A little about Google
Google is an internet search engine. Originally known asBackRub, it is the leading subsidiary of Alphabet and operates as an umbrella to its internet interests. Google’s search engine algorithm was patented and named PageRank. Google’s stated mission is to “organise the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” Its position as the top search engine has generated criticism and concern about its power to influence the flow of online information. Google is so dominant that the term “Google” can also be used as a verb, so that when someone searches for something on Google, they may say they “Googled” it.
Top 5 Google Ads Products and Services
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Google Ads:
Formerly known as Google AdWords, this service enables users to pay to advertise on the Google search engine and other websites using Google AdSense.
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Google AdSense:
This service pays website publishers or blog developers to show advertisements on their site.
A video service that allows users to upload videos for free and also view others’ videos. This is the second largest Search Engine on the internet after Google Search.
Targeted Display ads while they’re browsing their favourite websites, showing a friend a YouTube video, checking their Gmail account, or using mobile devices and apps.
This allows users to monitor, measure and create reports of your Google Ads campaigns.
What is Google Ads?
When you see an ad for a company’s landing page at the top of a Google search, it indicates that the company is using a GoogleAds campaign.
Google Ads is an online advertising service for advertisers wanting to increase their online presence and visibility. This key digital marketing tool helps businesses get their brand or advert in front of their target audience. The business pays to enter an auction to display a Google Ad for its business to potential customers who search for relevant terms (i.e. “Divorce Lawyer”, “Financial Advisor”) on either Google Search Engine, Googles Networks and Maps.
Advertisers only pay for actual, measurable results such as website clicks or business calls. This form of advertising is known as a pay-per-click (PPC) or Search Engine Marketing (SEM). As a business, you can set a monthly ad-spend cap for your campaign and can choose to make the ad reach a particular audience globally, or locally through keywords or display advertising.
Bottom line: Google Ads (formerly known as Google AdWords) is a pay-per-click model that puts your content at the top of search results based on target keywords.
So Does Google Ads Actually Work?
Below we have listed some of the most valuable benefits of using Google Ads in your digital marketing strategy.
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YES – It Increases Leads and Customers
Google Ads is one of the best tools for lead generation. If you set-up your campaigns well, you should receive significant targeted leads to your website, opt-in form or other online property. GoogleAds helps you focus on people searching for what your business offer, therefore, providing you with the means to continually refine your searches so that only people who want to buy your products or services are directed to your website.
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YES – It Provides a Flexible Marketing Platform
Google Ads is suitable for all kinds and sizes of organisations including small business. It is compatible with a wide range of marketing platforms and software systems. This platform gives you control of when to turn internet traffic on and off at any time. You can customise campaigns to focus on your specific types of online users i.e. targeting people by location, type of device they use, and Google-owned websites they access (e.g., Google search, Google Maps, YouTube). You can also set a budget for specific areas of a campaign – daily budgets and limits on the amount you are willing to spend on clicks for specific keywords.
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YES – It can Provide High Returns on Investment
Google is unique as, unlike other marketing strategies, you only pay for ads people click on. Once your campaign is optimised, you will see a high return on investment – less likely with other methods. However, this is a time-consuming process as you have to find out which approach suits you and your business best. To get a clearer picture of what will give you the best results, you have to continually test and track your campaigns. This is information is readily available through Google, allowing you to focus your efforts and budget on those areas of your campaign that give a good return on investment. You can discard a campaign or parts of it, if they cost you money or deliver little results.
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YES – And the Results are Fast and Transparent
Google Ads delivers quick, straightforward results and reports on your campaigns. The dashboard provides all campaign information including clicked ads, keywords, website visitors entered and the cost of clicks. These features make the platform an extremely transparent and intuitive system.
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YES – You can tap into a huge, high quality traffic source
Google’s market dominance and massive customer base gives you the edge, as it can send you a large amount of online traffic every day (budget depending). Google prides itself on displaying relevant content/adsto consumers and continually evolves and improvesit’s search engine algorithms to do this. This is a plus point for your business as these ads send high-quality leads and visitors to your business’ website, e-commerce site, opt-in form or other online assets. Visitors Google sends to you are more likely visitors coming from other sources, to become customers, opt into your email list, request information or take whatever action you want them to take.
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YES – And it also Allows you to DiscoverMore About Your Market
It is crucial to understand your ideal customers, as that makes it much easier to deal with them and find out what they want. This is easier said than done as traditional methods such as questionnaires and interviews produce limited results. On the other hand, Google Ads provide information about what customers want and require – an asset which the previous generation of business owners did not have access to. Some of the valuable data Google Ads shares about your customers include the keywords they use to find your website, their location, the devices they use, and the times and days they search. This is a wealth of information that you can use to improve your products and services and refine your marketing efforts, ensuring your money is well invested in customers who show a great deal of interest in what you can offer them.
What are the risks/down sides to Google Ads?
It’s not all good news……there are significant risks and down sides when running a Google Ads campaign, which we have listed a few below. Choosing the best digitalmarketing agency is critical when starting your Google ads campaign.
- Yourbusiness case for investment may provide little to no returns
- It can be expensive if you don’t have the right training and experience to run the campaigns on Google Ads Manager
- An incorrect account set up increases advertising costs through poor quality scores
- You have the wrong keywords / no negative keywords which ensure the quality of the website traffic
- You don’t continually optimise the campaigns providing expensive advertising
- Keywords / Search Terms
- CPC
- Search Impression Share
- Locations
- Bid strategy
- Audiences
- There is no conversions rate optimisation strategyin place for on and offline conversionsenabling effective lead management
- The Google Ad Manager Platform is complex and requires a significant investment in time to understand.
In Summary
Google Ads is a powerful tool which will no doubt improve your business, convert visitors to your website into leads and new customers. If you take the first step, be smart about your digital advertising strategy and understand your business case and you will reap the rewards that GoogleAds has in store for you.
Feel free to Get in touch if you don’thave the necessary Google Ads expertise and experience. We’ll understand your business objectives, build a business case for investment, to see if Google Ads is right for you.
