6 Ways to Save Money on Your Google Ads

Originally published: September 28, 2022 11:48:40 AM, updated: February 21, 2023 11:07:13 AM

Google Ads, if done right, is the best way for a business to increase traffic, generate more leads, and ultimately land more customers.

At any given moment, millions of searches are made on Google by its billions of users, making it the ideal advertising platform for any industry.

The popularity of Google also means that your competitors will be gunning for the top spot in search results. You need to prioritize getting your business to appear for specific, high-intent searches that your audience is performing to maximize your return on investment.

Google Ads makes that easy for you by letting you closely control your ad spending, messaging, placement, and targeting. With well-executed Google Ad campaigns, you can better understand your target audience and pick up potential customers as they come down your sales funnel.

However, you need to be mindful of the cost of running an ad campaign, given that Google determines which ads to show based on an auction, with you and your numerous competitors bidding for the top spot.

The good news is there are several ways you can optimize your Google ads to save money and get the most out of your advertising budget. This article will cover a few ways you can save money on Google ads.

6 ways to save money on your Google Ads

A lot goes into creating a successful Google Ads campaign that gives you the best bang for your buck.

Starting with organizing your Google Ads account, you can do a lot to save money, like targeting the right users, choosing the right keywords, designing high-converting landing pages, increasing the quality score, and testing your ads for effectiveness.

Let's go through 6 ways to save money on Google Ads.

Organize your Google Ads account

The structure of your ads account can be the first step in optimizing your budget. It may seem simple, but many organizations have a random or no structure.

The more organized your account is, the easier it will be for you to keep track of your ads, group similar ads, create ad groups based on keywords and identify the best or worst ads to spend money on what works.

You can edit groups and campaigns together to save time. You don't have to create a group for every ad or have all your ads in one group. You likely have some related keywords; if you have all of the related ads in ad groups, you will be able to identify bids for each. Alternatively, if you have all of your ads in one group, you won't be able to split the budget and bid strategy for different keywords based on performance.

You can create ad groups based on location if you are selling products or offering services to people based in a particular location. For instance, you have coaching centers in London or a law office catering to clients in Manhattan.

There are plenty of other ways to structure your account, but the key is to create a structure that makes sense to you so that you can easily manage, track, and optimize it over time for the best results.

When you create your ad groups, the easiest way to organize them is to identify your keywords and related ads and create a group or campaign for different targets.

Optimize your keywords

Choosing the best keywords to rank for is crucial to the success of your ad campaign. It is equally important to decide what keywords you don't want to rank for. Also, you need to prioritize bidding for high-intent keywords and targeting the best-performing keywords for your ads.

Here's how each of these tactics can help you save money on Google Ads.

The use of negative keywords

Sometimes, Google may show your ads for irrelevant searches. This happens because the search contains terms similar to your keyword. For example, if your keyword has the term "glasses" because you sell eyewear, you may unintentionally appear in searches for wine glasses or drinking glasses.

With the use of negative keywords, you can remove this issue altogether and only appear for relevant searches, which will go a long way in helping you save money on ads. You need to brainstorm ideas and research past queries that trigger your ads to find all the keywords you don't want to rank for.

Bidding on high intent keywords

Matching your keywords and messaging to the phrases and queries the customers are looking for will improve your clicks and conversions. It will help create ads that match user intent and get them to click through your ads.

Targeting top-performing keywords

You can reduce your spending on Google ads by only targeting keywords that are performing well. Running ads with keywords that cost a lot and don't perform well is a massive waste of your resources. So, before proceeding with your ad campaign, ensure that you select keywords that reflect high-intent queries that are most likely to get the attention of the target users and help convert the most customers.

Optimizing your keyword strategy is a great way to stretch your budget and appear for high-intent queries that will result in more traffic and better ROI.

Create great headlines and ad copy

Headlines are a key element of your Google ads. Optimizing your headlines is especially valuable for getting more clicks because 80% of people don't read past a headline. You only get a few seconds of your audience's time before they shift their focus to something else, so you need a headline that instantly captures their interest.

Incorporating your keywords, matching search intent, and using strong emotional language can help you create headlines that will convert users. To help you create powerful headlines, you can use a Google Headline Optimizer that will instantly generate headlines incorporating keywords, focusing on benefits, and avoiding using generic language.

When you create powerful headlines that drive clicks, you will optimize your budget and save money by having a higher chance of converting more users.

Ad copy is like a sales pitch; it is your first contact with the target audience. They need to resonate and speak to the user, making them want to click on the ad, learn more, and complete a purchase.

If the ad is boring, unengaging, or uninteresting, the user will likely skip over it or move to a competitor with excellent ad copy. The copy should briefly introduce the product or service, its benefits, and its quality to differentiate your business from the competition.

Good copy increases your CTR and quality score, affecting ad ranking, frequency, and cost.

Optimize quality score

A good quality score is essential in Google ads. The position of your ad depends on your bid and quality score. A quality score lowers the necessary bid to get a better ad rank. Your quality score can even be high enough to attain a higher ad placement with a lower bid than the competition.

Achieving a good quality score is key to lowering your bid amount and getting the best returns on your ad budget, so you need to take every measure you can to do that, including:

• Compelling ad copy
• Incorporating keywords into your ad groups
• Building landing pages that can be easily navigated
• Ad copy is relevant to search terms and keywords
• Only using keywords with a quality score over 6 or higher

A good quality score is essential to lowering your bid and optimizing your budget, and you should make every effort to achieve the highest possible quality score.

Target the right users

One of the best things about Google ads is their targeting options. They allow you to identify your target audience and locations in which you want to run ads and utilize demographic information to reach the right people. You want to spend your budget only on audiences with the best chance to convert. That is why targeting is essential to a great Google ads campaign.

Location targeting can run your ads in countries, states, or regions your target audience is in. It doesn't make sense to advertise to people that cannot use your products or services. Include the best locations for you and exclude the ones that will be a waste of money, this will surely help you save money on your campaigns.

Test your Google Ads

A cost-effective ad campaign with a justifiable return on investment optimizes and iterates your ads. You must undertake rigorous ad testing to see what works best and what ads can stretch your budget.

• What gets users to engage with various design elements, calls to action, sign-up prompts, keywords, and language?
• What ads are your target audience members most likely to click on?
• Is your site easy to navigate?
• What headlines get the most click-through rates?
• Does adding images or videos lead to higher conversions?

Testing can answer all these questions. But conducting conventional A/B testing with Google Ads can be a massive drain on your ad budget.

You can utilize rapid user testing as a cost-effective yet more impactful alternative. In rapid user testing, you use a usability testing platform to get feedback from people who resemble your target audience in just a few hours. To do this effectively, you need to create two different versions of your ad and test which one gets you a better response from the users.

This is the best way to optimize headlines, copy, keyword strategy, and ad design because it allows you to gather insights from a large user base before you spend any money on your ads.

Conclusion

Running a successful Google Ad campaign can be challenging, as there's no magic formula that guarantees results. With every campaign, countless factors come into play when determining your return on investment.

If you follow these tips for saving money on Google ads and test them, you can be sure that your budget is optimized and you are only running ads that are likely to convert users. You will have a good starting point for creating and improving your campaigns or have a chance to optimize the ads that are performing poorly.