving tax documents, and using your actual business name and logo in your ads.
You’re not letting the campaign run long enough. If you envision giving Search Ads a go for a couple of weeks, then pausing, then maybe doing another 2-3 week push close to a promotional period…You’re doing it wrong. You’re treating it like a promotional Billboard or Radio ad. Search ads are more of that workhorse that will consistently deliver low-hanging, high-yield fruit - because they show up in direct response to someone’s active search. Give it at least 90 days to see impact.
Having said this, we believe that you should work with an expert to get the most from your advertising strategy. When done right, it’s a powerful tool for the growth of your business. We invite you to schedule a free Discovery Call.
