ONLINE. e-series. Does Google AdWords. really work?

Transcription

1 ONLINE e-series Does Google AdWords really work?

2 ON THIS ISSUE Introduction 2. What is Google AdWords? 3. Let s get a few common misconceptions out of the way first 3.1 "AdWords is about the quest to become #1" 3.2 "Google AdWords is not for every business" 3.3 "You need a big budget to achieve a successful AdWords campaign" 3.4 "Once you set up your account, you can kick back and wait for results" 3.5 Wait isn t Google AdWords and SEO (Search Engine Optimization) the same thing? 3.6 My AdWords campaign can influence my SEO ranking 3.7 Google Adwords is extremely costly 3.8 "My target audience doesn t use Google" 4. So... does Google AdWords work? 5. What are the overall advantages of Google AdWords over SEO? 6. How Google Adwords can help your business 7. I don t know the first thing about Google AdWords. How can I manage it? 8. Is Google AdWords time consuming? 9. I have a small business: Is a Google AdWords campaign for me? 10. Make it even simpler with Ad-Assistant 11. About Algomizer

3 1 Introduction 1. Once upon a marketing world, to get yourself and your business noticed, all you needed to do is take out an ad in the newspaper, yellow pages or billboard, radio or even radio or TV spot. Not a simple thing if you owned a small business such as a hair salon, dentistry, car detailing, flower shop, etc.: self-promotion cost a pretty penny, and there was no guarantee of sustained success. You had your base customers, word-of-mouth, and with the limited advertising you could afford, that s what it was. Fast-forward to the Internet age, and the landscape of marketing and commerce has shifted dramatically. A new medium opened up, with more opportunities to advertise your business and services directly to your potential customers, with more options to control your budget. Just Imagine: you hire a billboard, take out a newspaper ad or produce a radio spot, and only pay when the person listening to your ad or reading your print advertisement actually order from you a service: wouldn t that be great? While traditional media doesn t work that way, by using Google AdWords your business can achieve such a level of customer attention, provided your ad reaches its intended, or targeted, audience.

4 2 What is Google AdWords? Imagine you hire a billboard, take out a newspaper ad or produce a radio spot, and you only pay when the person listening to your ad or reading your print ad actually visits your shop: wouldn t that be great?

5 This is Google AdWords in a nutshell: You write an ad. When a user clicks on your ad, that s when you pay Google (this type of advertising is called Pay per Click). Thanks to the Internet and technological advancements, the landscape of commerce and marketing has changed dramatically in the past 15 years or so. Once, as a small business owner, in order to make people take notice of your business, the only way for you to reach out to a large potential audience was by investing in ads across various media outlets such as newspapers, magazines, radio, television, flyers, the Yellow Pages, etc. in order to cover all basis more or less. If you owned a small business, to promote your business effectively, those tools were an absolute necessity: you needed flyers to stuff in mailboxes; Yellow Pages ads in bold, and the local newspapers. However, rapid evolution of the Internet and the rise of Google AdWords and social media, all but sealed the fate of the thick Yellow Pages directory. What are the some of the main features I use in Google AdWords? The Ad Text: This is the ad the viewer will see when your ad comes up in the search results. The Landing Page: A landing page is a standalone webpage you dedicate to a specific

6 product or service. A user will arrive on your landing page when he clicks on your ad that came up in the search results. When a user performs a search on Google, he ll get a list of detailed results relevant to his search. For example, if the user searches for Limo Services he ll see ads relating to Limousine Services; if he typed in Plumbing he ll see ads for plumbing. Google AdWords is Google s advertising system where businesses, small and large, bid on relevant keywords in order to appear on Google s search results. Keywords are words or phrases that are used to match your ads with the terms people are searching for. For example, let's say you are still in the business of Limos. Customers looking for your services will go onto Google Search and type different expressions that will lead them to find your business, such as: 'limos', 'limousine rental', 'limos for a day', 'buy limos', and many more. These expressions are called keywords. When you advertise your business in Google, you want your online ads to contain those same keywords your potential customer is typing to find you. When the customer s keyword matches the keyword you re using in your Google AdWords campaign, your ad will appear on the search results page. Google AdWords provides you with a Keyword Planner (among many other useful tools) where you can add keywords you believe are relevant to your business.

7 For example: if you run an Auto Parts shop, your keywords may include: auto accessories, car parts, auto replacement parts, etc. Bid: In paid advertising, selecting relevant keywords is essential for reaching the right customers for your business. But of course, you are not the only one in your business category using those keywords. Depending on the business you are in, there might be dozens to hundreds of competitors within the same geographical area you are in, bidding, just as you are, for those same keywords as part of their strategy. Google Adwords lets you bid for those relevant keywords, and the advertiser who bids higher on one or more of them has better chances of having his ad displaying higher up on Google's search page, making it easier for a potential customer to find your ad and click on it. However, remember that the higher you bid for a keyword, the more money you pay to Google for each click on your ad. To avoid bidding from spiraling out of control, you can set a bidding limit. This is your keyword's maximum cost-per-click, bid amount.

8 Negative Keywords: You can also create a list of negative keywords, to prevent users from accidentally clicking on your ad. This means that you can create a list of keywords you definitely don't want to be searched for. So, supposing you're still in the business of car parts following our previous example - you don t want to be found through keywords like 'car wash', 'car lot', 'car rental' and the like. Remember, you re paying for each click on your ad, so you don t want your budget spent on accidental or irrelevant clicks. 3 Let s get a few common misconceptions out of the way first: 3.1 "AdWords is about the quest to become #1" Your ad doesn t have to be no. 1 on Google s search results page; the ROI (Return on Investment) for a #1 rank may actually be negative. Not only that, but your CPC (Cost Per Click) will be lower when it appears, say, at the 4th or 5th position. Remember, many times users will open multiple tabs to compare products,, so they will often go down Google's page and probably click on your ad.

9 3.2 "Google AdWords is not for every business" Many business owners assume that Google AdWords campaigns are not for them, without giving it a try. Some try it for a day or two and wave it goodbye; others may confuse it with SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and assume it takes a long, long time to see results. The fact is that Google AdWords can get you instant results since it displays your ads when users are looking for what you offer. However, in order to achieve measurable results, you ll need to run your campaign for three to four weeks. You need to give it time for Google to collect enough data in order to measure your keyword and campaign performance. Following this step, the optimization process begins by either Google experts, yourself or smart automated tools. 3.3 "You need a big budget to achieve a successful AdWords campaign" False! It s not necessarily how much you pay, but how relevant you are to the searcher that matters. The more relevant your ads are to the user s search, and the better experience your landing pages give the users that click on your ads, the better results you ll get. One of the big advantages of Google AdWords is that it gives you full control over your budget: If an ad is performing really well you can boost your results by increasing your budget and getting more engagements (Impressions, clicks, leads, sales etc.). If it's not performing, you can decrease your

10 budget or stop it entirely and test something else. 3.4 "Once you set up your account, you can kick back and wait for results" False! Google AdWords campaign is a process of constant tweaking and improving, to get better results. You can t rest on your laurels. 3.5 Wait isn t Google AdWords and SEO (Search Engine Optimization) the same thing? There are several differences between Google AdWords and SEO, for instance: In SEO, the focus is more on making your website content more relevant for searches, by optimizing keywords in your site s content, helping your website climb higher in the search results ranking. Google AdWords makes it possible for users to see your ads instantly when they search for a product or service you provide, and you pay only when a user clicks on your ad. With SEO, you usually pay a monthly fee to an SEO expert or company to work on your website in order to try to improve your position in the Google s search results. However, even if your ad does reach the first page, it will come in 4th or 5th position at best, under the paid results

11 those of Google AdWords. By having the ability to create campaigns almost instantly and targeting specified audiences, according to specific geographic areas, time of day, device they use and more, Google AdWords allows you to reach customers that are already looking for your product or service, and start getting impressions and clicks very quickly. Impressions: Every time someone sees your ad on Google, it s called an impression. 3.6 My AdWords campaign can influence my SEO ranking Untrue: The two platforms operate entirely differently and do not affect each other. 3.7 Google Adwords is extremely costly You can control how much you pay for your advertising. This is especially important to small business owners. It is true that you need to keep an eye on your budget but that s one of the

12 reasons why you can set your daily budget: so you don t go over. The price that you, as an advertiser, pay for each click your ad gets (Cost per Click), depends on several factors, such as: Bidding (see above), Quality Score, Ad Rank and Cost Per Click. Quality Score: Quality Score is Google s formula to rate the quality and relevance of your keywords, ads and landing pages. It is also used to determine your Cost per Click. The higher your Quality Score is, the less you pay. Ad Rank: Ad Rank is a value that's used to determine your ad position (where ads are shown on a page) and whether your ads will show at all. Ad Rank is calculated by Google, using your bid amount, the components of your Quality Score. Ad Extensions: is a feature that shows extra business information with your ad, like an address, phone number, store rating, or more webpage links. Cost Per Click: Every time someone clicks on your ad, you pay Google a fee. The Cost per Click (CPC) varies, starting from as little as $0.01. Currently, the most expensive keywords are insurance ($54), mortgage ($47) and attorney ($47).

13 As an example, let s say you have a plumbing business in New York and want to find local customers. What you do is bid on keywords related to plumbing such as New York Plumbing, Plumbing services in New York etc. So, whenever a user searches for plumbing or plumbing fixes on Google, your ad will be shown. Remember: The price you need to pay Google depends on your competition for that particular keyword(s). If there are several other advertisers bidding for the same keywords, then most probably you will have to outbid them to show your ad on top. As you can see, there are several interconnecting factors that determine how much you ultimately pay. 3.8 "My target audience doesn t use Google" Unless your target is a very specific niche crowd, like barrel shoppers for whisky distilleries in Scotland, whether you re selling shoes, muffins, cars, radios or operate a hair salon, there s a very high probability that a good number of the people looking for those products or services use Google. After all, Google is

14 the world s most popular search engine, with over 85% share of the global market. People are using Google s search engine to look for everything from auto repairs to music teachers. 4 So does Google AdWords work? Google Adwords works because it allows small businesses to target audiences faster, more accurately and to create a higher conversion rate than if you only used traditional marketing efforts such as newspaper ads, radio spots, etc. Conversion rate: Conversion rate is the percentage of people who take the action you want after they click on your ad, whether it s a call to order from you service, filling out a form, calling you or buying your product. Google AdWords gives you the freedom of deciding which relevant keywords you want to use to promote your businesses and then convert those keywords into Pay per Click ads that will be appear on Google when users look for the service you offer. This process allows you to advertise your business to people actively looking for the service you offer.

15 5 What are the overall advantages of Google AdWords over SEO? Faster results: possibly the biggest advantage of Google AdWords over SEO is that advertisers can see results quickly. Measurable results: Thanks to Google AdWords advertising platform, you can detect how successful your keywords were, who clicked on your ad when, where and from which devices, track calls and leads, and much more. Maintenance: SEO requires ongoing work to reach a top position and sustain it. With Google AdWords, you can simply adjust keywords in your ads and landing pages rather than reconfigure content on your website. Customized targeting: Reach customers according to their location, time of day and the device they re using (desktop or mobile). One more important thing to remember about SEO is that, every few months, Google will alter their SEO algorithm in order to prevent artificial SEO promotion. The latest updates are called the Panda and the Penguin. As a consequence, even sites that don t try to artificially bump up the rankings suffer, and all your hard work can go down the drain.

16 6 How Google AdWords can help your business: Increased visibility for your business and your service on the Internet. Flexibility: You decide who you want to view your ads, when, where, even on what device: desktop, mobile or tablet. Real-time metrics that allow you to see how well your ads are performing. A higher ROI (return on investment) for your business than what traditional advertising methods give. Targeted budget: Get leads from searchers using relevant keywords that you choose; keep away uninterested customers by using negative keywords. Control your daily budget: increase or decrease according to you needs and/or the campaign s success rate. Testing: Test the profitability of different ads, keywords and landing pages and change them as often as you need.

17 7 I don t know the first thing about Google AdWords. How can I manage it? Google made AdWords as simplified as possible for advertisers to master. Of course, it does take a little time to really get the hang of it, that s why you always have the option of hiring a professional or even better employ a system such as Ad-Assistant which does everything for you automatically. 8 Is Google AdWords time consuming? Before you can start using Google AdWords, you need to go through a process of up to 12 steps, as you can see from the images below: 1. Create a Google AdWords account 2. Update billing method 3. Learn how to work with AdWords

18 4. Create a new campaign 5. Define campaign settings 6. Keyword research 7. Design landing page 8. Develop landing page 9. Create hosting account 10. Implement conversion pixels 11. Write text ads 12. Add Google extensions

19 And what about mobile, optimization, Facebook & Bing...? Once you ve gone through this process, you can actually have a campaign up within an hour after opening an account. In the first few weeks you will learn to use and manage all the options Google AdWords offers, in addition to testing and tweaking your keywords, ad groups, etc. on a daily basis. Once you get the hang of writing keywords and ads, chances are you ll spend your time checking up on your campaigns, seeing how successful they are and what changes, if any, you need to make. 9 I have a small business: Is a Google AdWords campaign for me? Google AdWords is great for small and local businesses because you do not have to commit large advertising budgets upfront. You can start and end the campaign when you want. It allows you to focus on specific geographical areas that you want to target; and you can reach mobile users, by

20 providing information such as location and phone number (which they can call directly from their mobile phone). 10 Make it even simpler with Ad-Assistant! Ad-Assistant gives SMBs the option of advertising online with no effort and prior knowledge by creating an online advertising campaign from start to finish, including: opening an account, keyword research, budget management, ad and landing page creation, optimization of the campaign and much more. Learn more about Ad-Assistant here. Take a look at our video here to find out what Ad-Assistant does for you. A stumbling block that often seems to be in the way of small business owners when it comes to online advertising is the lack of experience or the sense that it s all just too complicated. However, all that s about to change with the introduction of Ad-Assistant, Algomizer s revolutionary tool designed for small business owners with little or no

21 experience in online marketing. With just a click of a button, Ad- Assistant can create an all-inclusive online campaign, including Google AdWords account set-up, ads, keywords research, bid and budget optimization, landing pages and much more. 11 About Algomizer Algomizer is an Internet technology company specializing in the online marketing field. Our expert team of developers, analysts and online advertising experts develop unique algorithmic tools for online advertising campaigns. As a small business owner, you ve probably experienced first-hand the difficulties of getting yourself noticed online. That s why we, at Algomizer, dedicated our resources to create automated solutions to help small businesses like yours achieve their online potential without the need for expensive equipment, specialized personnel or long, drawn-out and costly offline campaigns. Algomizer s automation and optimization tools give small and medium business the opportunity to run and manage full online campaigns in a simple, efficient and optimal manner, with little or no experience required.

22 Algomizer currently delivers three innovative, commercially available products in the field of online marketing; Ad-Assistant, Ad-Optimizer and Promodity. Find out more here. Sections From Our Blog Home Products & Services About Us Our Blog Carrers Investor Relations Contact Us Facebook for SMB How to deal with unhappy customers Algomizer Ltd. 165 Broadway 23rd Floor, New York City, New York 10006, United States US: I want to be contacted by Algomizer