Google Adwords Advanced Settings 

If you are a Google Adwords advertiser, there are many advanced settings that not many people use to optimize their ad campaign. In fact, many people are not even aware of how these techniques may help to improve the quality of their ads.

1) Using Geo-Targetting

If your business is only operating in a specific country like Singapore, you will not want your ad to appear in India. Clicks from India are not considered qualified leads when you are not able to sell your products/services to these countries. Geo-targetting allows you to target your ads to specific countries and languages only.

2) Using exact match, phrase match and negative match

Online searchers do not normally type a single keyword into the search box to find your website. Normally, they will type a key phrase instead. In your ppc keyword list, you may try using more exact match instead of general match. If you are operating a property related website, you should use "property -intellectual" as negative match. These settings can make your ad more relevant and targeted.

3) Discover overlooked key phrases

We can sometimes find some key phrases that may be overlooked by your competitors. There may be nobody bidding for these keywords. If using these overlooked key phrases can lead to conversion, this essentially means that you are paying much lesser for each conversion. There are many free keyword research tools that you may use, such as SEO book keyword suggestion tool.

4) Using Ad scheduling

For certain kind of business, there are generally little or no potential customers that may seriously look for your products/services during certain time of the day/night. In fact, most B2B business should not display their PPC ads after 11pm for simple reason.

5) Using conversion tracking

In sales and marketing, a conversion occurs when a visitor click on the ad that you are running, and perform an action which you consider as valuable. Eg. sign up / order a product / make payment. Simply put, conversion tracking is about monitoring lead conversion. If you are running your ads but not tracking the conversion rate, it can be dangerous as well as a waste of your dollars. Setting up conversion tracking helps you to identify which are the better performing keywords that lead to higher conversion. Essentially, it also helps you to identify click fraud which you may report, if any.

Above are some of the more basic tips which you can use to improve your ad performance.