Search campaign optimisation

Before you open the account, write one line: "We want qualified leads at no more than X each." Everything below serves that line. Clicks, impressions and click-through rate are only clues about it.

If your CRM can tell you which leads became opportunities, bring that into Google Ads as an offline conversion. The set-up is in If you cannot measure the right outcome, you are flying blind.

Sort by cost, highest first. For each query that spent more than a few clicks:

1. If it fits your offer and converts, add it as an exact match keyword.
2. If it fits but has not converted, leave it and watch.
3. If it could never buy, add it as a negative keyword.

Use phrase negatives for themes, such as "jobs", and exact negatives for single queries. Be careful with broad negatives. They can block good searches.

A keyword that has spent two to three times your target cost per lead with no conversions is a candidate for pausing. Before you do, check three things. Does the landing page match? Is conversion tracking firing? Is the keyword in the right ad group? Most "bad keywords" are bad pages or bad structure.

Open the recommendations page, but treat it as a list of suggestions from a seller. Accept a recommendation only if you can say why it helps your target. Be wary of automatic ones that widen match types or raise budgets. Read Treat the account as a system you improve, never a thing you set up for how to keep the rhythm.

Compare ads inside each ad group on conversion rate, not click-through rate. Wait until each ad has around 100 clicks. Pause the loser and write a new challenger that changes one thing: the outcome headline, the proof or the call to action. The writing guide is in Ad copy and extensions.

Look at the assets as well. Remove sitelinks and callouts that never get shown or clicked.

Rank campaigns by cost per qualified lead. In Looker Studio or a simple sheet, show spend, leads and cost per lead per campaign.

• Where cost per lead is below target and impression share is lost to budget, raise the budget by up to 20 percent.
• Where cost per lead is above target for a full month, cut the budget or fix the keywords before you spend more.
• Where impression share is lost to rank, the issue is quality, bids or relevance, not budget.

Change one campaign at a time so you can see what caused the effect.

Open your analytics tool and compare conversion rate by landing page. A page that converts at half the rate of the others is the first thing to fix. A faster page, a clearer first screen or a shorter form often does more than any bid change. See The landing page is part of the ad, not a separate problem.

Write every change in a sheet: date, what changed, why, and what you expect. When results move, you can see which change to blame. It also stops you reversing a good change out of nervousness.

• Checking total spend and nothing else.
• Pausing keywords after a few clicks.
• Judging ads by click-through rate.
• Making five changes in the same week.
• Accepting every Google recommendation.
• Leaving poor landing pages untouched while tuning bids.

Wasted spend on irrelevant queries falls month on month. Cost per qualified lead moves towards your target. Your change log shows small, dated changes with a reason each. You can say, in one sentence, which campaign deserves more money next month and why.