So, after reading the previous chapter, you would think Google AdWords is pretty simple right? You can run ads to generate more leads and revenue. You can sell more products online. You can bring more traffic to your website. But, unfortunately, it’s not that straight forward. There are other things to take care of. We’ll discuss that in another chapter, however for now, let’s discuss the benefits of Google Adwords as an advertising platform.
While the prospect of investing money on Adwords might seem like a daunting task, the results that come in are almost instantaneous and transparent. Which is why it is worth every penny that you spend on it.
Benefits of Google AdWords
1) Adwords works faster than SEO
The topmost benefit of Google AdWords is that it works faster than SEO. Both SEO and Google AdWords are search engine marketing strategies to generate more traffic and leads. But, a well optimized AdWords campaign can work much faster for a business to get the much coveted first spot in search.
Here are some reasons why it’s faster and more effective
- You can focus on multiple keywords at a time.
- You can turn the campaign on or off whenever you want to.
- Ads which appears on the top of the page get immediate visibility.
Of course, this does not mean that you should ignore organic sources, as they have more long-term benefits. But with AdWords, there is a better chance of driving more traffic and leads instantly. Additionally, the platform is more transparent, and you know exactly what is happening with the ads.
On the other hand, search engine optimization, though very beneficial, is a long-term process. To rank for any keyword, it requires a lot of perseverance and a lot of well-written articles, and backlinks. And even then, it takes a while for them to gain the necessary authority.
Simply put. ads give you instant visibility at an instant cost, whereas SEO would give you long term success, depending on the effort you put on the quality of your content.
But, I am not here to debate one strategy’s benefits over the other. You need to use both simultaneously, but be realistic about the success time frame, and the effort/money that would be needed for both.
2) Increase brand awareness
Google AdWords, in addition to boosting traffic, clicks, and conversions, is also an efficient way to tell people about your brand. To verify this, Google partnered with Ipsos to run a study across 12 verticals, right from automobiles to retail. It was discovered that search ads lift top-of-mind awareness by an average of 6.6%.
Source: Google
When it comes to SEO, your rank also depends on the number of your brand name searches and its variations. That’s another reason you should aim to increase brand awareness through search, as well as display ads.
3) Reach more customers through their Gmail Inbox
One of the most used marketing strategies in every business is email marketing, which is why gmail ads can be helpful as well. In September 2015, Google integrated native Gmail ads with Google AdWords and made it available to all advertisers, which means you can reach more prospects through their gmail inbox.
Usually, Gmail ads appear on the promotion tab, but sometimes you can see it on the social tab too. These ads run on both desktops and mobiles. Since Gmail ads generally cost much less than search ads, if you have a small budget, then you can try Gmail ads as well.
Mobile Gmail ad:
Desktop Gmail ad:
The KCB example:
Many businesses are still not very aware of how effective Gmail ads can be. But KCB group’s agency ‘Squad Digital’ understood their power. They built a lead generation strategy using Gmail ads, and these are the results.
Source: ThinkWithGoogle
4) Reconnect with visitors of your website
One of the coolest benefits of Google AdWords is reconnecting with your website visitors. Let me elaborate.
You might have window shoppers on your website. These are people who have visited all the pages on your website but haven’t taken any action. How do you remind them of you and what you could do for them? Enter Display Remarketing and RLSA campaigns.
a) Remarketing on display network:
This helps advertisers target visitors on different advertising-supported websites using banner images. Assume you run a travel business and a visitor is looking for Thailand packages. But for some reason, he decides to leave without purchasing. You can just create a remarketing list like the one below to target him.
Similar to remarketing lists, you can create suppression lists as well (as shown above). These suppression lists ensure that you target new leads and not run ads for those who have already converted.
b) Remarketing on search network:
RLSA stands for Remarketing Lists for Search Ads. As the name indicates, it runs remarketing campaigns on the search network, much like display remarketing. Additionally, the advertiser needs to add keywords in this campaign. By doing so, Google ads can match the user’s search query with the keyword and remarketing list. This will help Google to show relevant ads for each search query.
Since visitors have already visited your website, there are more chances of converting them to leads when they see your remarketing ads also.
The Edfa3ly example:
Have you ever thought of running remarketing on both networks simultaneously? Learn from Cairo-based Edfa3ly. It is an online shopping company, and they ran remarketing on both networks at the same time and managed to increase their revenue by 85%.
Source: ThinkWithGoogle
5) Measure your performance consistently
It is very difficult to measure the outcome of traditional advertisements like newspapers, radio, broadcast television, cable television, outdoor billboards, brochures etc. Also, they are much more expensive than Google AdWords. You can’t control your own budget and spend. Additionally, you wouldn’t know the source of the leads coming from these media, unless your customer chooses to divulge it. As a result, it would be very difficult to calculate ROI from traditional media.
But, AdWords, on the other hand, would tell you exactly what happened with the campaign. You would know:
- Who clicked on your ad.
- How many leads have been generated.
- How much traffic you have got from AdWords to your website.
- Which keyword generated the most traffic and leads.
- How much does it cost you per lead.
This would help marketers understand what worked and what didn’t. Using this information, you can then tweak your campaigns until you achieve optimal results.
6) Explore more using your ads
Confused with the title? As I said, there is a lot more to explore when you link your Google AdWords account with your Google Analytics account. AdWords is a great platform but it won’t let you know what people do after clicking the ads. But, Google analytics would help you understand,
- How long a visitor stayed on a page
- How many pages have been visited
- Bounce rate of your landing page
- Details about new visitors and returning visitors and much more.
By linking them together, you will have a lot more data in your hand. An advertiser can measure the complete performance of the Google ads. He/she can pause the non-performing keywords/campaigns/ads and try different variations to boost your results. This data would also help in writing more articles/posts using keywords that performed best for your business. Using those keywords you can rank better for organic search as well.
The Swissôtel Hotels & Resorts example:
Swissôtel Hotels & Resorts is a group of deluxe hotels around the world. They were unable to figure out ‘what happened after visitors clicked on the ad’. They also wanted to know ‘how the behavior of paid visitors differs from that of organic visitors’. Hence, Barbara Pezzi, Director of Analytics at the company utilized Google Analytics segment feature and tweaked their Google Search ads.
7) Tackle your competition better
When someone searches for something related to your product/services online, and you aren’t running ads, but your competitors are, then that means trouble for you. You’ll lose business almost instantly.
You need to keep an eye on them to see how they are promoting their business, what kinds of ads they run etc. The transparent system of Google AdWords helps you do this. Grab the opportunities that come your way and make yourself stand out from your competition.
Now you have reasons to advertise on Google AdWords. But let’s discuss if this platform makes sense for you at all.
Bonus: Who can use Google AdWords?
You shouldn’t start using Google AdWords just because your friend found success with it. You need to know first if it makes senses for you and your business, and if it does, what types of ads would work best for you.
Google AdWords would be the answer for your business only if you meet these criteria:
- Is your audience online?
- Are the keywords related to your business being searched online? Use Google’s Keyword Planner to research this. On a personal note, I would prefer bidding on keywords when the minimum search volume is more than 500 per month, and this search volume shows an upward trend.
- Are online magazines and bloggers publishing articles related to your industry or service?
- Search for your keyword online to see if Google throws relevant answers.
- Are your competitors investing online (paid or unpaid channels)?
- Use keyword tools like Adwords keyword planner, WordStream, MOZ, Keyword Tool and more to gauge the traffic & bid for your keyword. These tools would also suggest other related keywords which would help you experiment more.
So, do think you meet the criteria?
(PS: If I missed out any points, you can email me.)
[Also read: How to crack LinkedIn Ads]
Conclusion
I have covered all the basic elements of Google AdWords in these first two chapters. I hope these benefits of Google AdWords would help you to get started with running your first Google ad.
Are you a marketer who is not monitoring your AdWords every day? Or are you simply overwhelmed about which metric you should be checking first? Then the next chapter is for you.
Go to Chapter Three
