How to Increase Sales with Google Ads: 5 Proven Strategies

Here are five expert tactics we use to help our clients increase sales with Google Ads. Plus, learn the common roadblocks that businesses experience (and how to overcome them).

Here you’ll find:

1. Why Google Ads is a great tool to boost sales
2. Factors to keep in mind when using Google Ads to boost sales
3. Common roadblocks to increasing sales with Google Ads
4. The best ways to increase sales with Google Ads

For many businesses, Google Ads isn’t just a choice in your marketing strategy. It’s a necessity. But your ad spend is precious; every dollar invested must yield tangible results. 

That’s where the art of increasing sales with Google Ads comes in. It’s not merely about budget — it’s about optimizing, strategizing, and using your resources effectively to increase sales and ensure that not a single cent goes to waste.

Stick around to discover the strategies and insights from HawkSEM’s VP of Growth and Strategy, Steve Dang, to help you elevate your Google Ads game.

 Does Google Ads boost sales?

Google Ads is a potent tool for marketing professionals seeking 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 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).”

(Image: Adobe Stock)

He also highlights some important facts about Google.

“Google is also paramount in an increasingly digital world, where a user’s shopping journey usually begins and ends in the digital realm,” he adds. “Through keyword expansion, additional campaign types, and expanded targeting, Google can be a fertile source of additional sales growth.”

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

1. Expansive reach

Google doesn’t share its search data, but it is estimated that it processes over 8.5 billion searches per day.

This 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.

The level of fine-tuned targeting offered by Google ensures that your ads are shown to the most relevant users, increasing the chances of conversions.

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.

 Factors to keep in mind when using Google Ads to increase sales

While Google Ads is truly essential to increasing your sales, there are some things to keep in mind.

“One way of increasing sales with Google Ads is by establishing a healthy, efficient core by eliminating extraneous waste (improving your settings and targeting, getting rid of poor performing keywords, adding negative keywords, improving ad copy, and eliminating non-converting display placements, to name a few),” says Dang.

He emphasizes getting rid of waste to scale and improve your campaigns.

“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.

Another way to increase our sales is by identifying new, value-added, and expansion opportunities through additional keywords, targets, campaign types, and so on. 

1. Evaluate your funnel

Most advertisers scrutinize all the elements of their campaigns, with the exception of the funnel itself. They fail to consider the impact their funnel can have on sales.

User experience, length of checkout process, and shipping methods all factor into whether or not you win the sale. Failure to test and tweak your sales funnel may mean your sales will stagnate or drop off altogether.

“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. Ad quality matters

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.

This is an area where some businesses find they could make improvements – and we will share some expert tips with you in a bit. 

3. Ad extensions can be used to enhance click-through rates

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

On average, ad extensions can increase CTR by 10-15%, according to Google data. A higher CTR not only drives more traffic and potentially more sales but also improves the quality score of your ads, potentially reducing the cost per click.

4. Remarketing/retargeting for conversions

Another great tool that Google offers you to increase your sales is remarketing. Remarketing campaigns, which target users who have previously interacted with your website or ads, have proven to be highly effective. 

Go beyond targeting cart abandoners — target website visitors from other sources like social media posts and Facebook Ads.

Consider creating campaigns for viewers of specific products or even those who nearly completed the process like users who added payment or shipping info. Incentivizing people to finish may be enough to gain extra sales.

According to Meazy, the average click-through rate for retargeted ads is 0.7%, compared to 0.0.7% for display ads — that’s 10 times higher!

 The common roadblocks to 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. 

If that sounds like you, don’t worry; you’re not alone. 

Once you can recognize and address these challenges, you will be able to fully optimize your advertising campaigns to increase sales. 

Let’s delve into some of the most common roadblocks and how to overcome them:

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. Allocate your budget to 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)

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 cost per click (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.

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 uses only shopping ads is missing out on the extra eyes search campaigns can provide.

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, you must 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.

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!”

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, if 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 be frustrated and likely leave because it will be difficult for them to find the products they are looking for.  

Not understanding your performance and customers 

To optimize your Google Ads campaigns, you need 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.

 What is the best way to increase sales with Google ads?

The best way to use Google Ads to get more sales is to overcome the roadblocks. It’s also essential to think beyond the basics and explore more advanced campaign strategies the experts use. 

1. Leverage Local Inventory Ads for in-store sales

Google Shopping provides plenty of ways for ecommerce stores to increase their sales. Local Inventory Ads to drive foot traffic to your physical stores as well as boost online sales. 

This strategy is particularly effective for businesses with both ecommerce and brick-and-mortar presence.

For example, imagine you own a chain of electronics stores. You can run Local Inventory Ads that not only showcase your products but also display the current stock levels in nearby stores. 

This way, people who search for electronics products can quickly see if they’re available nearby and will go to make an in-store purchase.

2. Use dynamic remarketing

Go beyond top of funnel Shopping campaigns and implement dynamic remarketing in your ad strategy to increase sales. Beyond showing people the specific products they viewed, you can also highlight complementary or related products they might be interested in.

Let’s say you have an online clothing store when a person views a particular dress. Your dynamic remarketing ad can feature that dress and suggest matching accessories or shoes based on that person’s browsing behavior. 

This strategy encourages upselling and cross-selling and will help you increase your sales with Google Ads.

3. Use Auction Insights for a competitive advantage

Dive into your Auction Insights to gain the upper hand over your competition. Identify the competitors who consistently rank alongside your ads and then start to find ways to outperform them and take their clicks and sales.

For example, let’s say you have a pet supply store. When you analyze your Auction Insights, you discover that a specific competitor frequently competes with you for ad placement. 

To outperform them, you tailor your ad copy to highlight unique features of your products or offer exclusive discounts.

4. Explore ad scheduling for targeted promotions

Use ad scheduling to run promotions during specific days and hours when your target audience is most active or when there’s higher demand.

For example, if you have a restaurant, you can schedule your Google Ads to display special offers and promotions during lunch and dinner hours. This tactic can attract hungry customers who are actively searching for dining options and, in turn, reservations and sales.

5. Implement in-market audiences

Go beyond basic demographics and interests targeting by using Google’s in-market audiences. These audiences are actively researching and considering specific products or services.

Suppose you’re a car dealer. Instead of broadly targeting all car enthusiasts, use in-market audiences to target users actively researching car models within your inventory. This ensures your ads reach users who are closer to making a purchase decision and will help you boost your sales.

6. Leverage brand awareness

Anyone looking to scale should consider their brand awareness. Brand-aware buyers come to you more easily and more often. Create brand awareness campaigns using various ad types and networks. Video and display ads are particularly helpful in creating awareness. 

Pro Tip: Google also has a new campaign type called Demand Gen, which helps businesses drive demand using AI.

7. Use automation to your advantage

Create rules or use scripts to pause campaigns with a cost per acquisition (CPA) above your goal. Automation will help you to maintain efficiency, make changes at the right moment, and keep waste to a minimum.

You can’t be everywhere all of the time, so automating the tedious things will keep your campaigns running 

What’s the biggest mistake you can make with Google Ads?

As with any platform, there are many places where you can misstep. We asked Dang to explain what the single biggest mistake an advertiser could make was.

“One of the biggest mistakes we see is not properly documenting tests or experiments,” he says. “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 he says, “Take note of when the change was implemented, and make sure your conclusion is backed up with enough data. 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.”

The takeaway

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. 

From using ad extensions and remarketing to scheduling and in-market audiences, you now know the advanced strategies to boost your sales. In addition, be careful to look out for the common roadblocks, such as low-quality keywords and poor ad creative that could be hindering your results. 

And if you need a hand making the best Google Ads you can? Send us a message and the Hawks will swoop in.