Some businesses have not yet added Google Adwords to their marketing mix. Unfortunately, this means they are missing out on an important promotional opportunity that can also provide a competitive edge.
Perhaps they are reluctant to invest the time to find out about Google Adwords. That’s not surprising as it’s a whole brave new marketing world, and it takes time to master.
Consequently, many organisations outsource the management of their Adwords campaigns. However, this does not absolve your business from understanding the principles of Adwords.
In fact, the best solution is often a combined effort where businesses are resolve their advertising strategy so that they can accurately brief a digital agency to make it a reality.
So does your business need to know about Google Adwords?
First up let’s be clear: Google Adwords is another form of advertising – online advertising. And like traditional forms of advertising it’s important to have a clear strategy or you will risk wasting time and money.
Online advertising is not cheap, so it’s important to plan carefully, so you don’t throw your precious marketing dollars into something half-baked.
Where to next?
Before starting your Adwords journey you need to understand where you are going and why. Then build a strategy based on those drivers.
Here are some guidelines.
Build sales
To build sales you need to increase your conversion rate from any activity you offer visitors such as offers to receive a newsletter, fill a form or call your business directly.
Solution – Focus on keywords that convert more people and keep an eye on the effectiveness of the search terms to ensure they don’t give you negative results.
Increase traffic
To increase traffic you need to pay attention to your website and the calls to action you offer such as special promotions or special offers.
Solution – run specials using keywords and monitor the effectiveness of each campaign.
Boost brand awareness
If want to boost your brand you need to boost engagement with visitors to your site.
Solution – Consider placing adverts on the Google Display Network to build interaction and ultimately brand awareness.
Strategic principles
AdWords is not easy. It’s become a very sophisticated sub-discipline of the online economy. However, there are considerable rewards availables for businesses that dedicated the time to strategic planning.
Here are some strategic considerations you should build into your planning.
Target to succeed – As with traditional advertising, you must target your market carefully to determine who you are trying to reach via your Adwords campaign. Assess the demographic and psychographic make-up of your target audience. Ask yourself : who are they and what do they want?
Marketing mix integration – To maximise your marketing spend you should review how you can integrate the Google Adwords campaign with other forms of promotion such as PR and telemarketing. This will enable you to allocate the right proportion of your budget to each mode and will help set your Adwords budget.
KISS – It’s very important to keep things simple when commencing your Adwords journey. Start with a few keywords and build from there.
Monitor results – By monitoring the outcomes of your Adwords campaigns you can improve future initiatives. Google Analytics is a great analysis resource as is conversion tracking. These and other tools can help you determine which campaigns and keywords do well. Feed what you have learned back into your strategic plan.
Budget boundaries – With the appropriate planning done upfront, you can set the right budget without the need for “top ups”. In fact, this is to be avoided as you risk losing traction with Google if you alter your budget.
Google Adwords may seem a bit daunting, particularly for smaller business but the rewards can be great.
Fatpublisher provides advice and fully managed Adwords optimisation services to our clients. If you are interested in finding out about our Adwords management packages, please contact us.
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