When it comes to search engine marketing (SEM) for a manufacturing operation, as with other businesses, you want to make sure your dollars are being well spent and your investment is worthwhile.

We’ve spent a lot of time in Google Ads, and we’re all about efficiencies and getting the best return on investment (ROI) possible. So here are some best practices and tips to keep your search engine ads in tip-top shape. 

Use Google’s Automated Rules

Time is money, and whenever you can save yourself time and still get results, we recommend it. 

Using automated rules is one way to save yourself time. You choose the settings and conditions, and Google will make the changes automatically. 

For example, you can set up rules to:

• Pause ads if they aren’t performing.
• Adjust keyword bids to show up higher on search results pages. 
• Control your budget based on how much has been spent in a day. 

You can be notified every time a rule runs, so you know what happens without needing to constantly monitor your campaigns.

Double Check Your Targeting

Honing in on your targeting is a quick way to ensure that your Google Ads are delivering to the right people at the right times. We recommend paying attention to a few different targeting options.

Location Targeting

No matter what industry you’re in, it’s important to make sure that your ads are served in the right places. If you’re selling HVAC supplies in New York, why would you target potential customers in California?

Google lets you target locations based on cities, states, addresses and ZIP codes, and you can exclude specific locations, too. 

Pro tip: For most businesses, make sure your location options setting has “Presence: People in or regularly in your targeted locations” rather than the default “Presence or interest: People in, regularly in, or who’ve shown interest in your targeted locations” — so you don’t waste money on people who aren’t living in your targeted areas.

Interests and Topics Targeting

A large part of online advertising is making sure that your users are engaged and interested in the products you’re selling. For search campaigns, that’s targeting the right keywords. For display and video campaigns, that’s where audiences and topics come in!

You can target based on:

• Interests and hobbies
• What they’re actively searching for online
• Life events and demographics

You can build target audiences based on keyword searches as well. For example, you can target users who might search “blow molding manufacturing near me”, which would pull both their location and their interests.

Demographics Targeting

Google Ads also offers demographic-focused targeting, with options like gender, age, or income level. You can use these to enhance your ads targeting either by including demographics in your targeting or excluding specific

Our rule of thumb is to keep your demographic targeting on the open side. Google doesn’t know everything, and it can make mistakes. You don’t want to miss out on people by excluding them unnecessarily.

Pro tip: While we’re talking about targeting, don’t forget to exclude your business’s IP address, too. This ensures that you don’t pull money from your ad budget when you or anyone at your business address searches for your own business online.

Partner Profile: Falcon Plastics

Keep Your Eye on the Optimization Score

Your optimization score, which comes from Google Ads, is based on Google’s algorithm and other account learnings. The score can range from 1-100% and tells you how well your ad campaign is set up for success. 

Your score will ebb and flow based on how well your campaign is performing each day, and Google will make recommendations on what you can do to improve performance (according to its artificial intelligence and algorithm). 

Generally speaking, the higher your score is, the better your ads will perform and the more frequently they’ll be shown to users. That being said, not all suggestions will make sense for your business — so we always take these recommendations with a large grain of salt.

Some suggestions might include:

• Switching your bid strategy type — For example, your campaign might be set up to maximize clicks, but once your campaign gains a handful of conversions, Google might suggest switching your bid strategy to maximize your budget for conversions in order to spend your budget more effectively.
• Adding new keywords or changing your keyword match types — Adding new keywords gives Google more to work with when bidding on user searches and changing match types will adjust how Google pulls search terms.
• Increasing budgets — This is pretty self explanatory, but in our experience, there are other things you can do to improve your campaign’s performance before spending more.
• Adding new campaign types — The four primary campaign types are Search, Display, Performance Max, and Video. Each campaign serves a different purpose and can target different users, so Google may suggest adding a new campaign type to broaden the amount of users your website attracts.

We recommend reviewing the suggestions Google gives you and implementing only the ones you know are good for you — dismissing the ones that don’t make sense for your business. (Dismissing suggestions also improves your optimization score!)

Manufacturing Marketing

Review Your Ad Placements and User Search Terms

With search engine marketing, making sure that your campaigns are being put in front of the right people is a must do. Reviewing ad placements and search terms are an easy way to double check that. 

Ad Placements

You’ll only find ad placements for your display and video campaigns, as these campaigns use a visual asset when they show for users. These placements might include apps, games, and Youtube channels.

When reviewing these placements, it’s important to consider the cost that’s being attributed to the placement. 

You might have a ton of impressions and clicks on an ad that’s being displayed on someone’s Youtube channel, but if that Youtube channel discusses restaurant reviews and you’re a 3-D printing company, your ads would probably get better results elsewhere.

So review your placements and exclude ones that are costing too much money or don’t make sense for your business.

Pro tip: When you review your placements, if you see a type of ad placement — say, weather apps and weather-related sites, for example — that are bringing in good results, you can create a custom audience to better target sites like those.

Search Terms

Your search terms are what internet users are typing into their search engine that triggers your ad to display for them, like “Lumber Mills Near Me” or “Construction Companies in Milwaukee.” Reviewing these terms is a great way to make sure that your ads are coming up for the right keywords and that you’re spending money on engaged users.

As you review the search terms, you can select to add terms as keywords if you think they are beneficial to your campaign performance, or if you notice that a search term drives a lot of engaged traffic to your site.

You can also add search terms as negative keywords to your campaign, which tells Google’s algorithm to exclude searches like that from triggering your ads. Negative keywords are just as important to the success of your ad campaign as your targeted keywords.

Let’s Get Your Google Ads into Shape.

At 9 Clouds, we have a dedicated search engine marketing team with more than a decade of experience in Google Ads and other SEM platforms. 

We’ve worked with manufacturers and companies of all sizes to reach their unique audiences, generate high-quality leads, and increase sales for their businesses. 

Have other questions? Schedule a call to talk to us, or let’s do a free marketing assessment to find more opportunities to use digital for your manufacturing operation’s growth.

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