For all the hype surrounding the efficacy of Google Ads in growing businesses, there is an increasingly large number of businesses that have expressed disappointment with it. I attribute this to people losing faith too easily on account of their inability to understand the nitty-gritty of leveraging online advertising.
Those who fail at Google Ads are really just giving up too early or they don’t fully understand the way building advertising muscle works. Here are the ten ways to get better results from your Pay Per Click (PPC) campaigns:
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Don’t run ahead blindly
When using any online advertising platform including Google, remember that they are a business, and high on their agenda is bringing on as many advertisers as possible, and getting them spending campaign money quickly. Think about the signup process when creating a Google Ads account. Without much option to take your time and think through your strategy, you’re up and running with ads bidding on generic keywords before you even get to the main area of your account. The advice here is to not proceed blindly.
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Set achievable goals
As a new advertiser on Google Ads you’ll need to temper your expectations. Obtaining an ROI ten times the size of your ad-spend may not be unheard of, but does not come very easily these days. It requires a lot of doing on your part in terms of how dedicated you are and how much effort you are willing to put in consistently to achieve those kinds of results.
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Keep a finger on the pulse
There are certain metrics that indicate the health of any business, and this is especially true in online advertising. If you are aware of the figures that point out how well your business is performing you should be able to have a fair idea of how your advertising campaign is faring. The things to look out for include Customer Life Time Value (LTV), Average Deal/Sale Size, Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) and Product Margins.
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Burn some cash calories
In the first month, expect that you will be burning some cash while the Google algorithm learns what is working for you and what isn’t. This is not the bad kind of cash burning, and is definitely not the time to pull out. Consider it a learning phase for yourself too, in testing your assumption about what people are actually searching for.
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Realise that not everything will be a fit
PPC may be a great medium of advertising, but it cannot be expected to perform miracles and make a success out of a fundamentally flawed product. If a product does not have any takers yet, don’t burn any money on PPC advertising. It is not the place to try out a product/market fit. You would be better off reaching out to the audience organically first, to see if there is genuine interest before scaling up marketing with ad spend.
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Change bad habits in your sales process
The sixth thing to focus your attention on is the sales funnel. Any poor performing areas will need to be addressed, otherwise you’ll bring people in through your ads, only to lose them again. This can make the cost of acquiring a customer go from $10 to $100 and is in effect the difference between the success and failure of a PPC campaign.
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Take one step at a time
Digital Marketing gives of the illusion of instant success potential, but you won’t accomplish everything all at once. You may, for instance, have to use broad search keywords in the initial two months, but persisting with them will give diminishing returns, thereby draining your budget very quickly indeed. Build your PPC ad strategy one day at a time.
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Be exact and remarket
The chief aim of most businesses in PPC shouldn’t be market share. That means you don’t need to outspend everybody on every keyword. Instead, the most profitable strategy is to use exact-matching keywords together with remarketing. Don’t try to boil the ocean, by using generic borad-keywords as your long term strategy.
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Get into the details
Make sure you keep a razor-sharp focus when it comes to your online advertising. Over time, start getting more and more specific with your keywords. The ability to use just the right keywords overlapped with remarketing, will put you on the path to profitability.
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Daily routine is better than seasonal whims
PPC advertisers need to nurture their ad campaign the way that one would look after their health. Giving your PPC campaigns the right nutrients it needs daily, and removing what harms it will get you the best possible results from it.
