No one likes making a marketing blunder. Not only is it plain embarrassing, but, in some circumstances, it can also cost you money and damage your customer experience. You want to enchant customers, not turn them off because of bad, mistake-ridden ad experiences!
The best way to avoid mistakes is to know what to look for. This discussion will look at 3 mistakes that many marketers accidentally fall into when advertising on the Google Display Network.
Some of these mistakes are problems that even veteran advertisers run into!
Mistake #1: You Didn’t Take Advantage Of Target Exclusions
One of the biggest challenges in marketing is reaching the specific audiences that you want to target. You want to find people that are relevant to your business and are likely to want to engage with your offerings and, ultimately, convert.
There are many different ways to reach your target. One way is to work backwards and exclude the audiences that you don’t want to reach. This ensures that these irrelevant audiences don’t see your ad messages.
This will actually save you money and waste less of your ad spend because clicks or ad views from these audiences rarely, if ever, result in conversions. After all, these are people that aren’t relevant to your business. By removing them as potential targets, you are putting more of your ad spend towards advertising to audiences that you do want to attract.
Here are 6 simple steps to begin excluding audiences from your Google Display Network targeting:
- From the main page of your Google Ads account, click on “Audiences.”
- Then, click on “Exclusions” followed by the blue ‘+’ symbol.
- Choose to apply exclusions at the “Campaign” or “Ad Group” level from the dropdown menu.
- Choose “Affinity audiences,” “in-market audiences,” or “remarketing and similar audiences.”
- Finally, select as many audiences as you want under the generated categories.
- Save your changes.
It’s worth noting that excluding audiences is not available in all Display Network campaign types.
Mistake #2: You Annoyed People With Your Ads
Every person, at some point, comes across an ad that they just can’t stand. Typically, it is because you see the ad over and over again. It hangs around like a bad smell that you can’t get rid of.
Here you need to explore this Guide: The Definitive Guide to Dynamic Search Ads
The same happens in display advertising when you don’t look at frequency capping. You may have awesome targeting and enough budget to last for months to come, but that can actually be a detriment if you don’t set a frequency cap. It could mean that prospects start seeing your ads a lot, even to the point that it becomes annoying.
When this happens, it can cause irreparable damage to your customer experience. Prospects that are annoyed are likely to not forget this nuisance and they may never want to engage with your business again.
Luckily, there is a simple fix. In your GDN campaign settings, you can find the Frequency Capping option. This allows you to set how many times your ad is shown in a day, week, month etc. This helps to curb any annoying overload that can come from over advertising.
Another way that you can disenchant potential customers is by creating ad experiences that are themselves annoying. You want your ads to entice users and compel them to pay attention and even click.
However, it is a thin line between gaining attention and disrupting the user’s internet activity. Thus, it is best to create eye-popping ads that don’t go over the top in terms of size (or length, for video ads).
Mistake #3: You Didn’t Put Your Goals First
This mistake is not one that will be apparent to your customers or audiences, which saves you some of the embarrassment. But, you may still have your face in your palm when you realize that your ad campaigns are completely missing the mark.
It sounds silly in writing, but a surprising number of marketers find themselves facing the realization that their goals and ad strategies are misaligned. There are several reasons why this may occur.
You Didn’t Set Any Goals To Begin With
Don’t advertise on the Google Display Network because someone recommends it or you read an article promising it will help you grow your business. Advertise on the Google Display Network because you have a goal and this channel will help you make progress towards achieving that goal.
Having a goal will help you choose the right targeting options, understand what metrics are most important, help you optimize more efficiently and much more. Without oit, you’re throwing darts at a board, but you don’t know where the bullseye is.
Vanity Metrics Blinded You
Google Ads campaigns are measured through several different, but connected, metrics. Clicks, impressions, impression share, conversions, return on ad spend and many others are all contributing to what happens in your campaigns.
Every metric tells you something about your campaign. That said, not all metrics are created equal. This is why it is important to have a goal because your advertising objective will dictate which metrics are most important to the success of your campaigns.
It’s important to not become blinded by what are known as vanity metrics. These are the metrics that look good on paper, and may even make you feel good, but they don’t actually lead to any real value or help you better inform your strategies.
You Never Revisited Your Campaign Goals
Things change and your business sometimes finds itself shifting directions. When this happens, it is necessary that you revisit and even change your campaign goals.
You should get in the habit of routinely checking in on your campaign goals and making sure that they still fit your organization’s current direction.
Conclusions
Mistakes happen; it’s almost a guarantee that you’ll make some along the way in your Google Display Network journey. That said, these three mistakes are particularly damaging to your marketing strategy and business as a whole.
The good news is that they are very easy to avoid!
Pay attention to how your ads are performing and find clues that suggest a lacking ad experience. This may mean that your ads are hitting irrelevant audiences, or just plain annoying. Then, ensure that any changes you make matches your current marketing goals.
Comments