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Why Your Google Pay Per Click Campaign Failed (Navigating AdWords’ Targeting Settings)

Joy Gendusa
3 min read
Why Your Google Pay Per Click Campaign Failed (Navigating AdWords’ Targeting Settings)

I’ve heard from a number of real estate investors that you want to understand how to navigate AdWords and turn pay per click (PPC) into a valuable marketing option, so this is the last article in my three-part series where I show you how to do just that! In case you missed the first two, here’s the breakdown:

Let’s get to it!

How to Navigate AdWords’ Targeting Settings

 If you are like most people, when you hear Pay Per Click, you think of search ads. You know, these…

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But as we established, there are other kinds of pay per click ads out there. In addition to the three types of PPC ads (text, display, and YouTube), there are targeting settings and criteria you can use to get your ads in front of the right people, and using them can save you boatloads of time AND money.

Related: 5 Tips to Minimize Your Cost Per Click When Using Google Adwords

Targeting Settings

You can use the targeting settings in your AdWords campaign to exclude people that wouldn’t be a good prospect for you, based on these options…

WHO

– Age and gender

– Type of device

WHERE

– Geographic location

WHAT

–          Mobile device’s operating system

WHEN

– Hours of the day

– Days of the week

The most useful settings for you will probably be the geographic location and timing settings, but if you have a very specific ideal profile in mind, you may get some use out of the Age & Gender setting as well!

Targeting Criteria

Once you’ve honed your audience by tweaking the targeting settings, it’s time to make sure you are targeting the exact right people by setting your targeting criteria. There are 4 you have to work with:

  1. Content Targeting

You can choose to target specific content on websites by using keywords. So if you wanted your ads to show up ONLY on web pages with content related to real estate, you can do that! Here’s a visual of a gardening supplies ad showing up on a page full of, what do you know, gardening supplies!

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Related: Why Your Google “Pay Per Click Campaign” Failed (And How to Fix It)

  1. Topic Targeting

Topic targeting is similar to content targeting, except instead of targeting specific pieces of content (like an article that talks about real estate), you are targeting entire websites. So your ad wouldn’t show up on a news site with a story about real estate, but it would show up on a site like Trulia.com.

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  1. Interest Targeting

This is a cool one! Unlike the two above, with interest targeting, you are targeting people, not websites. Google uses the pages and websites that people visit to form a profile of what they are interested in. So if someone has been browsing information on short sales or probate sales, you can target them with your ads…

Now, I actually tried this and browsed some articles after using this search phrase: “how to sell an inherited home.” And would you know that I wasn’t shown ONE real estate investor ad telling me that they would buy my home? This is a huge gap in your marketplace and one to consider!

  1. Placement Ads

If you know exactly what sites you want to be on, you don’t need to set your criteria and hope. You can essentially place your ad right where you want it! That’s a placement ad, and it can be very useful if you have a good idea of where your ads will be most effective.

And that’s it folks! I hope this has cleared up any confusion or misconceptions you had about Google AdWords and PPC. If you still have questions, put them in the comments and I’ll do my best to get you an answer!

Thanks for reading!

Note By BiggerPockets: These are opinions written by the author and do not necessarily represent the opinions of BiggerPockets.