Congratulations! You’ve launched your new and improved website and you just know business is going to be booming. The orders are going to be pouring in and the phone is going to be ringing off the hook.
You’ve spent the last few months planning and executing every last detail about your website. Countless hours on design, functionality, updated AI and personalization features, maybe even a new logo – but did you also spend time making the necessary updates to your Google Ads and tracking?
Launching a new website is an exciting time for any business, and in order to help the new website maximize its full potential, you need to make sure you update your Google Ads in conjunction with the launch.
We’ve compiled a checklist to help you make sure you don’t miss any of these important steps!
✅ Link Check
Every Google Ads campaign needs a working landing page. The smartest, most clickable ad imaginable is useless unless the user who clicks it has somewhere to go.
Go through your ads and make sure your ads, sitelinks and keyword final URLs are pointing to correct, live pages on your website.
If any of your ads are leading users to pages with 404 Errors, you’ll need to update them – few things make Google more upset than a destination page that doesn’t work.
✅ Ad Relevance
Google is dedicated to providing their users with search results that most closely align with their needs. It’s always crucial to ensure your ads are relevant to your landing page, especially when launching a new site.
Landing Page Experience
Does the content on your new and updated landing pages still match the message of your ads?
Even if the answer is yes, there are probably a few tweaks you can make in your headlines and descriptions to freshen things up. Use your new website as an opportunity to breathe new life into your ad copy.
Keyword Alignment
Do the keywords you’re using in your Google Ads campaigns still match your website content?
Be sure to adjust your keywords as needed for any new themes and topics on your new website. Use Google Ads’s Keyword Planner to make sure you’re not missing relevant keywords.
Call-to-Actions(CTAs)
Have your CTAs changed on your website? You’ll want to mirror those changes in your Google Ads.
Remember, the more closely your ads reflect the landing pages they go to, the higher your relevance score will be.
✅ Conversions
There may be additional conversions you can track, and there may be conversions that are no longer relevant.
Comb through your website carefully. Get creative and specific.
If your business sells to distributors, and you’ve added a section to your site where users can search for places to buy your products, you may want to track people who click on directions to those businesses or click to call them.
If you’ve closed your physical storefront, it doesn’t make sense to track how many people are getting directions to your store, so you’d want to delete that conversion.
✅ Conversion Tracking and Analytics
Prior to launch, make extra-certain that you’ve updated your Google Tag Manager and Analytics tracking and that they have been correctly implemented on the new site.
It’s easy to check that these are working using the Preview feature in Google Tag Manager and Realtime in Analytics.
Once you’ve launched, verify your Google Ads account is still linked to Analytics. You can find this by clicking Tools and Settings in Google Ads. In the Setup section, click Linked Accounts. If everything is linked correctly, under “Your linked accounts and products”, Google Analytics (GA4) & Firebase will show they are linked as they do in the picture below.
✅ Extensions and Assets
Your Google Ads extensions and assets' biggest benefit is that they enhance the visibility and functionality of your ads. It’s important to review them to make sure they are doing the most for your new site.
Sitelinks
You should have already checked the URLs of your sitelinks to make sure they still work, and you should also review the new site to see if there are additional sitelinks that make sense to add in.
Callouts and Structured Snippets
Are your existing callouts and structured snippets still relevant? How could they be improved with the new website’s content?
Location and Call Extensions
If any of your contact details have changed, make sure to update that information in your ads.
✅ Ad Creatives
Creating your website was probably a pretty exhilarating experience, and your Google Ads will benefit from that same creative energy.
Use your new website to reinvigorate your ad campaign with updated copy highlighting the new website’s features.
Incorporate new images from your website into your Responsive Display Ads.
This is a great time to do some testing and see which messaging and call-to-action are performing the best.
Primed for Success
Launching your new website is a wonderful opportunity to showcase your brand in a new and exciting way, and to freshen up your Google Ads campaigns. Paying close attention to the details involved will help make the most of your new website and your Google Ads campaigns.
We at Eternity love a harmonized digital marketing strategy, and if you’d like to talk about a new website, some fresh Google Ads, or anything else in the digital marketing realm, please get in touch!
