A solid search strategy is an integral part of any digital marketing plan. Many marketers allocate more than half of their ad spend to search, hoping to reach the people trying to find them.

To maximize your budget and run your campaign effectively, avoid these five common mistakes.

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Not setting up proper tracking

By placing the AdWords conversion pixel on your confirmation page, you can monitor which keywords and ads are working well and which ones might need to be retired. Each click on your ad tags the user, so when they reach your confirmation page and that pixel fires, you can return to the platform to assess cost per lead and conversion rates.

If you can’t place the conversion pixel, it’s still possible to track conversions by appending your landing page URLs with tracking parameters. The required parameters are source (Google), medium (CPC) and campaign. You can get creative with campaign by using something general like “search” or something as granular as the keyword. There is another variable, content, which allows you to input a word that denotes an ad copy theme.

If this is done, you can utilize Google Analytics reports by segmenting data by source, medium or campaign and the confirmation URL you are interested in.

Not utilizing remarketing lists

This is similar to conversion tracking in that you need to place a tag on your site. The difference here is that you want it on every page of your site and on your landing pages and thank you pages.

Once this tag is placed, you create audiences based on URLs visited. Again, you can get as broad or as granular as you want. In AdWords, you can set up something like “All Visitors to /executive-mba” and exclude visitors to “/executive-mba-thank-you.”

In Google Analytics, you can create remarketing lists by behavior, such as a user who spends at least 30 seconds on site or visits a page more than once. Being able to segment users like this means remarketing more engaged users and spending less on less active users.

Overlooking the importance of ad extensions

Ad extensions have been around for a while, yet many advertisers neglect to spend enough time on extensions or optimize them as frequently as ad copy. Extensions ensure you take up as much real estate on the search engine results page as possible. There are a few we love using for higher ed: Sitelinks, callout extensions, structured snippets and call extensions.

Sitelinks have a headline and two lines of text, just like an ad. They link to pages besides your landing page and allow you to showcase additional benefits and offers.

Structured snippets are pre-defined categories set by Google that allow you to list popular courses for singular program advertising and degree programs for an overall college.

Callout and call extensions are fairly straightforward and simple. Provide your phone number for those who don’t want to explore independently and use callout extensions for small tidbits (fewer than 25 characters).

Focusing too much on position one

It’s true that position one is important, but it’s not the only position worth achieving. There are now four positions above the organic results, thanks to Google removing sidebar ads and changing the ad indicator from yellow to green to make ads blend in even more.

Because of this, I recommend aiming for positions one through four. Pay attention to your CPC, CTR and CVR rate when considering your optimal position. If you receive better CTR, pay less per click on position three versus one and continue to see great lead volume, you’ll pay less per lead overall and stretch your dollar.

Ignoring your search query reports

It happens far too often – advertisers see a keyword spending wildly and decide to pause it before digging into why this might be happening. There are a few important questions to ask. First, are you using the best match type? Are you paying too much for your position (see mistake #4)? Most importantly, do you know what’s matching to the keyword?

The search query report shows exactly what someone types when Google determines that your keyword closely matches it and serves an impression. Dig into this report at least once every two weeks and sort by high cost with zero conversions, high impressions with low clicks and low CTR. Add negatives by varying match types – typically phrase or exact will be your best option. Broad may restrict you from other matches you want.

This is also a great time to analyze new keywords your audience is actually searching for. By adding these keywords to your arsenal, you can continue dominating your space and reach.

Questions about search engine marketing? Reach out to our digital advertising team!