Maximising your marketing budget and getting a good return on investment from Google’s Adwords platform can feel a little daunting. With a passion for helping businesses grow and manage their resources sustainably, we spoke to Dilate Digital who specialise in Adwords in Perth (click here) to help you succeed with Google Adwords.
1. Get to know Google’s campaign types & terms
It can be tempting to jump straight into the platform and “wing it” entrepreneur style, however, this can (and does) result in blowing your budget and your confidence in getting Google Adwords working for your business.
Google Ads are performance based, meaning that when the customer meets a goal, you pay. You want to choose the right campaign and bid strategy for your marketing goal, and ensure that your ad is set to appear on the appropriate channel within the Google Display Network.
PPC is the most common term, meaning pay per click, although it is not the only Google Adword strategy available. A great guide to strategies that adheres to business read more at american-image.com.
Depending on your marketing goal, you may wish to undertake a different bid strategy. If you are focused on building brand awareness, visibility bidding may be more suitable where you pay on cost per thousand impressions. Smart bidding can be deployed when you are looking at cost per action, and focused on converting a customer – this may be getting leads, or sales.
Alternately, a combination of Adwords campaigns may suit in which case a portfolio bid strategy would be the right choice. Note that not all types of campaigns can be run across the entire Google Display Network, so it’s worthwhile to know where your customer is most likely to be digitally.
2. Know your customer
Existing customer data can be used to help formulate your Google ads campaign. If you are a brand new business, having clear buyer personas will help with how you create and target your ad. If you are a business who is service based, think of your reach in terms of location, and get into the customer nitty gritty with demographics and customer interests so that the right people see you.
If you are product based and capable of shipping nationally or globally (whether you stock the product in house or you use a drop ship model), then the world really is your oyster.
Think about the search terms that customers will be typing into Google to find you, what type of products or experiences they are interested in, and if they don’t mind watching a bit of YouTube or reading other sites, think about which ad type will help to reach the audience. The research phase is so important, and often missed, however time spent at the front end of the Ads process can save you down the track. In a short note, Find out more about your customers.
3. Have clear marketing goals
Goal clarity will help to shape your Google ad marketing campaign and deliver on your strategic goals. Are you wanting to generate x amount of new leads, build your brand awareness, or do some remarketing to customers who abandoned their shopping carts because they got distracted by kids fighting over the last mint slice.
Whatever your goal is, it’s good practice to have a dashboard and reporting set up so that you can track your performance, work out what is working, and make changes along the way. Get familiar with any performance reports you intend on creating. A good performance report will be clear, enable you to monitor goals, and have minimal confusion when it comes to communicating results within your business.
4. Understand the importance of ad creative and copy
If you are thinking that the biggest bid wins the highest position when it comes to choosing a keyword, you’ll be pleased to know that Google has a quality score. It’s the combination of ad creative and your bid that matters.
Think of copy, imagery and graphics and ad relevancy of where your customer are going. Aligning ad creative with your chosen keyword bid strategy is really important.
5. Choose your audience
Adwords that are created should keep your audience selection in alignment with marketing goals. Google have an veritable audience buffet – with 8 options to choose from, and they are designed to perform certain tasks.
6. Get comfortable with the learning phase
Anything new that is launched will go through a learning phase. Actually, Google ads like to learn. Machine learning is one of the key features of Google ads to help you reach your advertising goals. Once your ad is launched, be sure to regularly check the Google monitor to see who is responding at what time and where. Thanks to their nifty algorithms, they work to display your ad when it is more likely to succeed.
Allow time to develop your knowledge and experience, so that each time you design and execute an ad, you are improving on the last one.
7. Make time to monitor and measure
This is an important activity to undertake while your ad set is running. Whilst Google utilises machine learning, having human eyes watch what is working and what is not becomes really important. It’s about looking at which campaigns are getting the clicks AND the conversions.
Ad creative still plays a role here, as split testing means that the team can tell you whether an image with puppies and flowers for your florist campaign performs better than an image of flowers with chocolates, which brings us to the next hot area.
8. Know how to optimise
Monitoring and managing ads can take some time. Optimising your ad spend means finding the ad sets that are working for you, and taking advantage of the machine learning used in the Google algorithm. Optimising also means knowing which audience, which product and service, and which creative ad campaign is working best for your business.
Partnering with an experienced Google ads account manager can help you get there faster – you’ll be working with a team who has already done the hard yards of learning what works (and what doesn’t).
9. Have a solid ROI calculation
The return on investment calculation when done correctly will help you to know which products and services are getting you the best return for your business.
When calculating, be sure to understand the true cost of goods (or services) sold. Look at your order to cash process, and factor in the cost of the Google ad campaign so you know where and how your hard earned money is working best in your business.
ROI = (Revenue – Cost of goods sold) / Cost of goods sold
10. Be ok with change
Google likes to change things up with algorithm updates, and how content is displayed. Trying to work this out can be difficult if you or your team lack experience in this area.
If you don’t want to go at it alone in the ad space, consider choosing a Google Premier partner. It will give you confidence that you have a certified team who can keep on top of any changes for you.
