All right, squad. So pretty cool stuff here. I wanted to just real quick โฆ I think when weโre all developing paid search campaigns, weโre trying to not give away the show at the very beginning. But we want to do right by the client. We want to achieve success fast. And there are some basic blocking and tackling things that we do here at Propellant Media, and within our team infrastructure, to reduce a ton of waste before we even launch a campaign. And so, I just want to go through some of these. Some of these, I think, will be relatively illuminating, but not too surprising. And I think many of the folks here will actually appreciate this because this is like a simple playbook that any professional can utilize when launching a campaign. And typically, this does, kid you not, reduce up to 70% of waste even before you launch a campaign.
And so youโre just going to hear me out for a second, couple things. Competitor research, actually, you forgot to add that โฆ because that is actually a really big one. So hear me out for a second. The first thing that I typically do and our team does is we actually have a discovery call with our client. We have this really cool, itโs very simple, but itโs a good questionnaire. So we have full context on the clientโs goals, objectives, keywords that are important to them, those types of things. But this helps set the stage for us to know what our north star is as weโre building the campaign. So thatโs the first thing that weโre going to take a client to. And so, I donโt have to go to the actual link. You all can go directly to the link itself. But itโs: propellant.media/client-questionnaire/.
Since Iโm here, I might as well. So weโll go there. Weโll go back to the actual link itself. And itโs just a good framework, if that makes sense, when youโre trying to just get basic information from a client. And we use that not just for a client to fill out, but also as asking the client individual questions as weโre auditing; or more importantly, as weโre building out a campaign for a client. So thatโs the first.
Second is that we are going to ensure that we have conversion tracking set up. We did another video on how to do an audit, a Google Ads audit, within 15 minutes. And we said the same thing. You have to have some type of conversion tracking set up. I donโt care if itโs a really micro conversion, a button click, whatever, you got to have something set up because then you donโt, you have no guidance or perspective on how your campaigns are performing.
So thatโs super important. And also you canโt utilize Max CPC, or excuse me, Max Conversion or CPA or ROAS Bid Strategies, for that matter. So super important. One thing, a lot of folks donโt do on the front end, which we actually try to do, is we actually, within this actual form, we actually ask the client for competitors. And we actually do those Google searches relative to the keywords to see what they show up for. Really helpful stuff because then you can use those keywords as part of the ad copy. But even more importantly, you can use that to weed out keywords that you think are probably not going to be relevant if there are certain terms within that organizationโs add copy when it shows up.
We also like โฆ The next thing that weโre typically doing is when weโre building out our ads, sometimes when youโre building them out and they get approved, theyโll start off at an average or at a bad or below average โฆ We like our ads to be either good or excellent because it vastly improves your quality score and also improves the waste; but more importantly, the cost per clicks that youโre bidding on.
You can save anywhere from five to 20% just by that strategy alone. So doing so, if youโre looking at your responsive ads, you got to make adjustments. And part of that is including the keywords in the ad copy when youโre doing that. It makes a huge difference. Part of, with that conversation is also ad extensions as well when youโre building your campaigns.
If you can use all of the extensions that make sense, you should. So call outs, phone call extensions, location extensions, Rich snippets, site links, all of that where it makes sense, you should use them. Sometimes I wonโt always use site links because that diverts someone to a page that I donโt believe is going to translate into more conversions for our client. But aside from that, this also makes a big difference from a click through rate perspective. It makes a big difference from a CPA strategy, a CPA, Cost Per Action bit strategy, as well. So we do typically recommend that.
Next, within your campaign settings, you have two things. First, you have a little button where you can target people who are living in your DMA or people that have expressed an interest and live in your DMA. We like to target people that live inside of the DMA only. Because if Iโm a plumber that is based โฆ If Iโm a plumber, Iโm advertising in Charlotte. And someone in Lance or Bangladesh does a search for plumbers, Charlotte plumbers. I donโt know if I necessarily want to show up for that term. Sometimes there are people that are just doing random searches and, eh, in most cases, you want to save as much budget as you can.
This is one thing that we always put on to ensure that weโre not showing up in other DMAs that are unintended. Even if youโre targeting all the United States, people living in is the best practice to go. And within that vein, you also have the ability to target people that are just on the search network. The search network is just those individuals that go directly to Google. So if I come here and Iโm saying, I want to go directly to Google, thatโs basically what the search network is. Thatโs it. So plumbers, Atlanta, someone does a search. I know Iโm only showing up in the Google search results. These are local service ads, which are pretty popular as well. So if you are a local service ad professional or youโre in this realm, you should absolutely have these ads running for yourself on top of standard Google ads, Google ads as well.
So highly recommended from that standpoint. In addition to that, we always recommend do not have the display select as a network turned on. It usually translates into a ton of impressions. You know? A lower cost click-through rate. It doesnโt really do as much justice on the front end of a campaign. Maybe you want to turn it on after the fact, after youโve really gotten the campaign humming, and you feel like you need to reach more people. But donโt turn it on, on the front end. Thatโs how you limit the waste on the front end of a campaign.
Also, weโre going to look at a lot of our search terms that we think are going to make a difference and try to build up negatives on the front end. So a great example is like, if I have a higher education client thatโs looking to get a Masterโs in Nursing, there are a lot of people that are actually also looking for jobs. And so you donโt want to show up for job, career, free video, how to, those kinds of terms that arenโt relevant to a Masterโs in Nursing.
So if you take the time to methodically think about those negatives, you are going to save yourself a lot of money on the front end. We actually have a template that we use thatโs really, really helpful โฆ that ensures that weโre not showing up for a lot of that stuff. So thatโs one thing that you all can consider. Weโll be sure to add a link to that.
Always start with phrase and exact match on the front end. Donโt start off with broad. Just donโt do it. A lot of people at Google will say, yeah, itโs a good idea. Especially if you have CPA bid strategy or mass conversion strategy. No. Donโt do it. Trust me. Itโs not worth it on the front end. Maybe in the future, but not just yet.
And then the last thing. If you go into Google Keyword Planner and youโre pulling out keywords and you download that Excel file, do the research. Hand pick the keywords themselves. We always, always recommend this for any and all clients. And I canโt tell you how often people will download keywords from Google Keyword Planner. Theyโll upload it to their platform or into their Google AdWords Editor, start building their campaigns and single keyword ad groups. And then theyโre like, oh man, Iโm getting all this erroneous traffic. Well, part of the reason is because you just took every single keyword under the sun.
If you handpick your keywords, send it to the client for approval, or if you approve it yourself, youโre ensuring that youโre getting in front of the audience that you intend to get your message in front of. And there are other things that we do. But out of eight, nine tactics, youโre going to reduce at least 40 to 70% of waste. I promise you that. This is the process that we typically go through. Itโs straightforward. Thereโs a lot more complexities and nuances, but to really make this simple for everyone, if youโre doing these things, when I talk about competitor research, if you do your searches on Google that way, you can get some ideas. All of thatโs going to make a difference.
And this is not just for a simple $1000 client. We are doing this kind of blocking and tackling best practice wise for 50,000, $100,000 per month clients that have very complex campaigns. The fundamentals still hold true, and this is how you ensure that your campaigns are going to limit itself of waste on the front end. So I thank you, everyone, for taking the time. Really appreciate it. And Iโm sure Iโll see you all in the next one.