Google Ads, formerly known as Google AdWords, is a great way to get your offer in front of the right eyeballs and siphon targeted traffic to your website. But if you’ve never done this before, the idea of spending a whole lot of money on ads without being guaranteed to make any sales in return can be downright frightening.
Today, we’re going to show you why there’s no reason to be afraid if you have the right concept. At the same time, we’ll also answer some of the questions beginners often have (such as how to set the right budget and what are the common mistakes).
Let’s begin!
Why Google Ads?
There’s plenty of reasons to use Google Ads:
– Targeted traffic. If you know how to choose the right keywords for your offer, you can pre-select the kind of people you’d want to see your ads in the first place, which will help you reach the right audiences.
– Results come in as little as a day. Unlike SEO that usually takes a couple of months to get going and see any results, a properly optimized Google Ads campaign can get sales the very next day.
– Massive reach. Google is still the number one search engine around. Leverage it to your advantage, and you’ll be able to dip your toes in a truckload of traffic.
– Suitable for any budget. You get to choose how much you’d like to spend daily so you can test if your offer converts without blowing your entire bankroll.
– You can track your campaigns and ad spend. This means you get complete control over what keywords trigger your ads when someone enters that term. At the same time, they offer a great insight into which campaigns are losing you money, which ones are breaking even, and which ones are the winners, meaning you can adapt your strategy on the fly.
Are Google Ads Worth It?
If your offer converts well and you know how to pick the right keywords, Google Ads are absolutely worth it. After all, the goal is to maximize your ROI so you’ll be getting back more than what you put in.
How to Set the Right Budget?
This depends on a couple of factors, the main of which is knowing how many people you’d like to reach. But this can be a very slippery slope! In other words, you should take the cautionary approach and start small, optimize your campaigns, then and only then (when you see that your strategy is working) should you expand to target more keywords, states, etc.
The goal is always to maintain a high ROI so your campaigns stay profitable. At the same time, this allows you to minimize the risk. Know that you can always adjust your budget based on how well your campaigns are performing, so you can do so when you need more data to conclude or when you’re ready to go big.
And again, when you’ve determined that one of your campaigns needs more tweaking or stops being profitable for any reason, you can slow it down to get to the root of the problem. Perhaps one geolocation converts better than the others? Maybe your prospective customers respond best in a certain time of day? Identify these problems and you’ll be able to cut down on wasted ad spend.
Top Mistakes Advertisers Make and How to Avoid Repeating Them
– Choosing the wrong keywords. Sometimes, they’re not even thematically relevant. Instead, cast your net wide, target a wide range of keywords, and keep the winners and discard the rest.
– Butting heads with the big players in your industry. Instead of going toe to toe with big businesses that can afford to fine-tune their campaigns to perfection and have an unlimited budget to spend on ads, pick your battles wisely. Oftentimes, this involves choosing long-tail keywords, which brings us to…
– Not narrowing down enough. Instead of targeting broad keywords such as ‘weight loss’, go long-tail with keywords like ‘weight loss for women after 40’ (an example to illustrate the point). While the search volume won’t be as high, you’ll be able to get much more targeted traffic as a result and often won’t spend as much on clicks.
– Spending too much per click. If you’re paying $1 per click and your product costs $10, you’ll need to convert at least every tenth visitor to break even. Once again, if a certain keyword turns out to be too competitive, niche down and go long-tail! Either that, or find a way to increase your margins on product sales (or both).
– Going too wide too soon. Remember, Google Ads require patience, fine-tuning, and a step-by-step approach, so start small and expand only when you’re ready.
Conclusion
Google Ads are the go-to traffic source if you want to grow your small business in a manner that is both fast and efficient. As long as you have a decent understanding of what you’re getting yourself into, it will serve you well.
