“Oh lord—we’ve lost a lot of money!” This is an exclamation you might hear in the lobby of a casino, but sadly, it’s something we hear when people have not set up their Google Ads Campaign correctly.
It’s because some people don’t approach Google Ads with a professional attitude; instead, they seem to trust “Lady Luck”.
If you think about it, there’s a key difference between a professional and the average person who enters into a situation where sums of money can be made or lost quickly.
That key difference is that the professional never sets foot into a money-related situation without having a well thought out STRATEGY!
Strategy = Winning
Therefore, even if you’re a beginner, you should always have some kind of strategy in place when working with Google Ads, because then you’ll spend your money wisely and WIN EVERY time.
Google Ads can be a win-win for your marketing
With its powerful and widespread reach, Google Ads gives you access to millions of your target customers literally within minutes of setting up a campaign.
This opens up countless opportunities for you and your business that would not otherwise be available.
What’s also terrific about it is that you can start and stop campaigns whenever you want to, and your Ads will appear either at the top or bottom of the page, depending upon your market and how you bid (which we can get into in another blog post).
But, the downside is that for all this functionality, there are multiple things you’ll want to keep in mind because if you don’t, you can quickly get into trouble. With Google Ads, the “devil is in the details!”
Some vital questions you need to ask so you don’t lose your shirt:
- What do you want to accomplish—what is your goal?
- Whom do you want to reach—what’s your ideal demographic?
- What geographical location is important to you?
- What time of day is the best time for your customers?
- How much do you want to spend—what is your hourly, daily, weekly budget?
Let’s look at each one...
What do you want to accomplish—what is your goal?
Google Ads is arguably one of the most powerful tools you can supplement your SEO (Search Engine Optimization) strategies with because of what you can do with it and the information you can glean from it. However, you need to narrow down your goals, and then put them into an order of importance before you get started.
Some basic goals to think about are:
Test your keywords
Before you spend a lot of time and money optimizing your site, most professionals will test their main keywords with a quick and inexpensive Google Ads campaign.
Within a few hours or days, depending upon how it’s set up, you can see which of your “best” keywords actually CONVERT!
This is incredibly helpful because you can narrow down which keywords are worth investing in. How awesome is that?
How much does it cost you per lead?
This is a good example of becoming a professional with a strategy.
By figuring the cost-per-click and how fast your visitors convert to customers, you can get a good idea of how much it’s going to cost you to make that conversion: to get that visitor turned into a customer.
Do A/B split testing
Test your headlines and calls-to-action. Which ones work best? Then you can add those to your title tags, and descriptions, and work them throughout your site
This saves you loads of time and money because you can dial in precisely the verbiage that works best with your target customers.
Or, if you plan to continue to drive traffic to your site via Google Ads, you can develop the most powerful headline text, a display URL, and description text combinations possible.
The better your click-through rate, the better you’ll do with Google Ads.
Let’s continue...
Whom do you want to reach—what’s your ideal demographic?
Here is another area you’ll want to pay close attention to when you’re setting up your Ads campaign. Dial it in as much as you can so your ads DISPLAY ONLY to those who find them RELEVANT!
If you don’t know the demographics (such as the follow) of your customers you are setting yourself up for a world of hurt in Google Ads.
- Age
- Gender
- Race
- Marital status
- Number of children (if any)
- Occupation
- Annual income
- Education level
Without clear direction, Google will show your Ads to people who don’t match your demographics, who probably are not interested in your products or services, so your Ads won’t get clicked, and Google will penalize you for that in way that is going to cost you.
In casino terms: The House Just Won.
So get organized, which ALSO means knowing...
What geographical location is important to you?
For example, you sell a seasonal product such as skateboards. This market arguably would taper off during the winter months in some areas of the United States. That said, however, what about California, or Hawaii, or parts of Mexico and tropical countries?
Narrow it down, so your ads only show in those geographical areas, during their optimal seasons, and you just saved more money, targeted your customer better, and raised your chances of having a successful Ads campaign.
What time of day is the best for your customers?
An important tip: When do you want your Ads to show? You can pick the days and times your Ads will be shown to your potential customers. This is really important!
Therefore, if your best customers tend to shop between 10:00 pm and 1:00 am in certain areas, then make sure your Ads only show at those times.
This can make the difference between blowing through your budget quickly, as opposed to spreading it out over several days.
How much do you want to spend—what is your hourly, daily, weekly budget?
It’s very easy to control your budget on Google Ads, but you need to pay close attention and set it up correctly.
A good thing to know is that Google Ads has NO MINIMUM! This is great, because if you want to set your maximum budget at $5.00 per day because clicks in your industry are relatively inexpensive, then do it!
Once you have reached your daily budget, Google stops showing your Ads. This way you’ve done your testing, gotten your answers, and you can move on.
Now you can review the data and your analytics (Google Analytics: The Treasure Map You Don’t Want to Ignore!) and see what happened.
Did you reach your goals?
If not, then tweak your Ads and run them again until you know exactly what works, in what area, and with which demographic.
Google Ads is powerful, but go slowly if you’re new
Google Ads is extremely effective when used correctly. There really is nothing better to quickly and accurately test your keywords and market, and then drive better, more targeted traffic to your site.
You can also quickly improve your SEO efforts for better organic search results with the information you get from Google Ads.
And, just like the casinos that give classes to teach you to play blackjack or poker so you understand how the game is played, we can teach you to work with Google Ads through our suite of Digital Marketing Courses that cover Google Ads, Google Analytics, Social Media Marketing, SEO, and more.
