Never believe blogs that try to make complicated things look simple. I often see titles like ‘This is how you use Google Ads’ and ‘In 5 steps to a successful Ads campaign’. This kind of nonsense grabs my attention, because as a Certified Google Ads Partner I know the truth behind the online advertising platform .
Google advertising is quite complicated. It is one of the most complex tools that the American internet giant offers, and for complex tools there are never ready-made solutions. Google Ads is an extremely situation-dependent monster — one that can seem monstrous once you get to know the sheer size of the options and the multitude of variables. But it is a beautiful monster. You have to tame it first.
A monster may seem innocent
The idea is dead simple:
You place an ad online for your product → people see We gives you very good databases of accurate and qualitative which can help to connect with your targeted audience more shop efficiently. Eventually, we want to guide your business toward progression & until no mistake left on your database. We also refill our database every week. We have a databse sof woch list websites, high DB res or volume. the ad → people buy your product.
Of course, advertising in Google Ads is basically that simple. The problem that arises is the multitude of options that the platform offers. You have to make no less than 18 decisions before starting a campaign. This makes a new advertiser break out in a cold sweat. And then he has not even thought about keywords. Or about the layout of the advertisement.
Especially small businesses can find Google Ads too complex. You want to pet an innocent kitten, not a lion.
The question that may come to your mind is: why is Google Ads so difficult? Well, that is a fair question.
Photo source: Stephen Phillips – Hostreviews.co.uk on Unsplash
Advertising through Google is difficult because Google wants it that way
Isn’t it incredible that a piece of software is kept deliberately complicated?
Google Ads could be as simple as Gmail or Picasa. But that is not in Google’s financial interest, so it doesn’t happen. This is an important piece of information, so remember it well: all the default settings in Google Adwords are in Google’s interest. The settings are such that they maximize Google’s revenue. No, Google is not your friend. Google is a lurking predator that bites when you’re not paying attention.
Only if you know what you are doing ( and I know what I am doing ), Google Ads is a means to bring in a lot of turnover. There is then a fair exchange: Google earns from me, I earn from Google.
Unfortunately for most advertisers, they don’t know what they’re doing. In fact, many Google Ads accounts I see are losing money to the entrepreneur.
The statistics can be a bit confusing. On average, an entrepreneur earns $2 for every dollar invested in Google Ads. However, this positive average is thanks to the smart Ads experts and the big companies that know how to use the Google beast to their advantage.
Whoa, wait! Before you ask why all of enterprising Belgium (including the small amateur advertisers) continues to advertise via Google Ads, I will give you the answer.
Google is good at hiding damage
If you don’t know what you’re doing on Ads, the relationship between Google and you takes on the form of a parasite and its host. And like any parasite, Google is a master at hiding the damage so it can enjoy you longer. (By which I mean, of course, it can continue to suck money out of your pocket.)
By now you can probably understand why I have an aversion to bloggers who simplify online advertising. Google advertising is not the same for any two companies. Want examples?
Webshop: increasing ROAS
I have been managing online advertising for a webshop in beauty products for over a year now. Webshops are large things. Nevertheless, advertising campaigns for webshops are the easiest to steer towards a desired result. Because you purchase a specific product directly in a webshop (as opposed to websites that offer services), you can easily check in Google Analytics how much turnover you get from a certain advertisement. If you notice that the choice of words, the offer, the time or any other element does not produce the desired result, you can adjust it until the turnover is as desired.
The above does not mean that advertising for a webshop is a simple task: webshops have many products and you have to make a strategic choice for which products you do and do not advertise. (But few customers have the budget to advertise their entire product range .)
For me, in this specific case, there was an additional challenge: because I took over the Ads account from another marketing agency, I first had to clean up the mess that my predecessor had made. Which elements of the account do you keep, which do you not? Only after cleaning up the account could I start increasing the Return On Ad Spent, or ROAS. When advertising for webshops, everything revolves around ROAS, because you want to achieve as much turnover as possible from every euro you spend on advertising.
A year later I can say that my hard work has paid off. In 2017, the turnover per euro invested was only €3. In 2018, the turnover has doubled to €6.65 per euro invested.
Knowledge Center: Optimizing Bids
Another example. (So you can see that Google Ads is not the same for any two companies.)
I was asked by a knowledge center and trade association in logistics to review their already running Google Ads campaigns.
What I quickly noticed was that the number of impressions of their ads was more than 20% lower than those of similar customers. I went looking for the cause.
The problem turned out to be in the bidding. With Google Ads, you have to set how much a click on your displayed advertisement is worth to you. If a click is worth a lot to you (and there is a lot of competition that also bids high on a certain search term), then you sometimes have to pay ten euros for a click. If a click is worth less to you (and there is less competition), then you can get by with ten cents.
For this client, the bid was set too low. As a result, the ads were rarely or never shown. After all, competitors bid more for an impression, and Google always chooses the one with the most money.
As a company (or as an online marketer hired by a company) you would be better off spending a little more money to ensure that your advertisements are shown.
You’re probably curious about the results of my work for the knowledge center. I’ll be honest: the cost per click (CPC) has increased by 4.66%. So it now costs the knowledge center more to advertise. Is this bad? No, it actually makes perfect sense. After all, the bids used to be too low. The bid has been increased, resulting in more impressions and therefore more costs.
Moreover, the additional costs are fully justified when you look at the increase in the number of ad impressions: it has increased by no less than 19.42%!
My tip for you: regularly take a critical look at your bids for the keywords and adjust them when necessary.
Photo source: Austin Distel on Unsplash
How does bidding work in Google Ads?
To make the topic of bidding a little clearer, here’s how it roughly works:
Suppose you bid 50 cents for an impression, but your unlock powerful lead generation competitors all bid an average of only 10 cents, then you will be shown often. Google will then take 11 cents of your budget. (It is very un-Googlesque that they do not immediately pocket your 50 cents!)
You could say: I set my bid to 11 cents. That is possible, but keep in mind that the 10 cents of your competitors is an average. So there will be bids of 5 cents, but also of 15 cents. So if you suddenly bid only 11 cents, you will be shown less because the competitor who has 15 cents for a display outbids you.
Three golden rules for advertising via Google
To ensure my personal success with Google Ads advertising , I follow three golden rules:
Accept that Google Ads is not your friend . You are entering a gladiator battle with a hungry beast. And if you are not careful, it will devour you.
Stay up to date on all the updates that Google makes. These agent email list can be changes to the interface (the look and feel of Google Ads), but also new features. And it is these new features that can either cost you a lot of money, or make you a lot of money.
Follow best practices . Don’t be a cocky person. There are hundreds of Google Ads experts who share their success stories in trade publications. Learn from them. These are the best practices that have proven to be successful.
Yes, Google Ads is a monster. But I have grown to love it. I tame the wild beast with extraordinary pleasure.
What you should know about me
Our company, Motionmill, is a Google Ads Certified Partner . We worked hard for that. Through trial and error, I learned Google Ads. This took years, just like it took me years to learn to play the guitar properly. A Google Ads Certification guarantees that you can trust Motionmill with your Google Ads account. We are strategists who have profit in mind for you as a customer. Don’t lose money with Google Ads anymore .
