Launching new products and campaigns can be exhilarating as anticipation gives way to action and all of your hard work is suddenly out to market. That same excitement extends toward placing a new pay-per-click (PPC) ad.
After placing an ad, many of us are driven by a strong impulse to continually search for it in Google, effectively “Googling” our own ads. It can be tempting to populate the search bar with non-branded keyword targets, but succumbing to the urge may be detrimental to your campaign. Since our own actions on Google can feed the algorithm with bad data inputs, you’ll want to ensure your actions are in the best interest of your broader marketing strategy.
No matter how excited you are, resist the temptation to Google your own ads. Even if you’re just trying to verify your ranking amongst competitors, it can be an ugly race to the bottom. Afterall, curiosity killed the cat.
The Problem with Googling Your Own Ads
The reality is that Googling your own ads tells you surprisingly little about the health of your account. Moreover, it can actually harm your eCommerce PPC or lead generation campaigns in the long run by sending the wrong signals to search engines.
Quality Score
When you search for your own ads, you’re informing the Google algorithm of your search intentions, while also supplying the platform with negative feedback by not clicking on your ad (if you do see it, that is). This signals irrelevance to the platform and negatively impacts your quality score which will increase your cost-per-click (CPC). Meaning, you’ll need to pay more to rank for similar queries in the future, which will in turn impact your available budget to target buyers further up the sales funnel. It’s a race to the bottom that any serious PPC management service provider would caution against.
Click Through Rate
You’re making it worse! Think about the message you’re sending to Google when you happen to find your ad, but don’t click on it. The wrong message. Low click-through rates (CTR) drive down your quality score, which again, drives up your CPCs. More on the importance of CTR here.
Bad Data Inputs
Frequently Googling your own ads may also mean that Google just stops showing them to you. The ad experience is tailored to each user, meaning Google doesn’t necessarily know the ads are yours. If they think that you personally aren’t interested in the ads for your company, Google will stop showing them to you entirely.
Restricting Budget
Googling your own ad may also cost you money, even if you don’t click on it directly. To understand this, it’s worth reviewing Google’s ad auction basics. Google may have also simply chosen not to show your ad for that particular search. If Google estimates that historically you only have enough budget to compete for 70% of the searches on that particular keyword that day, it may only show your keyword 70% of the time. If you happen to be in the segment of searches that don’t see it, then you’ll be under the wrong impression that your ad isn’t running, — even though everything is fine.
Target Demographic
Another consideration is the possibility that your campaigns are targeting specific locations, demographics, or buying behaviors that are different from your own. This can also present a disconnect in your campaigns.
Automations in Action
An uprise in bidding automation might also be impacting your search results. If you’re using any type of automation in your campaign strategies, factors like the broadness of your search term, your own user demographics, and your past search and website behavior could also prevent you from seeing your ad, even for keywords you are actively targeting.
Things To Do Instead
If you’re anxious to continue fidgeting with your new campaigns, here are a few exercises that might be more worthwhile than thoughtlessly Googling yourself.
Google Ad Preview Tool
Get a better feel for how users are finding your ads by using the Google Ad Preview Tool. When using this tool, your cookies will not impact the search results, and your ad performance will not be impacted. You can even test searches from different locations to understand how results may be geographically impacted.
Benchmark Metrics
It’s always hardest taking the before picture in your “before and after,” but diving deeper in this arena is always worthwhile.
Leverage Max CPCs
It’s natural to be concerned about how your ads are populating, but you can take matters into your own hands by using max CPCs, which is Google speak for the highest amount an advertiser is willing to spend on an ad click. This will help you limit spend on certain items and adhere to budget restraints, while enabling you to take advantage of search volume at a price point that works for your business.
Explore Campaign Automations
While automated bidding might not get you on the top of the page for every search for all users, it will keep you near the top for the searches that matter from a more qualified audience.
Conclusion
When business owners or marketers focus their nervous energy appropriately, it can be transformed into a powerful tool.To have more of an impact while keeping tabs on the visibility of your ads, dive into your account’s analytics and trust the process. Stay the course to ensure your efforts remain helpful rather than hindering.
If you’re concerned about the health of your advertising efforts or have questions about the returns on the campaigns you’re running, reach out today for a complimentary, no-obligation, account audit and campaign review.
