Google advertising benefits – Achieve up to 34% contribution to your revenue
Google advertising or, more specifically, Google Ads has long since been established as a key marketing strategy amongst both B2B and B2C companies. In the same way as businesses in the 80’s would’ve coveted TV, Radio or major media publications as essential in creating success, Google Ads is the new holy grail to big name brands – and small ones too.
You’ve probably heard of Google Ads (previously called Google AdWords) and if you haven’t, don’t worry, we’ll get around to explaining everything. But, despite its fame, not many people or even businesses really know the whole story. They know it’s ‘good for business’ but beyond that, a lot of people are a little bit clueless.
To help clear things up, this is a one-stop shop for the important things you need to know about Google Ads including what it is, the actual benefits and how you could be gaining up to a 34% increase on your current revenue by investing. Get ready to take notes!
What is Google Ads?
If you type something into Google, for example, ‘Marketing Expert’, you’re going to first see a few relevant websites at the very top of the search results that have a little ‘Ad’ box in the corner. These are websites that have paid for Google advertising. The brands in question will have invested money into the phrase ‘Marketing Expert’ (or something similar) to ensure that when you search it, they come up first or within the first page adverts. This is commonly known as Google Search Advertising, that uses the Google Search Network, because the customer started by entering a search term (known as keywords) that resulted in an advert being presented. You may click on their advert and visit their website searching for, in this case, a marketing expert.
When you leave the website and then visit a completely different website you may suddenly see a different advert from the same Marketing Expert company. The company is likely to be using advert remarketing using the Google Display Network.
In this case, the advert is being displayed to you even though you haven't entered anything on this occasion into Google. When you originally searched for 'Marketing Expert', and visited the website Google tracking code previously installed onto the site and a placed cookie meant Google could recognise you when visiting the second site allowing the display advert to be presented. This is commonly known as Google Display Advertising. A display advert can be presented under a number of different circumstances; remarketing, affinity groups, interest groups, keywords, etc.
Every brand can do this, ensuring that their website secures a prominent position in a relevant search and display so that the people who are looking for them can find them easily.
So now everyone knows what Google Search and Google Display advertising is, let’s take a closer look at why it’s so beneficial for businesses.
Grab Audience Attention
Of course, the most obvious advantage to Google Ads is that you’re more likely to be selected by the user than the countless other options out there simply because you’re more prominent, especially if your advert is in the first position of returned search results.
Users want quick results and usually won’t even go far past the first few options presented, let alone pages, to find what they’re looking for. This makes it far more likely that your website will be seen, clicked and loved than if you were anywhere else. Search, unlike other forms of advertising, starts with the customer need which is why it is often one of the most effective forms of advertising that exists.
Targeted Advertising
One of the best features of Google advertising is how simple it is to push the money you invest directly towards the audience you want. The targeting capabilities of Google Ads are quite advanced and definitely up there with the likes of Facebook Ads (another which is incredibly easy to target).
You can set your ad to target based on your user’s location, whether they’re on a mobile device or desktop, what time your ad will be displayed, and different languages used. This means that you can increase the ROI and revenue created from your ad by making it more successful based on your target user’s activity.
It’s Not All About Money
Another perk of Google Ads is that it doesn’t focus solely on how much you can spend. Whilst you will be bidding for your ad to show up under specific keywords, there are other factors that can push your ad above higher bidders, giving small businesses a better chance at competing with the opposition.
Google will use your ads click-through rate to determine its relevance on their page. This is because they want to give their own users the best experience, so would rather put an ad link with a higher success rate but lower bid above an ad that their users aren’t as interested in.
The quality of your website and content in relation to the anticipated requirement of the user will also be taken into account and affect where your ad ranks.
Cost Control
Google advertising is revolutionary when it comes to levelling the playing field between SME’s and global corporations and a big part of this comes down to the cost control.
Google Ads is run on a PPC (pay per click) basis, meaning that you’ll only pay for the number of users who actively click and visit your site rather than just viewing it in the results. This gives a far better guarantee of a higher ROI.
You can also tailor how much you want to spend, which could be as small as £10 a day or as large as £10,000 – it’s entirely up to you and your budget. Google has created an advertising method far more accessible to a range of businesses and allows you to adjust your marketing to suit your company.
Keep Track of Results
When it comes to marketing successfully, analysing is half the battle. Not only do you need to be creating a plan and actioning it, you also need to be keeping constant track of what’s working, where your money’s going and what could be improved. As indicated in our blog article 'Why you could be wasting over half of your marketing budget (how to fix it)' setting and measuring your marketing funnel KPIs is important to achieve focus, reduce waste and optimise your approach to deliver the best results.
When it comes to Google Ads, they knew this was a key marketing factor and so created easily viewed analytics that is incredibly useful for refining your strategy.
You can monitor your click-through rate, how many times your ad was seen, your conversion rate, the cost per click of your ad and your cost per acquisition.
By being able to view and track all of these very important numbers, you can play around with your ad until you perfect your targeting and budget. It also makes it easy to monitor your ROI and revenue earned directly through Google Ads.
From Google’s point of view, this is a great way to make sure every brand has the capability to maximise Google Ads and show that their advertising method gives results. From a business point of view, it’s an incredible way to ensure their money is being invested properly.
ROI and Revenue
Now let’s get down to the numbers. It’s all very well talking about the benefits of Google Ads, but where’s the proof of what it can actually do for your business? Well, here you go…
Looking at the Bizible AdWords Industry Benchmark Report and their extensive research into the marketing strategy, we can get a clearer idea of the effectiveness of Google advertising in different industries.
The following information was collected from around 120 different companies and was recorded between 2015 and 2016 (December to May).
When looking at the contribution to a businesses’ revenue, the lowest percentage is 13% in the Software/SaaS industry, which is pretty impressive as the lowest ranking figure. In increasing order is Agency and Travel both at 14%, Hardware/Electronics/Manufacturing at 25%, Business Services at 27% and Financial Services at a hefty 34%.
When it comes to ROI, the figures are once again very promising and show that Google Ads is indeed a worthwhile venture. This time, Travel comes in at the lower end with 234%, followed by Software/SaaS at 251%, Business Services at 332%, Financial Services at 364% and Agency at 372%.
As you can see, all areas saw an increase in their revenue and a healthy ROI from investing in Google Ads.
For the latest benchmark data, in regard to click-through-rates, conversions, cost-per-action, etc., by industry see Bizable latest blog published on the 28th February 2018.
What Does All This Mean?
Essentially, what all of this shows is that Google Ads is worth your businesses time.
Chances are if used properly, you’re going to see a profitable ROI and an increase in your revenue that is directly linked to Google advertising. Who doesn’t want that?
If you’re not jumping on board with Google, your page is likely going to get lost amongst endless streams of web results. This is especially apparent as SEO becomes a tool that an increasing number of businesses are utilising to a professional level, making it a more competitive marketing strategy. See our blog article '15 factors to improve SEO results (grow 2018 prospect engagement)' for some tips to improve your approach to achieving success with SEO.
Of course, there’s no denying SEO’s positive effects on a business’s success (there’s a mountain of research to prove just that), but combine it with Google Ads and you’ve got yourself a never-fail recipe for more impressions and conversions.
Tips to Using Google Ads
There are a few ways that you can use Google AdWords that’ll maximise your ROI.
Firstly, know what keywords your target audience are searching. This can be done using a variety of online tools or the help of a professional SEO agency. They can target not only which keywords are being searched, but also the best for you to target based on the number of searches compared to the amount of competition.
Secondly, you need to know your target audience. Where do they live, what times are they most online and what can your business help them with? You can then target your ads to a more suitable audience and increase your click-through rate and ROI.
You should also keep a careful watch on your analytics and play around with adjusting how much you invest in Google Ads and the key phrases you’re targeting. This’ll help you to find the method that works best for your business.
If you did wish to explore creating your own Google Ads campaign there are numerous online video tutorials. For example, here is a video that will help you set up your own first campaign. However, if you do decide to create and run your own campaign please be very careful to monitor and tweak constantly. It is extremely easy to spend money (and a lot of it) and be disappointed with poor results as the campaign hasn't been set up correctly or optimally. If it isn't optimal Google will rank you with lower-quality scores increasing the cost of your campaigns.
There are many elements to consider. For example, if you set up your keywords as a broad match and also do not include the right negative keywords you may find that your ads are being served when you don't want them to be engaging with the wrong audience and rapidly burning your budget. For highly-competitive and desirable keywords the price-per-click can be shockingly high and one single click could burn a small companies daily budget. There are many elements to achieving the very best results so do your research if you are going to your own campaign or use professional digital-marketing support.
If you do wish to become a competent Google Ads user Google offers a program of free training modules and you can also aim to become a certified Google Ads expert too.
When it comes to Google advertising, every business should be seriously considering how they can utilise it to help increase their success. It’s a method that works – the numbers have shown that – and one that you definitely shouldn’t be passing up.
Interested in other hints and tips to improve your digital marketing? Download our 14 digital marketing strategies to grow leads and sales eGuide.
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