You’re advertising on Google – that’s awesome! There is a lot for your business to gain by using Google Ads for your business – if you are running them with a solid strategy behind them, know what you are doing and aren’t just throwing good money after bad. There’s a misconception about Google Ads that the more money you throw at them, the better. However, this isn’t necessarily true, and many businesses end up wasting their ad budget doing this. It’s not about how much you spend, but rather how you utilize the different tools available to yield the results you want. So, are you wasting money on your Google Ads? Or better yet, are your Google Ads actually helping increase your bottom line? To help you improve your existing Google advertising strategy you’ll need to understand a few things like…
Different ad types yield different results
There are a few ways to advertise through Google, most think of the most basic being paid search ads. When you use paid search advertising you target your ads to specific keywords that people are searching for. What most business owners aren’t aware of though is that there are a handful of other ad units – that’s what us geeks call them – that are very useful in addition to or even as stand alone campaigns which can yield much better results when executed properly and again – with strategy. We talk about strategy a lot because it’s what makes the cash register ring. It’s not just another trendy word to create a hashtag out of.
So what are these other ad units or campaign types?
The first is display ads or a display advertising campaign.
Which you may pay more for one over paid search advertising depending on how they are targeted. Display ads are placed on specific websites or beside specific topics of content you choose to hyper-target a specific audience. What’s different in comparison to paid search advertising is that they are what’s considered a “push” advertisement because they appear in front of a potential lead because of targeting parameters. Whereas a Search Ad appears when someone searches for something similar or exactly like the product or service your business provides, which therefore classifies it as a ‘pull’ advertisement. However, just because one is worth more than the other, doesn’t mean it will yield better results – it all depends on what your advertising goals are. If you are looking to capture high-quality leads and cater to a local audience, search ads are better for you. On the other hand, if your product or service is more visual and want to create awareness among those with passive intent to purchase a product you think they might be interested in, display might be the better campaign to run out of the two.
Then there are shopping ads which are great for retailers…
But if you don’t know about them and how to set them up correctly, you can’t use them. And, you have to become an approved vendor in Google’s advertising system before you can use them which can take some fancy footwork before you can get started. Shopping Ads are great for e-commerce websites – that’s a fact. But, they also work well for retailers who want people to buy their product in-store as well. The long and short of this one though is if you don’t have a plan as to how to keep your shopping ads updated and how to properly set up a Shopping Campaign, Google won’t show your advertisements. So, before you start blowing your ad budget on shopping ads, you need to get yourself organized and learn the ropes first. If your campaign isn’t set up right, it won’t matter if you’re willing to spend $1,000 a day. They just won’t run them. Why? Because although their goal as a business is to collect advertising dollars it’s also their goal to provide the best possible answer to what people are searching for to provide the best and most efficient user experience.
Another ad unit we love are video pre-roll ads on YouTube.
You’ve seen these before if you’ve watched pretty much any YouTube video where either you can skip the ad after 5 seconds or you have to sit through the ad before the video content you actually want to watch will play. Why we love them is that you can seriously hyper target these ads in your advertising strategy. You could just say run my video advertisements on YouTube videos that are being watched by those in my local area. Or, you could say run this ad only when someone between the ages of 35 and 45 watches a DIY home renovation video. The more specific you get, the higher the cost but, you’re also way more likely to capture the right lead than with a more generic approach.
Now the big question…Where are YOUR ads appearing?
Where your Google Ads appear online can make or break your campaign. It can also dictate whether you are burning good money or not. In fact, here is a quick improvement example for you: Let’s you know that 85% of your website traffic comes from mobile users. You know that because you’ve been tracking your website visitors using Google Analytics. (SIDE NOTE: If you’re NOT tracking your website visitors and how they engage with your website stop reading this right now, bookmark it for later, and go install Google Analytics on your website. It’s free and very useful.) If that is the case, why would you waste your money showing your ads to people using desktop computers? Does your target audience even own a computer? Or do they typically only use that device that seems permanently glued to their hand? Little tweaks in your campaign like this one can have a huge impact on your results and on increasing your bottom line.
The moral of the story or rather of this blog post: before you start using Google Ads, you need to do a lot of research beforehand and outline what your advertising goals are. Once you’ve established that, then you’re ready to run with Google Ads. Your cost per click could be as little as 0.08 – 0.25 cents per click to your website – and if you’re currently paying more than that, we can fix that. It’s important to not forget that Google as a business is very savvy at getting non-tech savvy advertisers to use their advertising tools to capture your money. One of the ways they do this is by offering Express ads. Sort of like Facebook’s boosted posts you can start up a campaign in a couple of clicks which is fine to start out. But, using those ads won’t create the same results as working with a team of Google Advertising experts that really know what makes the system tick and how to work the system to get you better leads for less. At 3SIXTY Marketing Solutions, it’s an addiction of ours to optimize your Google Advertising campaigns weekly if not daily to create real results for your business. We’re kind of the pros at this sort of thing. So, if you’ve been thinking of using Google Advertising or you’ve been tinkering at them yourself but aren’t getting much result give us a call at (705) 252-4180 and let’s take your advertising game to the next level.
