As a business owner or marketer, there’s no worse feeling than the sound of crickets. You have to do something to fill your pipeline when there’s a lack of contact form submissions, online orders, or phone calls. I recently read a ridiculous article that stated you shouldn’t use AdWords for the following reasons: You pay for clicks. It’s hard to compete with big companies. You have a limited number of characters. Mistakes can cost you dearly. It doesn’t fit your niche. I will explain why this article was completely inaccurate and how you can grow your business instantly through AdWords. My digital marketing agency manages millions of dollars in ad spend, so we have extensive experience in pay-per-click advertising.
1. You pay for quality and strategic clicks.
Pay-per-click advertising only pays for the keywords you strategically bid on. For example, if I’m a plumber and want to generate new leads for “plumbing companies near me,” I can bid on just those keywords, and I’ll only get charged when someone clicks my advertisement and visits my site. According to the Google Economic Impact Report, businesses make an average of $2 in revenue for every $1 they spend on AdWords.
Can you think of another form of advertising where the intent to purchase is higher? Your potential customers are typing what they want into Google, and your advertisement will only populate based on the keywords you select, and you will only get charged when someone clicks on your ads. If you manage your search terms report and add negative keywords, you can drive amazing quality traffic to your site. Ensure you bid smartly using a broad match modifier, phrase match, or exact match to drive traffic quality.
2. You can compete with big companies.
Unlike television ads in the ’80s and ’90s, where a business needed a substantial budget to get on the air, you can get started on AdWords for as little as $300. Theoretically, you can start with a budget, but $300 is the minimum we recommend for our clients. The reason behind the $300 budget recommendation is so we can generate enough clicks and data to make changes and enhancements to drive conversions.
According to CLUTCH, 45 percent of small businesses use PPC advertising. Once you start generating conversions for your business, whether ecommerce purchases for an online retailer or contact form submissions and prove the effectiveness of this form of advertising, you can increase your budget.
That’s the beauty of AdWords. You can actually track performance, and once your campaigns are profitable, you can continue to invest more. If you have the proper tracking in place and can justify the return on investment with a metric called ROAS (return on advertising spend), you can double down on your advertising spend. If you don’t see results, you can pause them with the click of a button.
3. Be creative with a limited number of characters.
People are obsessed with AdWords’ quality scores. They believe that if they place the exact keyword they are bidding on in the advertising copy, their quality score will improve, and their cost per click will be reduced.
I’ll let you in on a secret. If everyone is bidding on the term “Columbus Digital Marketing Agency” in the title of their advertisement, there’s not going to be anything that distinguishes your ad from the competition. I’ve included a unique advertisement below that distinguishes our agency from others. Don’t make your ad copy similar to everyone else.
4. Mistakes can cost you dearly.
According to the CEO of Disruptive Advertising, 61 percent of Google AdWords budgets are completely wasted. Mistakes can make or break your AdWords campaign. The same notion is true in every component of the business. Your taxes could be inaccurate and cause penalties if you have a lazy accountant. It helps to hire an expert who knows what they’re doing. If you haven’t set up an AdWords campaign before, I recommend letting a Google Certified Expert do this, as it will save you time and money. Be transparent with the PPC manager and inform her that you want to learn the tactics she is deploying, so down the road, you can do this yourself if you have the time and are willing to learn the craft.
Below are the biggest mistakes we most often see on AdWords:
Improper bidding, not properly using broad match modifier, phrase match, exact match, and broad match. Not monitoring the search terms results and adding negative keywords. Improper conversion tracking setup leads to inaccuracy in reporting, and the right decisions can’t be made. Poor advertising copy Location targeting not properly set up based on business objectives. Improper budget allocation should be better distributed to the most profitable parts of the business or areas where the company wants to grow. Improper date/time bidding — For many companies, bidding is unnecessary from 1 a.m. to 6 a.m. Bad landing page experience where the user is exposed to content not directly related to what’s being seen in the advertising copy
5. It doesn’t fit your niche.
If you can’t think of a search term to help someone learn more about your business, Facebook or Instagram could be a better play. Most companies can reap the benefits of Google AdWords and drive instant traffic to their site for relevant keywords. If executed properly, AdWords can be a gold mine for your business. The beauty is that if you want to get started on AdWords, a campaign can be set up in less than an hour and make a monumental long-term impact on your business.
