Google Ads Do Your Marketing Heavy Lifting

Let the Power of Google Ads Do Your Marketing Heavy Lifting

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In Field of Dreams, Iowa farmer Ray Kinsella walks through a cornfield and hears a voice that tells him, “If you build it, he will come.” The voice inspires Ray to build a baseball diamond in the midst of his cornfield where Ray later meets the spirits of Chicago White Sox legend “Shoeless” Joe Jackson and his own father. At the end of the movie when Ray is trying to decide whether to sell his property to avoid foreclosure, a local writer assures him, “People will come, Ray. People will most definitely come.”

When business owners invest time and money on a website, their hope is that people will come. The importance of understanding and using Google Ads is that they drive website traffic and ensure people most definitely come. Once on your website, visitors can buy from your e-commerce store, fill in a lead form, or learn more about your business.

Google Ads

What are Google Ads?

Google Ads are Pay Per Click (PPC) digital advertising campaigns. The ads are described as Pay Per Click because the advertiser only pays for the ad when someone clicks on it, not per ad impression. There are Search Network ads which are text ads and Display Network ads which are images. In June of this year, Google rolled out Smart Campaigns, a more automated, optimized alternative geared towards small business.

PPC campaigns drive traffic to your website so visitors can see the products and services you provide. When people look at a page of internet search results in Google, it’s hard to distinguish between ads and the organic search results because text ads have only a small “Ad” box near the website address. Ads blend in with search results, and therefore, are a powerful way to get potential customers to a website.

structure of a Google Ads campaign

How do Google Ads work?

In its simplest form, you can think of Google Ads as four-layered ad campaigns. From top to bottom:

  • Campaigns – how much do I want to spend or geographically, where do I want my ads to show?
  • Ad Sets – what are my different products, services or groups?
  • Ads – what is my message?
  • Keywords – what words or phrases will someone type into Google when they are searching for my product or service?

A digital marketer will set up a campaign by thinking about how much to spend, who to target and where they are, and what product or service you are advertising. At the core of every Google Ads campaign is a keyword list, a list of search terms or phrases a person may type into Google when they search for your product or service.

The Google Ads algorithm determines which ads to show, the Ad Rank, based on two criteria: the maximum keyword Bid you have specified and Quality Score which is a combination of ad relevance, Click-Through-Rate (CTR) and quality of the landing page for the ad. The landing page is the website page where the person who clicks on the ad is directed.

How can Google Ads grow my business?

On a desktop computer, approximately two-thirds of all search queries are done on Google. On mobile devices, some estimates suggest Google controls 95% of all search queries. Therefore, by being part of the search results mix, Google Ads drive website traffic. When someone clicks on an ad, it brings him or her to your website and then you’re in the driving seat. You can try to prompt your site visitors to take actions like purchase a product, fill in a lead form, or schedule a demo.

Google Ads Pay Per Click campaigns do some of the marketing heavy lifting by allowing your business to be more visible in search and driving potential customers to your website. PPC campaigns push your message out in a structured, systematic, and targeted way to an audience that has an interest in your product or service.

When it comes to Google Ads, if you build them, people will most definitely come and your business will grow.

Interested in learning more about Google Ads campaigns? Contact us.

Photo credit: Field of Dreams, 1989, Universal Studios

digital marketing audience targeting

Finding Your Ideal Customer Using the Power of Digital Marketing

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An excerpt from Ann Mills’ presentation on digital marketing at Swap The Biz, Short Hills, NJ.

_________

You are on your way to a networking event.

When you arrive, you are surprised to find not one room but three to choose from–each filled with 50 people. Tacked on the door of each room is a sign with some information about each of the people in the room–ages, income bracket, and town. The information also includes whether the person is a parent and his or her areas of interest.

You look at the information on each door and think:

In Room #1, there are one or two people who seem like they might be an ideal networking opportunity.  

Room #2–about half of the people in the room seem to fit the profile of your ideal networking opportunity.

In Room #3, all 50 people fit your ideal networking persona. They are the right age, live in a nearby location, and they seem like people who might be interested in the product or service you sell.

Which room will you enter? Probably Room #3.

 

advertising mailer

In the context of marketing:

Room #1 with its 2 to 3 prospects is perhaps the equivalent of a mailer like this one about dining room sets. If you are not buying a dining room set, you’ll probably throw the mailer out. Even if you are buying a dining room set, you may not look at the mailer. If you’re the business that sent the mailer, you can’t be sure who actually read it, and as one print company executive said to me recently, “People pretty much open their mail over the trash can.”

Room #2 with about 25 possible networking opportunities is representative of a networking group. You have a higher chance of connecting and exchanging business with people in the room. They more closely fit your ideal networking persona, and you have more in common with people in the group than acquaintances you make outside the group.

Room #3 with 50 of 50 people seemingly possible networking opportunities personifies digital marketing and, in particular, a powerful tool we use called audience targeting.

What is digital marketing?

If you ask someone what digital marketing is, they will probably tell you that it is advertising delivered via a digital channel. It might be a website, Pay-Per-Click campaign (the advertiser pays for the ad only when someone clicks on it), remarketing campaign, email, social media post, or even a response to an online review. Weaved together, digital marketers create omnichannel marketing strategies.

However, that definition of digital marketing does not convey what is so important about it. Primarily:

  • A digital campaign audience is not guesswork.
  • Campaign results are measurable, actionable, and data-driven.
  • Marketing campaigns can be timed to maximize impact.
  • Digital campaigns can be changed and scaled quickly.

Let me give you two examples of the agility and versatility afforded by digital marketing:

A mortgage banker in New Jersey deals almost exclusively with clients purchasing high-end homes. In an effort to broaden his target audience of potential clients, a digital agency does an analysis of zip codes in Manhattan where residents typically pay four to five-thousand dollars in rent each month. Intuitively, it’s clear that many of these young professionals might be thinking of starting families as well. The agency develops a Pay-Per-Click ad campaign to market the banker’s services into specific zip codes in New York City where the high-rent-paying population lives.

A client with multiple retail locations in New Jersey has her online reviews on Google, Facebook, and Yelp managed by a digital agency. The agency notices that some of the online reviews are in Spanish and come to believe that it is perhaps a far more important demographic than had been previously realized. In addition to Google AdWords Pay-Per-Click campaigns targeting English-speaking people which are already in place, the agency turns Spanish-speaking living in the United States on as a demographic trait for her Google AdWords campaigns. In addition to posts in English, the social media agency also begins to add Spanish posts to her social media feeds. The agency then rolls out corporate overview videos–one with an English voiceover and another with a voiceover in Spanish.

The results seen by our digital marketing clients have been striking. One client has quadrupled sales. Another found that their seasonal summer dip in sales disappeared. One company was named to a prominent list of the fastest growing companies in New Jersey in 2017 and in America in 2018.

Micro-Moments

Google defines something called a Micro-Moment. A Micro-Moment is an intent rich moment when a person turns to a device to act on a need–to know, go, do or buy.

The power of digital marketing is that it allows your business to be present at those micro-moments in a way traditional media cannot. In so doing, your business can get:

the right message,

to the right people,

at exactly the right time.

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Interested in learning more? Contact us.