We’ve compiled a list of the most commonly recurring errors that could cause a lower performance of BlueWinston campaigns. In this article, we will provide you with solutions for each problem, so you’ll be able to get the best results possible.
First of all, there are many factors that affect the performance of campaigns, e.g. segment, product price, delivery speed, competition, brand strength, etc.
You can get very decent performance from product PPC campaigns in terms of high ROAS (or low ACOS). On our blog, we wrote about what ROAS you can expect from campaigns that have been created through BlueWinston.
We’ll go through the most common mistakes that cause campaigns to perform poorly.
1. Low campaign budget
A balanced budget is a very important aspect when creating campaigns. However, it must be said that there is no optimal daily budget. Setting the budget depends on many factors e.g. segment, products, competition etc. Clients often start with small budgets (up to 10€/day) and then the campaigns do not deliver the expected results. Therefore, you need to thoroughly consider which daily budget you will go with for PPC campaigns.
At BlueWinston, we generally recommend a daily budget of at least 10 – 15€/day for each Product Text campaign and at least 20 – 30€/day for each Performance Max campaign.
With these budgets, campaigns can deliver nice results.
To optimize the budget for Performance Max campaigns, we also recommend using a CSS service, where you can get a click-through rate discount of up to 20%. See more about our CSS service Shopping in EU.
2. Poor quality XML feed
A well-prepared XML feed is unquestionably one of the most important elements in the entire process of preparing product campaigns. We recommend using XML feeds for e.g. price comparison engines, for Google Merchant or for Facebook.
You can learn more about what a properly functioning XML feed for BlueWinston should look like here.
The most common errors in XML feeds include:
- missing mandatory tags
- inappropriate order of elements in the product name
- incorrect symbols in product names
In most cases, you can create a product XML feed directly in the store administration, or you can install modules and plugins to create it very easily.
To modify an existing feed, for example if you need to have only a part of the products in a new feed, you can use DataFeedWatch.com or Mergado.com.
3. Too generic keywords and Negative keywords
In order to avoid unnecessary budget wasting, it is very important to check the keywords created and running in your campaigns. We recommend checking the triggered keywords a few hours after the campaigns are launched, at the latest in 1 day.
You can pause keywords or products directly in BlueWinston in the Reports section, or you can set up a combination of different scripts (rules) in the last step when creating a product campaign.
We also advise you to set up Negative keywords. These allow you to not trigger Ads for some not suitable terms and help you target only keywords that are relevant to your customers. Better targeting allows you to show your ad to users who are interested in what you have to offer and increase your ROI.
When selecting negative keywords for search campaigns, focus on search terms that are similar to your keywords but are used by customers searching for a different product. For example, if you own an opticians and sell eyewear, you can add negative keywords such as “diving goggles” and “ski goggles”.
Be cautious when selecting negative keywords. If you use too many negative keywords, you may reach fewer customers with your ads.
4. Product names in the wrong form
The key to making ad automation as easy as possible is the creation of the product names themselves. The correct product name is the Alpha and Omega of text ads in Google Search, and it’s for this very reason that as long as we follow certain rules in product name creation, we ensure the easiest and highest quality keyword creation for product ads.
For example, the product Electric chainsaw Makita UC3541A
The correct order of the individual attributes in the product name:
the descriptive form of the product (e.g. “Electric Chainsaw”)
manufacturer (in this case it is “Makita”)
type (in this case it is ‘UC3541A’)
model
size
colour
designation / gender
E-shops that have properly defined product names have up to 80% higher conversion rates in Google Search ads!
5. Invalid symbols in product titles
Various invalid symbols in the product name will cause the ad to be rejected and the product ad will no longer appear in search. This only applies to text ads. For example, the following symbols:
! @ % ^ () = {} ; ~ ` <> ? \ |
We therefore recommend you to keep an eye on automatic notifications either directly in the BlueWinston tool or in the notification emails you received from us.
6. Inefficient products
Before launching campaigns, it is very important to determine what minimum ROAS you want your campaigns to bring or what maximum ACOS you are willing to work with.
If we see that some products have significantly low ROAS or are dragging the overall ROAS downwards it is essential to intervene and pause such products.
In BlueWinston, you can instantly sort this out in the Reports where you just need to filter the inefficient products and pause them. This is applicable for Performance Max campaigns.
For Product Text campaigns, you can pause individual keywords, ad groups, or both in PPC tool BlueWinston.
7. Not using all features in Performance Max campaigns
Clients often do not know the full potential of Performance Max campaigns because they do not know all the features and settings that this type of campaign offers.
We recommend focusing on the following in the BlueWinston PPC tool:
- advanced filtering of products by various tags, e.g. price, margin, categories, etc.
- automated scripts for better optimization
- creation of Asset Groups and appropriate Assets for them – images, logos, texts, videos, headlines, descriptions
We then recommend adding Audience Signals in your Google Ads account, i.e. separate Audience Signals for each Asset Group, including search terms and competing shops.
8. Bidding strategy
Clients sometimes don’t realize that to achieve the desired results, the campaign needs to accumulate data and this process can take several weeks.
Therefore, we recommend setting up the following bidding strategies to start:
1. Manual bidding strategy with enhanced CPC
2. Maximize clicks (with max CPC limit)
Later on, with more traffic, you can switch to a bidding strategy focused on conversions:
1. Maximize conversion value
2. Maximize conversions
These last two bidding strategies are available for Performance Max campaigns, so you can use them as soon as you launch your campaigns.
If you decide to use conversion-focused bidding strategies from the start, we recommend a minimum budget of 3x higher than the manual bidding strategies.
This does not apply if you already have sufficient historical data in your Google Ads account.
9. Inappropriate campaign structure
Consideration and thought needs to be given to the structure of campaigns. The idea is to make sure that you have selected the types of campaigns that will work best for you. It’s better to focus on 3 – 4 well designed campaigns than to create several more campaigns and test which is the best.
We recommend starting with Performance Max campaigns and supplementing them with targeted Product (text) campaigns:
1. Performance Max Campaign
You can set up this type of campaign directly in BlueWinston where you can take advantage of these following features:
- Advanced Product Filtering
- Creation of Asset Groups
- Filling out the Assets
Budgets – we recommend setting up by number of products, for example:
-
- up to 500 products daily budget min. 15€ / day
- 500 – 1500 products daily budget min. 20€ / day
-
Then fill in and set up in Google Ads:
- Audience Signals (for each one Asset Group)
2. Product text campaigns targeted directly to products
a. Keyword campaigns
b. DSA campaigns targeted to products
3. Category campaigns
These are Search campaigns where category names are advertised and the user is taken to the category URL
If you would like advice on how to structure campaigns or create campaigns tailored to your online store, you can contact our Managino Agency, where you can get advice from experienced PPC specialists.
For online campaigns, we would also recommend to consider RTB campaigns, which are available through the Managino Network even for smaller and medium-sized e-shops. We also recommend running RTB retargeting campaigns, through which you will increase the sales of your products as well as strengthen the brand awareness of your eshop.
10. Missing conversion and conversion value tracking
A common problem in Google Ads accounts is the lack of analytics, especially the lack of conversion tracking and other important aspects (audience collection, remarketing setup, GTM, Google Analytics 4). For accounts that don’t have conversion tracking or have tracking set up incorrectly, we don’t recommend running campaigns at all.
If you want your Google Ads to work properly and to avoid dealing with inaccurate measurement issues, we recommend a one-time complete analytics setup by an expert. This investment will pay you back 100x within a year and you won’t regret it. We can help you with your analytics setup, leave us a message and we’ll talk more.
Conclusion and summary
As we said, some errors are repeated quite often and we see them on dozens of accounts that signed up for BlueWinston. We’d recommend checking if you have all the checkpoints met and set up to make sure your campaigns are going as well as possible.
As a result, campaigns created through BlueWinston will perform highly, usually between 500 to 2000% ROAS, of course it also depends on your e-shop, your segment, your products and their prices.
