Running a Google Paid Ad Campaign – all you need to know as a small business

Nothing comes for free, right? The same can go for marketing your small business. It may be time for a paid ad campaign.

Paid Ad Campaigns do pay off

Organic SEO meta data throughout your website and social media will of course increase your long-term searchability, and should be continued. However, you may also find it’s right to invest in a paid ad campaign for short-term highly effective results that converts to business and sales.  

Google Ads is the largest advertising platform on the Internet and affects how we all search for what we want.

Is it worth a small business splashing cash to such a global advertising platform though? The answer is yes. With these paid ads, you can target your audience through location to ensure they find you – perfect for a local business. Also, you do not need to spend a fortune.

There are certain factors to follow to run a successful Google aid campaign and achieve profit and sales (or for the technical term Return on Investment – ROI.) Here are Blue Cactus Digital’ top tips.

Strategy, research, target

Though this is a paid ad campaign, your business’s organic strategy will need to be refined first. The geographical area you’re targeting needs to be very specific. What exactly you’re advertising is also a must, for example, do you want to advertise one particular service/product from the business or the company as a whole? Is this just one advert or a series? Your ideal client needs to be defined too.

Thorough research of keywords will help create a harmonious organic and paid strategy. The right keywords will attract the right customer. EMS would recommend refining a small set of words you think your ideal client would search and ultimately click on. You may want to look at similar businesses’ websites for inspiration. Using Google Keyword Planner, will help you find relevant matching words and phrases, and detail costs. You can also establish negative keywords that you will not want to use. The likeness is that some of the keywords used in your ads will attract clicks but not conversions. This is when you can filter out keywords that are not working, and research some more. It may take a lot of tailoring to get the keywords right but it will all be worth it.
Best time of day, devices and gender to target are other factors to consider to maximise success of your ad campaign.

Content and optimisation – Landing pages

So, you have the keywords, location and target. Now for the content. As EMS always says, content is key. You need to draw your audience in with catchy, clear and clever copy optimised beautifully with the right keywords. Not much to ask I know!

A landing page will need to be created for each ad group, so that the visitor will land on a page full of information and call to actions specific to the ad, if they click on your website’s homepage for example, they may not find exactly what they need and bounce off again.

Important points to include on a landing page are targeted content, headlines, sub-headings, images and clear call to actions.

It’s likely there will be many drafts of your pages and content, don’t be put off – this is normal for a paid ad campaign!

Analyse

Setting up your campaign is great, but pretty useless without tracking its performance. This will help to create more leads to the right pages, and ultimately more sales. We have mentioned ROI in this blog, it may all seem foreign and daunting but the analytics will inform you how profitable your ad is in a number of statistics. You will be able to find out how much each ‘lead’ is costing you as well as the return on your ads.

If there is a loss or not high enough success rate, you will want to adapt your paid ad, by tweaking the headline or content, adding a more engaging graphic, such as film or more images, choosing a lower cost keyword, changing your bid or analysing performance on different devices.

Don’t give up

I know easier said than done – but it’s true. It may take several attempts to create a successful Google Ad campaign but it will be worth it to see the sales of your service or product rise and your business profile increase.

If you’ve realised it’s time to up your game and explore the world of Google AdWords, or your current campaigns need a touch of TLC, book a free initial consultation to talk through your options.

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