If you are running an AdWords campaign for your business below are some of the tips that help to save money in AdWords. By implementing these tips you will be able to better utilize your budget and generate more business for you.
Money-Saving AdWords Tips
1. Separate the Search & Display Network in Campaign Settings
The key here is the focus. Search means the default Google Search. Display Network means your ad is showing up in alongside content on other web pages. If you analyse the intentions of the prospective customer is different in these two networks. A person who is searching on Google already has a need and it can be considered as a hot prospect, but a person who sees your ad on another website may not have the same urgency as the other.
Each network behaves differently and the purpose differs. So better use it wisely.
How to Separate the Search & Display Network
- Go to your AdWords Account
- Click the campaign you want to edit
- Click on the Settings tab
- Click on “Edit” campaign type
- Select “Search Network Only”
2. Review Your Search Term Report & Add Negative Keywords – Weekly
You have your targeted keywords in your Keywords tab. Search Term report gives you an idea of how your customers find your ads.
You can see the actual searches people entered on Google Search and other Searches that triggered your ad and led to a click. Depending on your keyword match types, this list might include terms other than exact matches to your keyword.
How does this impact your AdWords money?
Ex: Business – Electrical Test & Tag
Keyword Targeted – “Test & Tag “
When analysing the search term report, we found a keyword that generates a click for the keyword “Test & Tag Training Course”
If you look at the above example, even though it’s a related keyword, the main business is test and tagging service, not the training courses. If you do not block these keywords you will get impressions and click for your campaigns, but you are driving unqualified traffic, wasting your money in AdWords.
How to Add Negative Keywords?
- Select your date settings for last week or month in AdWords ( You can do this daily if you have time )
- Go to the Keywords tab
- Open the Search Term Tab
You will see the keywords list that generates click for your campaign. Carefully review keywords that generated clicks and if there are keywords that are not relevant to your business select it and add it as a negative keyword.
3. Send visitors to the best relevant landing page, not just the Home page
Most AdWords users set their landing page as the home page. In some cases, if the home page has enough factors to convert a visitor it will be perfect. But in most of the cases, we find that the home page is not the ideal page to land your visitor.
The purpose here is to minimise the disruptions and encourage the visitor to do an action, often referred as a call to action. Better landing pages have a clear message and 1 or 2 calls to action.
How about you visited a local consumer electronics store to buy new Headphones. And your store manager said,
“Thank you for visiting. Your headphones are somewhere here, go help yourself “ 🙁
4. Install Conversion Tracking
It is utterly critical that you implement conversion tracking for your campaign. Conversions are the basic metrics to measure your campaign success.
Tracking conversions should not be limited to tracking email enquirers only. You should be able to track phone calls generated via Google ads and also if you have a chat option on your website those leads also can be tracked.
To install conversion tracking,
- Go to Tools > Conversions >
2. Click + Conversion button 
3. Select the source you want to track ( Ex. Website )
4. Enter a name and value for your conversion.
5. Set other fields as it is and click “Save and Continue” .
You will get the conversion tracking code. Copy the tag in the box below and paste it between the tags of the page that you’d like to track.
The page you want to track is the page the visitor land on after successfully completing the form submission on your contact us page or landing page contact form. Often called as “Thank You Page”
5. Mobile Bid Optimizations
It’s a fact that now many people are using mobile to access the web than desktop pcs.
By default, if you have not set the bid optimization for mobile ads Google will inherit the default bid settings you have used in the AdWords campaign.
If your Website is not mobile-friendly or doesn’t look good in mobile, don’t activate mobile targeted ads. It can lead to many bad user experiences and people will bounce from your website wasting your Google money.
How to adjust mobile ad bids?
1. Go to your campaign and ad group you want to change the settings
2. Click settings under the ad group
3. Click “Devices”
If you already have conversion data, you can evaluate your performance on each device type and make a decision.
Use the “Bid adj. Column to adjust the bids.
Decrease by 100% means that your ads will no longer show up on the device you select.
Increase by 100% means your bid will double in the device you select.
6. Focus on Campaigns & account restructure
To implement this you need to have some history in your AdWords account. You will be able to evaluate which campaigns are performing well and which are not. You should be able to know what keywords drive more business to you than others.
- Identify the most performing keywords.
- Group them into ad groups with a small number of top-performing keywords ( Maxi 15 keywords in an ad group ).
- Reduce the budget for underperforming campaigns, ad groups, and keywords and increase the budgets for best performing campaigns.
Tharindu is a passionate digital marketing specialist with over 14 years of experience planning and executing cross-channel digital media campaigns in the Asia Pacific and Australia. He is also known as the SEO wizard due to his extensive knowledge and technical skill in SEO.
