Create Unique Landing Pages

If your ad is promoting a specific product, make sure your ad is linking to that specific product’s landing page. When someone clicks on your ad, Google will penalize you if the ad directs them to a non-specific or unrelated landing page on your site. While linking all of your ads to your site’s homepage will save you some time and energy in the short term, it will only hurt you in the long run.

Stay Relevant

Metadata is your friend. Include negative keywords so that your ads don’t appear in the wrong searches (eg: having your gourmet chocolate ad turn up in an search for chocolate labs). Make sure you’re geo-targeting your ads to areas of the world you’re looking to gain exposure in. Again, the more specific you can get with your ads, the easier it will be for you to fine-tune your campaign and start climbing the search results.

Cater to Mobile

With smartphones and tablets rapidly overtaking desktops as the screen of choice, make sure you don’t shoot yourself in the foot during the design process. AdWords provides you with resources to make custom ads that can be tailored to screens of all sizes. Make the most of them.

Do your Research

Once you’ve researched your keywords, created your ads, and made your bids, don’t just set it and forget it. Always be keeping tabs of how your ads are performing so that you can continually adjust your campaign to make the most of your investments. If you’re making smart decisions and giving users what they want, the less money you’ll have to spend to get their attention down the line.

While there’s more to mastering AdWords than just following these steps, the first step to mastery is an understanding of the basics. Regardless of your budget, AdWords can help bring your business to the next level. It’s just all about how you use it.