Working on a pay-per-click Google campaign for a client right now and needed to share how amazing Google has made it to drive highly qualified leads for a small business. Just go to adwords.google.com and create a campaign. You will have lots of help videos, tutorials, articles, and tips & tricks to help you advertise to search engine users.
Here are the steps I went through to launch a campaign. I would set aside about 3 hours to do this, but it’s WELL worth it.
- Create a Google Account (most people already have one). Then log-in to Adwords and create a new Campaign. Your Campaign will have several important settings, such as the language of your ads, the geographies you target, and the daily budget. I chose English ads to the entire US and only wanted to spend $15 maximum per day for one month. Yup, it will shut off after reaching $15 for that day. Brilliant!
- I created 4 Ad Groups for my new campaign. These 4 will obey the Campaign settings chosen above. But, each Ad Group will have its own keywords, ads, and cost per clicks associated with it. I separated my 4 Ad Groups by stages of the Purchase Funnel – people who are ready to buy, people who need more information, people who just began their search, etc. I know they are in these stages by the types of keywords they search for. Example: a person entering ‘cheap e-commerce solution’ is low in the purchase funnel and I want talk to him/her differently than someone searching for ‘e-commerce whitepaper.’
- Now, choose Keywords that will trigger your ads. This is fun. Find words or phrases that your different audiences would type into Google AND, importantly, that your company has a response to. Searchers want helpful responses, so if you sell vacuum cleaners, don’t buy words like blender or oven, or you will attract the wrong people to your site. And since Google charges for each click of your ad, you wasted that money. Use Google’s Keyword Selector tool for help, visit your competitors’ sites and see what words they use, and just type words into google to get ideas. As you enter keywords, Google will estimate the amount you will be charged when someone clicks on your ad, and how often people search for these terms. You need to decide if that investment is worth it by using estimates for subsequent conversion on your landing page, and expected profit margin from a future sale. If you pay $1 per click, and 1% of clicks generate an average sale of $300 (where $150 is profit), for example, then you will make money.
- Next, you need to write the short Ads your audience will see when they type in your selected keywords. Google limits your characters, so just follow their template and remember to be compelling, direct, and use a call-to-action, like Learn More!, View Product Demo, or Sign-Up!. View Google’s videos on how to write effective ads, and make sure to write at least 5 ads. Google will display all ads randomly and tell you which one drive the best response. Awesome.
- The last part of PPC advertising is creating a Landing Page for these searchers to visit that is consistent with the keywords they entered and the ads they saw. A person searching for hardwood floors and clicking on an ad mentioning a deal on installation should not be taken to a homepage that does not mention anything about promotions for hardwood floor installation. You’ll lose them and waste the cost of your click.
- Monitor your performance using Google’s easy Dashboard and see which keywords and ads are performing well, and make changes accordingly. Now, I have skipped over a ton of advanced techniques for maximizing performance of your PPC campaign. Like bidding strategies for optimal placement of your ads. But Google’s help center, and Google.com itself, do a great job at educating you. Some of the fun things you can do are to:
- show ads only at certain times of the day and days of the week
- show ads on other websites that display Google ads (this is called AdSense)
- Draw a customized geographical area where your ads will appear. Yes, literally draw it. This saves money if your services are only available in a limited area
- Only show your ads to people who are on their iPhone
Let me know if I can answer any questions! It’s perhaps the most effective use of your money to display highly targeted ads to people who you know are looking for something you offer. You may also want to learn in deep on PPC campaign on Search Engine Marketing Course or get the basic of Google adwords in our Digital Marketing Course.