When the Shuttle team audited a recent Google Ads account, we found that the account holders had invested tens of thousands with really low returns. For businesses that have carefully considered the budget they would allocate to their online marketing efforts, only to get sub-par results, this can be devastating.
It’s a familiar pattern we see often that also repeats in Facebook advertising where, despite beautiful landing page designs and catchy messaging, campaigns struggle to get the return on the ads placed.
We’ve put together four possible reasons why you could be wasting funds on your Facebook and Google Ad campaigns – and solutions to turn these mistakes into valuable opportunities.
Reason 1: You Don’t Invest The Time To Manage Your Ad Campaigns
Google Ads and Facebook ad campaigns need to be monitored. They need to be analysed continuously to determine if they are delivering against set goals. Taking a relaxed approach to ad campaign management can cost you not only a Return on Investment (ROI) related to the money you spent on the campaign but also the time you could have used to update and fine-tune your ads where needed.
To truly run a successful campaign, you need to look at your data, tweak it and optimise it. For time-strapped businesses that are busy growing their portfolio, this can be a big challenge. However, partnering with a Facebook Ads agency or a Google Ads agency can help you structure and analyse campaigns by collecting data and reporting on results. It’s worth the investment and will save you time to focus on your business.
Reason 2: You Haven’t Targeted Properly
Think for a moment who you initially envisioned to target with your ad campaigns. Now, consider where this target audience is. Are you speaking to a global or national audience or a more niche selection?
Time and again, the reason why your ad campaigns are not reaching the right audiences – and are, inevitably, wasting your money – is that you have targeted the wrong keywords or ones that do not get results.
So, how do you improve your targeting approach? There are several online platforms that offer tools to help you generate high-performing keywords associated to your products or services. We’re talking Moz’s Keyword Explorer tool, or SEMRush which will show you keywords that are ranking well for your competitors.
Want even better results? You can get Google Ads and Facebook ads help from an agency that has a proven track record with generating effective targeted campaigns. They’ll help you take a deep dive and analyse the top-performing keywords (including long-tailed keywords) to determine which ones should be focused on.
Likewise, an ad agency can assist you with successful Google and Facebook targeting, as they’re familiar with the settings and options to help you target the right audiences. They can also provide a detailed post-campaign report to convey results and make recommendations for your next online ad campaigns.
Reason 3: You Don’t Understand Traffic Temperature
Not all your clients are at the same stage of engagement with your businesses or services. Some might have never heard of your business, while others could have shown interest or are already loyal clients who endorse your business offering.
Not tailoring your content to speak to these different “traffic temperature” levels can cost you time, money and effort that could have been spent more fruitfully. You need to find intent-driven prospects, and you can do this by segmenting your messaging and content into three categories: cold traffic, warm traffic and hot traffic.
If you’re targeting cold traffic, you are talking to people who are likely hearing about your brand for the first time. Prospects in the warm traffic group are familiar with your brand and have engaged with your brand by digesting the content you put online, such as your blog posts or articles. But, they are yet to buy from your business. The final level – hot traffic – includes people who have bought from you, for the first time or as repeat buyers. And often, this group gets ignored in favour of getting new leads and new clients.
To help you engage with each stage through ad content, your ad agency can help you map out the strategy to create ads suited for every key group. This will help you make the most of your ad budget too!
Reason 4: You’re Not Tracking The Right Metrics
Are you only concerned about clicks on your ads but not looking at the bigger picture? Are your ads converting? Are your clients just looking for contact information or are prospects enquiring about a service? This is crucial to define as you could be paying money and only attracting existing clients who want your phone number.
Ultimately, you need to track the right metrics for your campaigns according to the traffic temperature they pertain to. As an example – for the cold traffic level, you would focus on tracking traffic to new blog posts, whereas hot traffic tracking could include conversions. By working together closely with your ad agency, you will be able to work on a strategy to track metrics optimally.
Find The Solutions You Need To Improve Your Ad Campaigns
Are you ready to improve your Google Ads and Facebook ads performance? Contact us today if you would like Shuttle to audit your Facebook or Google Account. We’re ready to take the stress out of ad campaigns and make recommendations to help you get the outstanding results you need!
