Google Ads is a form of online advertising that allows businesses to display ads on Google. In simple terms, whenever a user searches for something on Google related to the products or services offered by a business, the businesses ad may appear above or below the organic search results.

Google Ads

If that searcher sees and clicks on the ad they will be directed to the predefined landing page that the business specified for the ad. The advertiser will then be charged for each click that occurs on their ad. Assuming the business did a good job of targeting the right keywords, creating relevant ad copy, and providing a good landing page experience for the searcher, there is a solid chance that the prospect may in turn get in touch or purchase something.

In this article we’ll outline why every business should be considering Google advertising as a key marketing channel in helping them attract new customers and increase revenue.

1. Its an extremely effective way to reach qualified prospects

Google ads allow you to target your audience with a high level of precision. You decide which keywords that your ad will appear for, and, over time introduce tactics to reduce the odds of your ads showing against keywords that have proven to be less relevant and impactful for your business.

Can you think of another form of marketing where the intent to purchase is higher? When it comes to Google Search Ads the prospect is literally typing into Google what they want, and you as the advertiser get to specify that you want to show up, what you want to say, and where you want them to go on your website if they click on your ad. To add onto this, you’ll only pay if the prospect does actually click.

When a prospect arrives on your website having already shown clear interest through their search query, there is a much higher chance they will take a positive action.

2. It can have almost instant impact to the business

Unlike SEO where the impact may take significant time to come fruition, and the outcome is far from guaranteed, Google Ads can be up and running the same day.

If we assume the campaigns have been well set-up and that your website is meeting some basic expectations, then you could start observing almost immediate impact in your numbers. Maybe the phone lines will call just that little more often, maybe more people will contact you by Whatsapp or on email. Whatever your measure of success, it would be expected that you’d see some kind of impact within a relatively short period of time.

Do be somewhat patient though. If your campaigns and budget have only generated a few clicks, you probably need to sit back and let things run a little longer before jumping to any conclusions.

If by chance you’ve previously put campaigns live and let them run for a period of time without results, please do consider getting in touch for some professional advice.

3. You are in control of your destiny [mostly] and the risk is very low

As an advertiser you get to decide which keywords to bid upon, how much you’re willing to spend per day, and where you wish to direct those visits to. You have tons of control on how much you choose to invest and on what, and if at any point you don’t feel you’re seeing the return, you can turn things off and consider your next steps carefully before trying again.

A word of caution here – if you are not experienced in running Google Ads, do be cautious when you initially set-up your campaign. Google has an interest in helping you spend money, and they will make suggestions that are not necessarily in your best interests. Once your campaigns are live, Google will continue to make suggestions which again may not always help you extract more positive outcomes.

For the avoidance of doubt we are not saying Google is intentionally trying to rob you. They aren’t, but their algorithms often make suggestions which aren’t in your best interests. As Warren Buffet famously said “Don’t ask the barber whether you need a haircut” and it’s something very relevant when thinking about taking advice from Google. Their interests may not always fully align with yours.

4. It is a highly measurable marketing tactic

Assuming you have taken the time to implement web analytics tracking on your website and set-up various conversion goals, then Google Ads can provide a highly measurable tactic that enables you to see visits through to conversions at an individual keyword level. This makes it an excellent channel to connect revenue back to your costs for Google Ads and calculate the relative return on your investment.

Possible conversion goals could include things such as:

Fills out and submits a web form
Clicks on a phone number or Whatsapp link
Opens and starts a live chat or Whatsapp dialogue
Completes an online purchase
Completes a web registration
Signs up for a newsletter

If you are looking for support in setting up web analytics and implementing conversion tracking that connects back into your Google Ads campaigns, please get in touch.

5. The data you can collect on keywords can be invaluable

One of the cool things about Google Search Ads is that you can leverage it to collect keyword data that can inform your business on your SEO strategy. For example, bidding on Google Ads will allow you to collate information on which keywords drive the highest visit volumes, but more crucially the best conversion and revenue output. Assuming you are tracking things properly.

This might shine a light on certain keywords you didn’t necessarily know about or recognise the full potential of. From this data you may find that there is keywords delivering leads and revenue that you don’t rank upon organically. You might then leverage this insight to generate new service pages or articles designed to increase your chances of ranking on these keywords, which in turn will help your business generate further leads and revenue from search as a whole.

A word of caution before you dive into Google Ads

There is a lot of mistakes that many advertisers make when diving into Google Ads which often results in poor return on investment and a belief that the tactic won’t work for them long term. Below is some of the most common mistakes we observe.

Poorly optimised or often totally mismatched landing pages

Before starting your Google Ads journey, please review whether your website is suitably optimised to receive visits that are costing you money each time someone clicks through. Whilst not every business may want or need to invest substantially in their website before starting Google Ads, you should probably consider aspects such as:

Does the landing page you are sending people to accurately connect with the keywords you are bidding on? If someone is searching for printing, but you land them on a contact page that doesn’t even mention printing, it’s probably not going to work very well. You probably need to ensure that you have a printing service page to send people to first.
Does your website load and work properly on mobile devices? If not, then you could consider implementing steps within Google Ads to at least prevent your ads from showing up on mobile devices. Limit instead your ads to only showing up on non-mobile devices such as laptops. Do bear in mind however that in many industries 80%+ of all search traffic would probably be coming from mobile devices, so if you exclude this, you are excluding a big market opportunity.
Do you have obvious contact information present on your website? That might just be ensuring you have a dedicated and easy to find contact page, or it could be implementing phone and/or Whatsapp numbers and forms within your core landing pages. Whatever route – make it very easy for a prospect to find it.

If you feel your website is not up to scratch then there is plenty of ways you could still invest in Google Ads without having to directly deliver people to your website. Please get in touch if you wish to look into these options further.

Not being targeted enough with the keywords selected

Google is not your friend. They will take your keyword inputs and make decisions for you which are designed to help them more freely spend your budget. In many cases these decisions are not necessarily going to result in ideal outcomes for you.

For example, let’s say your company is a distributor of electronic components and you sell transformers. You may choose to bid on the keyword “transformers” expecting to receive lots of relevant traffic.

If you did nothing else except add the keyword transformers to your campaign, chances are Google will show your ads on many keywords that are not relevant to the type of transformers your business is actually selling. You may show up on keywords such as:

transformer toys
Optimus prime
transformers list
transformers movie

It is the responsibility of the advertiser to ensure steps are taken to prevent Google from making these kind of decisions on your behalf.

Make your money work harder for you by ensuring your selection of keywords are really targeted at the areas where your business has a chance of winning. Once your campaigns are in-market, be sure to check on something called the search terms report and leverage negative keywords to reduce the chances of your ads showing up against less relevant keywords.

Lack of proper analytics and event tagging to track performance

As the saying goes “you can’t manage what you can’t measure” and this is extremely relevant when it comes to online marketing. You should ensure the basics are in place before commencing your journey with Google Ads, this includes:

Some form of web analytics installed across your website. Google Analytics is free and easy to implement and use.
Implementation of appropriate conversion goals on your website. Need help with this, get in touch.
Importing your conversion goals into Google Ads so their algorithm can optimise based on what drives the best conversion volume or value.

These three things will allow you to tie back conversions on your website to the specific campaigns and keywords that drove them and allow you to properly assess and optimise your investments over time.

Not jumping in and optimising the campaigns properly once they are up and running

Many new advertisers might get excited by that initial thrill of setting up and launching their campaigns but then fail to maintain that motivation into continually analysing and optimising their campaigns to improve the performance.

Even if on the surface your campaigns seem to be performing relatively well, and you are generally happy with the output, it is inevitable that you will be wasting money in some areas. It is the job of the advertiser to continually optimise the campaigns to reduce wastage as much as possible and ensure the investments go into the areas that deliver the most conversions.

As we’ve said above, Google is not your friend and they will take decisions for you that may not be in your best interests. Some basic steps you need to take:

Review your campaign spending and ensure that the daily spends are roughly in line with your comfort levels. Adjust them if not and ensure you don’t meet any surprises when the bill comes through.
Google will show your ads on keywords you didn’t specifically add into your campaigns. Look at the Google search terms report to see which keywords Google is showing your ads against. Make sure the keywords costing you money are indeed relevant and have the potential to deliver outcomes. If they aren’t, add them as negative keywords to prevent Google from continuing to waste your money.
Keep checking your spend vs. outcomes. Is your investment actually delivering leads and revenue? Are certain campaigns or keywords performing better than others? Should you / can you adjust your budgets accordingly based on this information? If there are campaigns or keywords simply not working – ask yourself why? If you don’t have an answer right away, turn off the investments until you have a hypothesis and a set of actions to take before turning it back on. An example could be implementing a new landing page with better information.

There are many other things worth keeping a close eye on, but these are a good start point. If you need further guidance, please get in touch.

How can we help?

If your business is interested in Google Ads to increase leads and revenue, but you lack the internal knowledge or time to take this on, please consider reaching out for a no obligation discussion. We offer highly affordable campaign set-up and ongoing management fees and we can help with areas such as:

Keyword research to identify the keyword opportunity that connects with your businesses products or services.
Set-up and management of high quality Google Ads campaigns.
Review or create landing pages that are optimised for conversion from Google Ads.
Review or implement appropriate tracking to ensure we can effectively track the performance of your campaigns and optimise them over time for conversion.
Handover and training should you wish to bring your Google Ads campaigns in-house.

Thank you for your reading and best of luck in your Google Ads adventures!

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