Google AdWords is the single most effective digital strategy for generating instant website traffic. The key word here is instant.

As you wait for your other inbound efforts like SEO, social media, and content marketing to pay off, a well-planned and executed AdWords campaign could become your leads acquisition machine. As the competition gets tighter this year, the powerful ad network will help you build awareness and enough authority to rank for relevant keywords.

Five key tips to win the paid search game this year.

1. Build a well-structured account

As the starting point and central hub for all your ad campaigns, your AdWords account should be well-structured and tightly controlled. The first step here is to edit your campaign settings using your AdWords Editor.

Never put your campaigns live without making changes. Customizing aspects of your campaigns like the status, device bid adjustment, bid strategy, enhanced CPC, frequency capping, delivery method, and budget is integral to high-performing ads. Learn more about these settings in the AdWords Help Center.

2. Ease into your daily budgets and CTCs

You start off free with AdWords. The costs only begin to add up when users click on your ads. That means you’re already getting exposure for relevant search terms for free. Despite that, you should still be frugal when electing an initial budget. Set out with a daily budget smaller than planned and gradually increase it according to the response your campaigns get.

3. Master your ad copy and landing page combos

If there’s anything worth hitting the books for from the get-go, it’s creating ad copies and landing pages. Most newcomers to the paid ads game commit the mistake of glossing over this crucial ingredient to higher click-through rates. No matter how good your keyword and bidding strategy is, boring ads and landing pages won’t turn clicks into leads and customers. Cut bounced traffic and get leads to convert by crafting awesome and landing page combos.

Small things, like choosing the right network and using location tagging, are what make AdWords a super-efficient way to reach the people you want to appeal to in an instant.

4. Weed out poor-performing keywords

Make sure to add negative keywords regularly to get the best bang for your buck. This ensures that you’re not wasting money on irrelevant clicks. Once your campaigns go live, make it a habit of sifting through your search term data and look for irrelevant terms that trigger your ads. Look for weak ones or those that don’t get a lot of clicks, as well.

By cleaning your keywords and ad groups, Google will reward you with lower ad costs or CTCs.

5. Test, Track, Analyze, Optimize — Repeat

This marketing mantra for small businesses works across all digital channels all the time, without fail. It only helps you stay on top of your strategy for when you discover better solutions; it also ensures that you’re not wasting your budget on underperforming campaigns. This process also keeps you focused on your goals. Conversion tracking tools in Google Analytics and AdWords let you monitor your campaign’s performance and pin down which keywords or ads are converting well. This way, you’ll make smarter, more informed decisions.

While AdWords promises immediate results, setting up an account is just half the battle. Understanding the nitty gritty and bag of tricks of paid acquisition would take years. Keeping track of your campaigns and exploring the finer details of your account is a great place to start. Find out what all the settings and tools are for and how to use them to your advantage. And more importantly, turn your insights into actions, and your discoveries into new strategies.

Once you get the hang of these techniques, you can move on to more advanced areas of AdWords. Our PPC management team in MN has plenty more tips and guidance to offer.

So don’t hesitate to give us a call.