How to Increase Sales with Google Ads: 7 Proven Strategies

To increase sales with Google Ads, stack strategies like targeting high-intent audiences, recapturing warm leads, maximizing local demand, and using automation. Learn all the expert tactics and campaign basics — as well as the mistakes that could hinder your results.

Google Ads is a powerful tool to increase sales in any marketing strategy. But building campaigns that actually deliver results can be tricky.

From using assets and remarketing to ad scheduling and in-market audiences, this guide will walk you through the advanced strategies to boost your sales — along with missteps to avoid — with insights from Google Ads expert Steve Dang.

How to increase sales with Google Ads

The best way to use Google Ads to get more sales is to combine smart targeting with automation to re-engage warm prospects and connect with the right audience.

1. Leverage Local Inventory Ads

Local Inventory Ads (LIAs) are Google Shopping ads that show shoppers which products are available at nearby stores.

This helps ecommerce stores with brick-and-mortar locations capture shoppers with immediate intent — which drives foot traffic and increases in-store sales and online sales alike.

2. Use dynamic remarketing

Dynamic remarketing allows you to target previous visitors with ads that feature the specific product or service they viewed on your site or app.

Beyond showing people the specific products they viewed, you can also highlight complementary or related products they might be interested in.

This re-engages warm prospects who are on the verge of converting, reminding them to take the final steps.

3. Review Auction Insights

Auction Insights is a tool offered inside Google Ads that allows you to identify competitors who consistently rank alongside your ads and identify ways to outperform them.

By reviewing metrics like overlap rate, top-of-page rate, and outranking share, you can identify where competitors are beating you and tweak bids, ad copy, or landing pages to capture more clicks (and more sales).

Further reading: What is Google Ads Auction Insights? How to Use it + 7 Proven Strategies

4. Explore ad scheduling

Ad scheduling allows you to run ads during specific days and hours when your target audience is most active or when there’s higher demand — such as lunchtime orders and weekend reservations for restaurants or after-work searches.

By targeting peak hour traffic, you can ultimately increase conversion rates.

5. Implement in-market audiences

In-market audiences are groups of people actively researching and considering specific products or services, making them more likely to convert.

To do this inside your Google Ads account:

• Select “Audiences” in the menu on the left side
• “Edit audience segments”
• “Select an ad group”
• Choose a campaign and ad group
• Choose the audiences you want to target from the list of categories
• Save

Further reading: How to Use In-Market Audiences: Tried-and-Tested Best Practices + More

6. Create brand awareness campaigns

The Google Display Network helps advertisers reach customers at the right moment across thousands of sites to boost brand awareness.

With placement targeting in Google Ads, you can put your brand in front of relevant audiences using rich-media formats and CPM (cost per mille) bidding.

Video and display ads are particularly helpful in creating awareness.

7. Automate

Set up automated rules or scripts to pause campaigns or keywords when their cost per acquisition (CPA) exceeds your target.

Automation keeps your campaigns efficient by making changes at the right moment and keeping waste to a minimum.

How to set up your campaigns for success

The best way to set up your campaigns for increased sales is by “establishing a healthy, efficient core by eliminating extraneous waste,” says Dang.

This means improving your settings and targeting, getting rid of poor-performing keywords, adding negative keywords, improving ad copy, and eliminating non-converting display placements, among other tactics.

“Freeing up all of that waste allows us to apply the extra budget or ‘savings’ and double down on our keywords, placements, and targets that drive relevant clicks, engagement, conversions, and sales,” he explains.

Here are some ways to best set up your campaigns for sales success from the beginning.

1. Evaluate your funnel

Many advertisers carefully review campaign elements but overlook the impact of the sales funnel itself.

Factors like user experience, checkout length, and shipping options can make or break a sale. If your funnel isn’t optimized, even well-targeted ads may fail to convert.

“We recommend reevaluating your entire sales funnel from first to last interaction to see if there are any obvious areas that we can improve,” says Dang.

“This can be improving your ads, your landing page, the checkout process, your email or video retargeting efforts, etc. Focus on points of weakness with especially high dropoff rates.”

2. Improve ad quality

Google’s bidding system doesn’t just favor the highest bidder. Ad quality and relevance play their part in ad placement.

Google rewards advertisers who create compelling, relevant text ads. But this also means that your ads end up in front of relevant people who are more likely to convert.

3. Use assets

Google Ads has numerous tools designed to help your ads perform better. For example, ad assets (formerly ad extensions), such as sitelinks and callouts, can significantly enhance your ad’s click-through rate (CTR).

A higher CTR not only drives more traffic and potentially more sales but also improves Quality Score, potentially reducing the cost per click.

9 common challenges for increasing sales with Google Ads

While Google Ads is one of our favorite tools for boosting sales, marketing professionals often encounter common roadblocks that can hinder their success.

1. Ad budget constraints

Limited advertising budgets can affect your ability to compete with bigger brands and reach a broader audience.

To overcome this, you can focus your bidding strategy on the specific keywords that drive the most conversions and revenue.

For example, if you’re a boutique shoe retailer, allocate more of your budget to keywords like “luxury leather shoes” rather than generic terms like “shoes.”

You can also focus on your audiences or products that generate the most sales. Focus your budget on the ad groups that convert the highest or that generate the highest ROI.

If you notice that specific campaigns or ad groups consistently deliver a high ROI, be ready to reallocate funds to maximize their impact.

(Image: Adobe Stock)

2. Targeting the wrong keywords

When you choose poorly performing keywords, you end up with wasted ad spend and low conversion rates.

Use keyword research tools such as the Keyword Planner to identify high-converting keywords relevant to your business. Think about the search terms that the people who buy your products would use to find them through Google.

Continuously refine your keyword list based on the performance data from your ads.

For example, if you sell training equipment, you might find that long-tail keywords like “best home gym equipment for small spaces” generate more sales than a generic term with a higher CPC like “home gym.”

You can also use negative keywords to exclude irrelevant traffic. For example, if you’re a software company selling a paid product, adding “free” as a negative keyword prevents your ads from appearing to users looking for free software.

Further reading: How to Do Keyword Research: Tools to Use + Proven Tips

3. Not using all available ad types

Some advertisers feel that using just one campaign type is “good enough.” However, doing so is likely to guarantee you never increase sales.

For instance, an ecommerce business that only uses shopping campaigns is missing out on the extra eyes search campaigns can provide.

4. Low-quality ad copy and creative

Poorly written ad copy and unimpressive visuals can fail to capture the audience’s attention, resulting in a lower CTR and fewer sales.

To overcome this issue, invest time in creating engaging ad copy.

Consider your audience’s pain points and unique selling points (USPs), and highlight these in your copy.

A/B test different ad variations of your ad copy and design to find the version that resonates best with your audience.

For example, you could test two ad headlines, “Save 20% on Electronics” and “Discover Exclusive Electronics Deals,” which can reveal which generates a higher CTR and conversions.

Further reading: How to Create SEM Ad Copy that Clicks: 12+ Expert Tips

5. Weak calls to action

A strong call to action (CTA) has an important psychological effect. It can mean the difference between someone clicking through to your site and scrolling past your ad.

Don’t miss out on sales by using a poorly worded CTA. Tell the user exactly what you want them to do, like “shop now!”

6. Neglecting landing page optimization

Another area where your Google search ads might be letting you down is with a poorly optimized landing page.

This will result in high bounce rates and missed sales opportunities. Not only that, but it will also affect metrics like keyword Quality Score and conversion rate.

Searchers who click on your ad want to go to a landing page that provides a seamless and relevant experience that directly relates to the ad they clicked on.

For example, let’s say a user clicks on an ad for “luxury leather shoes” but then goes to a landing page that has a whole range of different shoes, from budget to luxury. They will likely be frustrated and leave because it will be difficult for them to find the products they are looking for.

Further reading: How to Do Landing Page Optimization Like a Pro: 15 Tips

7. Not understanding your performance and customers

To optimize your Google Ads campaigns, it’s essential to continually evaluate performance and understand your audience.

Google Ads provides an Insights page that offers valuable data and trends about your marketing campaign’s performance and your audience. You can also link your Google Ads account to your Google Analytics for even more data.

Analyze this data to help you make data-driven decisions. For example, you might discover that your ads perform exceptionally well on weekends, so you can then allocate more budget for those days.

8. Not properly tracking conversions and documenting tests

Conversion tracking is a snippet of code added to your website that tells you which ad clicks led to a conversion.

Without proper setup (or no setup at all), you won’t know which ads, keywords, or campaigns are actually driving results. This makes it impossible to optimize your spend or scale what’s working.

Further reading: How to Set Up Conversion Tracking for Google Ads: A Quick Guide

9. Not documenting A/B tests

“One of the biggest mistakes we see is not properly documenting tests or experiments,” says Dang.

“If you have a hypothesis for a change that can help improve sales, be sure to set a proper experiment to test the theory, and try not to test too many variables at once so we can properly attribute causality.”

Not only that, but “Take note of when the change was implemented, and make sure your conclusion is backed up with enough data,” he says.“In other words, it should be statistically significant.”

Basically, you want to make sure everything you do is based on refined A/B testing and not “guesswork.”

How does Google Ads boost sales?

“Google is paramount in an increasingly digital world where a user’s shopping journey usually begins and ends in the digital realm,” says Dang.

“Through keyword expansion, additional campaign types, and expanded targeting, Google can be a fertile source of additional sales growth.”

As search ads target people at the exact moment they are looking for a product or service like yours, you get in front of them when they are more likely to buy. (Image: Adobe Stock)

Google Ads’ effectiveness in driving revenue growth is evident for several reasons.

1. Expansive reach

Google’s massive number of searches means your business can tap into its extensive reach for your ads and connect with more potential customers actively searching for products or services like yours.

2. Targeting precision

Google Ads offers precise audience targeting options, including demographics, location, interests, and search intent. And as search ads target people at the exact moment they are looking for a product or service like yours, you get in front of them when they are more likely to buy.

In today’s highly competitive market, reaching the right people with the right message at the right time is crucial for your brand’s success.

3. Impressive Return on Investment (ROI)

The pay-per-click (PPC) model of Google Ads means you only pay when someone clicks on your ad.

This cost-effective approach has proven to deliver an impressive ROI. According to Google Economic Impact data, businesses make $2 in revenue for every $1 spent on Google Ads.

The takeaway

Google Ads is a potent advertising platform for those looking to boost sales. “In many cases, Google ads will be a core component of your growth strategy, if not the largest driver,” Dang explains.

“This is because of the scale and scope of Google’s ecosystem, and the ready number of users/customers it allows any advertiser to get in front of, often with very high intent (the user is searching for the product or service you provide, instead of the other way around).”

When you know the strategies for how to increase sales with Google Ads, you are armed with the knowledge to transform ad spend into revenue.

Need some help from digital marketing experts? From Google Ads to search engine optimization (SEO) to social media advertising, HawkSEM can help you every step of the way. Send us a message.

This article has been updated and was originally published in December 2023.