Google AdWords are one of the most powerful tools you’ll come across as an ecommerce practitioner. Considering it is run by today’s influential search engine and they pop up as results, you have to learn how to properly harness them to your advantage.

Even as a local business, you have a shot at becoming successful in getting CTR’s and conversions from your Google ad placements. So here are a handful of helpful tips to get better results (and hopefully better sales) with your Google AdWords campaigns.

1. Track both your monetary and non-monetary conversions.

It’s never enough that you merely look at click through rates and web traffic to gauge if your ads are practically making a difference with your ROI. It is also important to track conversions when it comes to your costs as well as throughout your ecommerce transactions.

What you can also do is enable cost attribution to Google AdWords as well as Analytics so you can simultaneously see both your costs and sales with every campaign you create. As for non-monetary conversions like newsletter subscriptions, catalogues and the like, you also need to be tracking them.

Understand that you need to see if the costs you are investing give you well-justified returns when it comes to your sales.

2. Review your Impression Share.

Impression Share is one of Google AdWords’ features that show you the amount of impressions you get compared to the number of impressions you can potentially receive.

There’s Lost Impression Share, which could be subdivided into rank and budget. As for rank, IS shows you what your ads are missing out on because of rank. Of course, you can directly attribute this to the keywords you use or the overall appearance and effectiveness of your placements. As for budget, IS shows you the percentage of time your ads weren’t visible because of a lack of budget.

An Exact Match Impression Share lets you in on the percentage of time you were able to exactly match the keywords you’ve used in your ads with the ones typed in by users in the search engine. Of course, a higher percentage means you’re doing an excellent job.

This is one of the most recent tools Google added so you can further assess your performance so ensure you make use of it to improve your campaigns.

3. Appropriate your keywords and bids.

Someone who’s typing in “best tablets” isn’t looking for the same thing as someone typing in “best tablet deals Singapore”. This is why you need to create ads that have distinct keywords for each and are well managed in group bidding.

So every time you create an ad, make sure you separate those that are more inclined for transactions and those that are more for research. This way, you’re able to target just about every type of user/customer you should be eyeing.

4. Offer solid features, not vague pitches.

Google only allows 25 characters for headlines, 35 characters for each of the 2 description lines and 35 characters for the URL. This means that you have such a limited number of characters to work with but this also presents a good opportunity for you to work with.

Pull off a brilliant ad by being straightforward with the details. Instead of the word ‘Discount’, use say for instance ‘Save 15% on..’  This way, your potential customers can easily see what you’re offering them.

The key here is to be as tangible and solid when it comes to your ads. Be as far away from vague descriptions that could sound like spam to your customers.

5. Make sure your landing pages fit.

Each ad you make should lead your market to the appropriate and relevant landing page. Never mislead them because it’s not only your customers who will get pretty mad about it. Google has been quite relentless in keeping a keen eye on misdirected links and pages.

So for every keyword and campaign for certain products and services, there should be a related landing page.

Empower your ecommerce strategy by making the most out of your Google AdWords experience. Consider these 5 tips and be on your way to a better online store.