Are You Ready To Use Google Ads?

This might seem like a weird title for an article written by a qualified Google Ads consultant, but please be reassured this is based on sound principles. Some would imagine I'm keen to motivate every business owner to set up and run an account as soon as possible. Sorry to disappoint, but this is far from the truth. I believe in getting your house in order before launching a Google Ads account.

Truly I appreciate your urge to get started. It's exciting. You may have received a voucher and you're keen to convert it into real clicks and visitors as soon as possible. Instead, I would like business owners to take a step back, review some key business website fundamentals and only then decide whether they should get started on their own.

Thus, let's get started with my personal reasons as to why a business shouldn't contemplate Adwords until they have their online presence in order.

1. You Don't Have A Proven Online Sales Funnel

Based on my experience it seems some companies are OK with simply relying on Google Ads to provide additional website visitors without a proven sales funnel in place. It doesn't make sense to spend money on traffic if you have no means of converting it into prospects, customers and sales. I would suggest without a proven sales funnel and a means to track conversions there's work to be completed before enabling your paid ads.

On a positive note, it shouldn't take you too much resource to set up a simple sales funnel in the form of a contact form embedded into the landing page. This enables a business to easily track traffic and record the visitors that respond to their call to action.

2. You Aren't Willing To Invest The Time Into Managing Your Google Adwords Account

You need to honestly ask yourself are you in a position to monitor your account on a daily and weekly basis. Furthermore are you willing to educate yourself on the finer points of running a successful campaign? Whilst it's fairly straightforward to enter some ad text, insert your landing page URL, add a few keywords and set your maximum cost per click bids, it still represents someone on the start line. They are still only just getting out of first gear with no experience to make the next bend let alone complete a full lap. Every year Google Ads gets more complex as Google introduces new features. It takes a significant amount of time to fully understand how to optimise an account.

Consider are you knowledgeable enough to exploit the opportunities generated by keywords that are converting well for you. Are you able to take time out in your day to review the search terms you have paid for during the previous day? You will need to pluck out the negative keywords affecting your campaign performance. For example, unless you are a recruitment agency the word "job" is usually a guaranteed negative keyword.

3. You Aren't Able To Easily Make Copy And Design Changes To Your Website

Firstly I have a couple of questions to ask. Are you currently able to make changes to the copy on your website? In addition, you are able to complete simple tasks like embedding forms into existing pages. Such a task will help improve your overall conversion rate. If the answer is no, I'm hoping you are able to outsource the work at an affordable rate. If it is expensive to make changes you will always be on the back foot working on your website. You need to have the skills to hand or close by in the form of trusted developer in order to quickly improve your landing pages.

4. You Don't Have A Data Driven Business

Are you laser focused on your margins? Do you know how much is available to spend online to promote your products and services? Far too many businesses haven't thoroughly reviewed the data in their accountancy software, CRM and Google Analytics. Whether you run an e-commerce site or promote a service online it's imperative to know what a visitor is worth to you. It's critical you are focused on improving conversions. For example, do you already know the sales conversion rate for your direct referrals and organic traffic? Are you already measuring goals in Google Analytics? You never run a Google Ads campaign with this data to hand.

5. You Don't Have The Budget To Invest Properly In A Full Campaign

You need sufficient budget to market to your potential customers over the full sales cycle of your product or service. Once someone has visited your site via a search or display ad, it's recommended you use remarketing ads to remind them that you exist. This will represent another touch point in their journey towards buying from you. Thus before enabling your campaigns and making your ads live you must completely understand the sales cycle of your product. This will help you determine the cookie duration you set up for your Google Ads conversion tags.

If you are already using Google Analytics goals to track key activities on your website you will be well equipped to determine the longest it takes before someone purchases a product. Ultimately this information will help determine whether you have sufficient budget to properly market to your audience over the lifetime of your sales cycle.

6. You Find Copywriting Dull And Under Value The Power Of Using The Right Words

There are many elements that make up a full Google Ads ad. The best ones are written by experienced copywriters. There's a real skill to using the 30 characters in the title and 90 characters for the first and second lines of description to create a compelling ad.

Google is keen for advertisers to present a relevant message that remains consistent from search term to advert to landing page. Thus are you capable of integrating call to actions into engaging keyword rich ads, split testing and then creating another as a means OF improving the adgroup and campaign click-through rate. Changing your conversion rate, even by a fraction, will make a massive difference to your Adwords ROI.

I recommend using the Google Ads preview and diagnosis tool to preview your ad against your competition. Never use your own browser to test because it will give you inaccurate results. Determine whether your ads are as good as your competition. Are they using sitelink, call, call out and review extensions, whilst you aren't?

7. You Don't Have A Compelling Offer To Compete With Your Competition

Depending on your industry Google Ads can be a highly competitive marketplace. Adwords is an auction where your bid position is determined by the quality score for each keyword you bid on. Your quality scores are determined by the following factors: Your ad's expected CTR, your display URL's past CTR, the quality of your landing page, your ad search relevance, your geographic performance and your targeted devices. It's a lot to think about. Your competition will have been on Google Ads longer than you, they will have worked on creating the best offer they can. This means it won't be easy for you, you will have to work hard to be as competitive. It's important to present the best possible offer you can from the start. When you start your campaign Google has no prior knowledge of your business. Thus, avoid serving up a lame offer and generate the highest quality scores you can.

Assuming The 7 Reasons Above Don't Apply To You - Let's Get Started

Hopefully, you have been able to read through these 7 points and determine you are good to go. If not and it seems like for the moment you shouldn't use Google Ads, I advise you to speak to a consultant on how best to prepare your business and website for a successful Google Ads campaign in the future.