You are excited about how your business is growing. More and more people are starting to recognize your company and brand. You want to continue to advertise your business and its products. You’ve heard great things about Google Adwords and you think it’s the perfect next step to further develop your business.
But before you make the decision to engage in Google AdWords, you need to make sure your business is really ready for this PPC because Google Adwords is not a magic sphere leading to successful marketing and a poor AdWords campaign can easily lead to a disaster. And when we say disaster, we mean unnecessary waste of money without any effect.
It’s not beneficial for a company to run an AdWords campaign immediately just because other companies talk about how profitable it can be. To get the most out of using Google Adwords, you need information about the following:
1. Customer Demand
The first component is to know what your customers are looking for. If your customers are not looking for your product or service on Google, then obviously the AdWords Search Ad will not work for you. So, before you make the decision to create your first campaign, you need to verify that there is actually a search volume for what you are going to offer.
The tool you will need to use is the Keyword Planner and the Google AdWords Keyword Suggestion Tool. In addition to showing traffic for any keyword, its advanced choices can also show you how competitive a word is, the percentage of local monthly searches, relevant alternate phrases, and cost-per-click of the keyword.
When examining your keyword selection, ask yourself if the keywords are searched for on Google. This can also help you determine the user’s intention and whether you can afford the CPC (cost per click) keyword.
2. Marketing Budget
After doing some research and identifying your keywords, calculate the maximum cost-per-click (CPC) you are willing to spend. The more competitive a keyword, the more you will need to spend (or offer) on it. Do not just choose keywords that are competitive. On the contrary, prefer those that you can afford, which will probably give you more profitable results. For example, if your maximum CPC is $5, you’re more likely to make a profit using a keyword that costs 4€ instead of 5€.
To get an idea of what your maximum CPC will be, you’ll need to multiply the conversion rate for your website, ad profit margin and per-client earnings.
There is a a handy tool from Kissmetrics that can help you calculate your maximum CPC. This is the formula:
Max CPC = (profit per customer) x (1 – profit margin) x (webpage conversion rate)
3. Understanding competition
If you really want to conquer the game of keywords, you should start with the keywords that have the most searches, but also know which keywords your competitors are using.
There are a number of tools that can help you “spy on” your competitors, such as KeywordSpy. This tool collects and provides insights into your competitors’ past activities, including the top keywords they use and how long each keyword has been in use. If you see someone using a particular set of words for a long time, you can consider it as an indication that the keyword was successful for them, which means you should consider similar terms.
You can also search for previous ad and marketing materials from a competitor who uses high-performing keywords and then export all the necessary information to your AdWords account.
4. Innovation and Original Offers
There are millions of sites out there that promote all kinds of brands, products and services. Any kind of digital marketing, including the use of a Google AdWords campaign, will be useless if your trademark is not able to stand out among others. You have to offer products and services that are unique and stand out from the competition.
If you have a unique selling proposition (Unique Selling Proposition (USP)), you can carefully study your company’s capabilities, get ideas from your customers, and look for opportunities that your competitors have missed. A strong USP will attract people’s attention and this will bring more traffic to your site, which will lead to more sales. With a powerful USP, you will have an offer for your potential customers that they will not be able to resist. The “birth” of an irresistible offer may seem awkward, but an experienced advertiser has the ability to create interest-enhancing content in just a few seconds.
And what are the characteristics of a strong and irresistible ad? Well, it should be valuable to potential buyers, be credible, not seem risky and have a call to action .
5. Impressive and Distinctive Ads
When using AdWords, you pay each time someone clicks on your ads. With that in mind, you’ll need to create ads that not only lead to clicks on your site, but these clicks will turn into sales. This means you need to create impressive ads that target a specific audience.
In Google AdWords, the goal is to increase sales through greater visibility and more clicks. The words in the text of an AdWords ad are very limited, so the text should be small, clear and contain the most important information (in an interesting way). Typical elements of these ads include a title, a description of two lines, and a URL. So give them value.
6. Special Landing Pages
If you’re new to internet marketing, you can of course want your site’s homepage to rank for all your top keywords and you might want to send all the traffic from your ads there.
This is a common mistake that can easily derail the effectiveness of your AdWords campaign. When you create an ad in AdWords, make sure it goes to a specific page on your site (not to the home page). You want the user to have a nice experience on your site in order to make a purchase. Promoting them on your home page is helping them get rid of you, which will lead to high, costly abandonment rates. So, create an exclusive landing page to link the ad. Take the time to create a page that is relevant to the text of the ad and makes it extremely easy for the visitor to make the next call (action).
7. The ability to track and measure results
Before you launch your ads on Google AdWords, you need to understand how to track the results of each of your advertising campaigns. If you do not set up tracking, you will lose insightful information that can dramatically improve your efforts. Also, you will not be able to identify weaknesses in the campaign and make the necessary changes and improvements. In Google AdWords, campaign tracking is in Conversion Tracking. You’ll need to make sure that it’s set up and enabled before your ads grow.
To set up Conversion Tracking, you need to define the successful conversion for your company and its advertising goals. Simply click the + Conversion button and enter the conversion definition. A piece of code will be created. Then, this code sequence should be installed on the last page of the conversion funnel. For many companies, this is a ‘thank you’ page.
So, it’s time to get started
A Google AdWords campaign is an effective way to increase your sales and be successful. Remember, as a well-designed and timed advertising campaign can benefit your company, a poorly planned AdWords campaign can harm your company. It is better to familiarize yourself with the Google AdWords platform first and be sure that the above-mentioned items are installed before you publish your ads.
Contacting Google AdWords may seem terrifying or time consuming, but you can always discuss your choices with an experienced company. At Lithos Digital we have a lot of experience in Google Adwords as we have been doing campaigns for small and large businesses all over the world. Do not hesitate to contact us at info@lithosdigital.com . We will be glad to help.