From Click to Conversion: Google Ads Best Practices for DMOs

Some of the most common and costly mistakes in using Google Ads occur during the pre-launch planning and campaign-building phase.

Many organizations dive in without a clear strategy, rushing to build campaigns without thoroughly researching their target audience, keywords, or competitive landscape. This often results in poorly structured account setups, vague ad groups, and irrelevant or overly broad keywords that burn through budgets with little return. Without a strong foundation, even the most compelling ads will struggle to drive meaningful results.

Common mistakes:

• No preset goals or clear key performance indicators that will help you meet your objectives.
  • TIP: Always set your goals and figure out how you are going to measure them at the onset. These goals will inform everything else you do, from campaign settings to ad copy. For instance, set goals like increasing partner referrals by 10%, or increased meeting planner guide requests by 25% YoY.
• Incorrect bidding strategies, such as setting your campaign for traffic generation when you actually want to drive more newsletter signups.
  • TIP: Make sure your goals align with your bidding strategy. If you want to drive conversions like partner referrals or newsletter signups, make sure you are using a ‘maximize conversions’ bidding strategy, for instance.

• Location settings that are too broad, such as targeting the Los Angeles DMA, with the default ‘Presence or Interest’ setting. After a week of running ads, you see in Google Analytics that your ads not only ran in Los Angeles, but also in Spain, resulting in poor engagement and underqualified traffic.
  • TIP: Always use the ‘Presence’ setting so that the platform only shows your ads in the specific city/region/country that your audience resides in.

• Daily budget that is too low, resulting in ads shutting down early in the day.
  • TIP: In the status column of the campaign view in Google Ads, it will recommend a daily budget if your ads are going offline early in the day. Adjust as data pours in.

• Poor campaign structure, such as one search campaign with both leisure and meetings ad groups and ads.
  • TIP: Your campaigns should have a singular objective, and ad groups (or asset groups) and associated keywords should be thematically grouped. This makes for better ad strength and targeting, while also helping with organization and management of these campaigns.
• Allowing Google to automatically create assets from your landing pages, resulting in poorly constructed ads and landing pages that don’t align with user intent.
  • TIP: This feature allows Google to use the content from your landing pages and ads to customize its own ads. Always opt out of this, and use only assets you provide. The more control you have, the better off you are.
• Relying too heavily on AI-generated headlines and ad copy.
  • TIP: In general, don’t use AI to fully manage every process in your campaign build. It should augment — not replace — your strategies and tactics. Always proofread AI suggestions, and look at the ad preview before launching.
• Not sending traffic to the appropriate landing page.
  • TIP: Make sure the landing page you’re sending traffic to deliver on the promise your ads are highlighting. You only have one chance to make a first impression. Make sure the user experience is optimal, and that the page delivers the information that your audience is looking for. Don’t, for instance, send ‘things to do’ searchers to the homepage. Send them to your Things to Do page.
• Not setting up proper conversion tracking. If you don’t set your conversion goals correctly, you will not know how effective your campaigns are at driving the actions that matter most to you. Google will also not know how to effectively bid for the traffic you want without these conversions tracking properly.
  • TIP: Configure Google Ads conversion tags for every form or click event (like a partner referral) via Google Tag Manager. It is also recommended to set up enhanced conversions, which will improve the accuracy of your conversion measurement in the current privacy safe world.

At Tempest, we’ve spent over 15 years helping destinations manage and grow their brands through Google Ads. What sets us apart is our commitment to transparency and partnership. You’ll always know where your dollars are going, with previews, placements, and full end-to-end reporting included.

Let’s connect and build something meaningful together — for your destination and the people who power it.