In an earlier article, we discussed how to set up Google Ads. Now, let's answer the question of how to manage Google Ads. First, we must understand that you do things daily, weekly, and monthly when managing an account. We must also understand what we're looking for to manage, such as keywords, budget, CPA, and CTR. Let's dive in on how to manage Google Ads.
Daily
There are two main things I'm looking at daily: keywords and budget. We'll break these components down individually.
Keywords
We want to look at yesterday's Search Terms if you're looking during the week. However, on Monday, if you skipped this step over the weekend, then Fri-Sun. What we're looking for are terms that don't make sense for the overall strategy of the business. Critical thinking needs to apply. Don't just gloss over these keywords. Research them, and if a term is questionable, pop it into Google, see what comes up, and determine if that's where you want your brand to be.
If there is anything you find questionable, try to find the root cause, maybe a single word that could be causing the issue, and add that to a Negative Keyword List that can then be applied across all your campaigns.
Budget
This one can be tough for people running your own Google Ads campaign. It's very easy to spend money on Google Ads, and it's also very easy to justify spending more than you budgeted for because it's for growing the business. Be very realistic with your budget; take what you can actually afford, divide by 12, and stick to that number. I recommend under $1000 per month; stay away from Google Ads. I don't think you will be very happy with the results.
Now that we've assumed we will spend $1000 monthly on Google Ads, how do we manage Google Ads with this budget? My first suggestion is to keep a Google Sheet that will track your daily spending and give you an idea of what you have to spend on a daily basis. Let's break this down:
As we can see, we have a running date at the top using the formula =today(). Budget and Spend to Date are static, meaning you plug those numbers in. So, at the beginning of the month, plug in your Budget, and for every day, add how much you've spent in Spend to Date.
The last three rows are formulas based on the information from the first three cells. The remaining budget is calculated using Budget - Spend to Date. Remaining Days is calculated =EOMONTH(A1,0)- A1 under the assumption you put the date exactly where it's sitting right now. Lastly, the New Daily Budget is the Remaining Budget/Remaining Days.
It's important to keep track of these numbers to know where you stand at any time of the month. For instance, this sheet says my new daily budget is $63, but if my campaigns are set up to spend $80/day, then I have a real problem on my hands and need to make adjustments accordingly.
Weekly
Now that we've figured out what to do daily regarding how to manage Google Ads, what should we look to do each week? In a separate tab of this Google Sheet we created to keep up with daily spending, we should have a monthly tab tracking items such as impressions, clicks, CTR, spend, conversions, and cost per conversion. Each week should be a column, and we'll document the above specifications. What we're looking for is anomalies. Are the impressions down? Is the CTR consistent? These are just a few examples of what to look for. It's also important to reflect on conversions. Are we getting any?
Monthly
The last piece we need to do regarding how to manage a Google Ads account is to reflect on the month. You should have a summary tab in your Google Sheet that will keep up with the sum of the month. So, it is a sum of impressions, clicks, spending, and conversions, with formulas to determine CTR, CPC, and CPA. We'll want to review this information by comparing it to the previous month and depending on how long you've been tracking the previous year. Are we up month over month? Was this year better than last year? Remember, spending and impressions will greatly affect the outcomes. If you spent more last month than this month, then we can assume a "worse" outcome.
We hope this guide helped you on how to manage a Google Ads account. Hopefully, some of you can take this information and manage your own account with ease. If everything we just said seems overwhelming, we can help you with Google Ads; just reach out.
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