Reach More Prospects with Google Ad Campaigns

 

Google Ads is a great platform for those who really know a specific pain point or desire of their market—know what their market is searching for online.

 

People are already in the Awareness or Evaluation stage of the funnel and have indicated through the keywords they use in their online search queries that they have a specific pain point and are seeking a solution.

Because they are expressing a pain point, it’s okay to run traffic to both cold and warm offers

Note:

  1. You only pay when someone actually clicks on your ad.
  2. You can do geo-targeting for local businesses (or segment national/international campaigns)
  3. It’s important that you decide on a goal before you run your campaign: CPC, CPL, CPA can be very expensive w/AdWords. Consider mitigating risk by testing your offer on other platforms first then bring it over to AdWords
  4. Knowing your target audience is more important on AdWords than it is anywhere else: What are they searching for on Google?
  5. When setting up your first campaign, it’s best to start with the search network (search network only); feel free to include search partners AOL and Ask.com

Location Targeting

  1. Depends on your local geography: DM separates it campaigns by the 4 countries it targets. Businesses with smaller geographies may segment further.
    1. Two Main Ways to Segment Geographically
      1. Target a specific state, metro area, county, congressional district, city and/or zip
      2. Target a radius around a specific city or zip

  2. Bidding Strategy: 

    1. Manually set my bid for clicks—you want to be in control
    2. Use a default bid of $2-3 until you find out how competitive your keywords are.
    3. Set a daily budget

  3. Planning your keywords

    1. Enter keywords related to your business
    2. Google Keyword Planner, FreshKey, LongTail Pro, etc
    3. Use spy tools: Research ad words your competitors are running: iSpionage, SEMRush, SpyFu, 
    4. Exact Match: Someone has to type your keyword exactly as it appears in the campaign in order for your ad to be displayed. Designate “exact match” by putting square brackets around a keyword (ex. [lawn service])
    5. Phrase Match: Keyword has to appear in the same order as it appears in your campaign in order to trigger your ad. Designated by quotes around your keyword “lawn service”
    6. Broad Match: Displays your ad for “similar phrases and relevant variations”; includes plurals and misspellings, etc.
    7. Broad Match Modifier: Falls between Broad Match and Phrase Match in terms of control; put a “+” sign in front of your keywords +lawn +service; Tells Google that specified keywords must be in the query in order for your ad to be displayed; Words can be displayed in any order; other words can be displayed before and after; or in between your keyword string; misspelled and plural versions can still trigger an ad

  4. Writing Ad Copy

    1. Make sure your ad copy clearly describes the solution you’re giving them
    2. Know your goals: What is the ultimate action you want them to take
    3. Make sure you include your call to action
    4. Use your keywords in your ad
    5. Ask a question relevant to the search—Captures attention more than a statement
    6. Reference holidays and local events—makes ad appear more timely and relevant
    7. Use numbers—they make your ad standout visually and ad specificity to your ad
    8. Speak to your prospects’ pain: Why are they searching; get to the emotions of why 
    9. Focus on Benefits: Focus on emotional benefits your product/service provide not the technical specs (WIFM)

Step 1. Plan

The first step is to plan your campaign before you spend a dime. Many businesses rush too quickly into setting up their Google Ads campaigns to get traffic. Successful advertisers plan their campaigns ahead of time, so they minimize risk and maximize their chances of creating a profitable campaign.

 

  • Select the product or service you’re going to sell
  • Determine your acceptable customer acquisition cost (CPA)
  • Estimate your maximum cost per click (CPC)
  • Max CPC = (profit per customer) x (sales conversion rate) x (1 – profit margin)
  • Set your test advertising budget

Step 2. Keyword Research

Once you have an idea for your direction and metrics, it’s time to research your customers, keywords, and competitors. Note: For most businesses, we recommend starting with Search advertising before expanding to the Display Network.

 

Search Campaign Checklist:

  • Define your target customer (i.e. create your customer avatar)
  • Use Google’s Keyword Planner Build your initial Search keyword list 
  • Uncover your competitors’ keywords
  • Identify keywords to block (negative keywords)
  • Sort keywords and identify Buying-Intent keywords vs. Research keywords
  • Organize keywords into relevant, similar groups
  • Validate your test advertising budget (adjust as necessary)
    • Budget to test keyword = (100 clicks) x (Estimated CPC)

Step 3. Offer

The 3 biggest factors in the success of your advertising are:  (1) your audience, (2) your offer and (3) your copy (in that order).

  • Analyze your competitors’ offers
  • Choose your offer type (examplet):
    • Free sample
    • Special discount
    • Guarantee
    • Gift with order
    • Free information
  • Additional factors to consider
    • Price
    • Story (reason why you’re making the offer)
    • Deadline

Step 5. Landing Pages

Your landing page is where people “land” after clicking on your ad. Your landing page conversion rate is one of your biggest leverage points in online advertising.

  • Always send traffic to a dedicated landing page (NOT your homepage!)
  • Attention-grabbing headline
  • Limit navigational options to reduce distractions
  • Irresistible offer
  • Clear and immediately obvious Call-To-Action
    • Ideally “above the fold”
  • Simple, benefit/outcome-focused copy
  • Add Credibility/Social Proof Elements
    • Testimonials
    • Endorsements
    • Media mentions
  • Required links for Google Ads
    • About
    • Contact
    • Privacy

Step 6. Tracking

If you’re not properly tracking your conversions, you’re almost certainly wasting money. In order to maximize your ROI from Google Ads, you must track the progression of customers through to the core conversion event in your sales funnel: from the first ad click to the confirmation page. 

  • Setup all relevant Google Google Ads conversion tracking
    • Webform submissions
    • E-commerce sales
    • Phone calls from the website
    • Phone calls from ads
    • Offline import
  • Setup call tracking
  • Use CRM to track sales
    • InfusionSoft (http://www.mainstreetroi.com/infusionsoft-demo)
    • SalesForce
    • Microsoft Excel
    • Google Spreadsheets
  • KPIs/Metrics to track
    • # of Prospects from the campaign
    • # of Sales from the campaign
    • Sales conversion rate
    • Revenue per click
    • Profit per click

Step 7. Campaign Settings

For most (but not all) businesses, we recommend starting with Search advertising,

because search traffic has the strongest Buying intent. Regardless, make sure to

create separate campaigns for Search versus Display because they need to be set up

and managed differently.

  • For Search advertising, target Search and disable the Display Network
  • For Display advertising, target Display and disable Search Network
  • Advertise one product per campaign
  • Limit keywords per Ad Group to no more than 50. All keywords in an Ad Group should use a similar phrase so that your ads repeat the same phrase.
  • Always have 2-3 active ads split testing per Ad Group
  • For Search campaigns, start with Phrase Match
    • Negative Match obviously irrelevant keywords
    • Goal is to identify profitable exact match keywords
  • For Display campaigns, start by using the 100% relevant targeting options for demographics, interests, and placements. Then expand to additional targeting options later.
  • Choose proper Location settings
  • Choose proper Language
  • Start with Google’s Keyword Tool estimated bids
  • Start with Daily budget = Monthly Budget divided by 30
  • Setup Ad Scheduling based on business hours or relevant times
  • Rotate ads evenly to split test
    • Eventually optimize for conversions

Step 4. Ads

If you can get more people to click on your ads, you’ll not only get more traffic, but you can also get discounts on your cost-per-click and better ad position.

  • For Search campaigns, use keywords in ads to increase relevance
  • For Display campaigns, match the ad copy to the demographics, interests, placements, and topics you’re targeting to increase relevance
  • Communicate benefits (results), not just features
  • Include call-to-action in ads (can’t use “Click Here” in text ads)
  • Use all relevant ad extensions to increase click-through-rates
    • Sitelinks
    • Call
    • Callout
    • Location
    • Structured snippet
    • Review
  • Dimensions for Text Ads
    • Headline: 25 characters
    • Description Line 1: 35 characters
    • Description Line 2: 35 characters
    • Display URL: 35 characters
  • Dimensions for Image Ads
    • 728 x 90
    • 300 x 250
    • 336 x 280
    • 120 x 600
    • 160 x 600
    • 250 x 250
    • 200 x 200
    • 468 x 60

Step 8. Continuously Improve

Google Google Ads advertising is not a “set it and forget it” marketing tactic. To be

successful, you must continually optimize your campaign by improving your targeting, your ad copy, and your landing pages.

  • Use the keyword Search terms report to find poor performing keywords to negative match in the campaign or ad group. Review quality scores and cost per action.
  • Use the keyword Search terms report to find top-performing keywords to add to your campaign
  • Move top keywords to their own campaign. Move unproven keywords to their own campaign with a fixed budget
  • Optimize for target CPA. If no conversion data, then optimize for most clicks with budget
  • Check quality scores and follow Google’s recommendations to improve
  • Make sure there are at least 2 ads per ad group. Test dynamic keyword insertion (DKI). Continually replace the poor performing ad with new ad copy to test
  • Make sure your offer is compelling versus your competition and congruent with your landing page.
  • Add all ad extensions: Call, Location, Sitelinks, Callout, Review, and Structured snippets
  • Test your landing page headline to capture attention and get prospects to keep reading
  • Make sure your landing page is 100% relevant to what the prospect is looking for (this is why the homepage is not a good landing page)
  • Add social proof like testimonials, case studies, before/after pics to your landing page
  • Add credibility indicators like BBB logo, press mentions, 3rd party seals like VeriSign or MacAfee to your landing page
  • Test different offers and calls to action
  • Test short and long sales pages
  • Test video to improve your sales message

 

Step 9. Expand

Display Campaign Checklist

  • Define your target customer (i.e. create your customer avatar)
  • Identify your target customer demographics (gender, age ranges, parental status, income level)
  • Identify relevant Interests for behavioral targeting (use Google’s Display Planner: https://Google Ads.google.com/da/DisplayPlanner/Home )
  • Identify relevant keywords for contextual targeting (display ads on webpages that are related to the keywords)
  • Identify relevant Topics (use Google’s Display Planner: https://Google Ads.google.com/da/DisplayPlanner/Home )
  • Identify relevant placements (use Google’s Display Planner: https://Google Ads.google.com/da/DisplayPlanner/Home )
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