How To Get Customers From Google Ads For Small Businesses
Expert Advice: How Successful Are Google Ads For Small Businesses?
The world of Google ads for small businesses is vast, constantly changing, and technically complicated. As a small business owner faced with various options and platforms to market your business, advertising on Google can seem intimidating, especially when you don’t have all the information you need to ensure your ads are as effective as possible. “It makes it challenging as a business owner, if you just want to run a small campaign, to do this without calling someone who actually understands this stuff because of how technically nuanced it is,” said Jeff Cooper, Founder and President of Saltbox Solutions, during a BizHack Live webinar. With more than 5.6 billion searches each day on Google, the platform serves to be one of the most common ways advertisers can market their product to an audience. “Google has a massive ownership of the search market,” Cooper said. “As an advertiser, even though there are other platforms out there, such as Microsoft ads, or Bing, I really recommend that you focus on Google first. If you can get things to work in Google, it’s very easy to replicate those things in other search engines.” How successful are Google ads for small businesses? Keep reading to learn more.TL;DR: Learn more about the fast-paced world of Google paid search auctions to plan your Google ads for small businesses strategy.
Using Google’s paid auction for your online advertising needs can be complicated, confusing, and overwhelming. How can a small business owner know if Google ads for small businesses are the best option? When devising your business’s online advertising strategy, consider these four ideas.- Google paid auction pits advertisers against each other as they bid for space on the top of a search page for a specific search query. Google evaluates how much you are willing to spend for one click on your advertisement alongside the quality of the user’s experience when engaging with your ad.
- To decide if Google advertising is worth it for your business, calculate the estimated profit you will earn if only a fraction of the traffic you receive from your ad becomes a paying customer. If you have a relatively new advertising campaign or will lose money by engaging in a Google paid auction, it may not be worth it as a small business.
- Take time to observe what the current search market is like for other advertisers and how your competitors spend money. Pay attention to what search queries your competitors are bidding on and if these keywords are relevant and economical for your business.
- If you choose to engage with Google paid auction, take note of which keywords you bid on are successful and which ones are not. Avoid common mistakes like using a broad keyword match or disregarding the quality of your advertisement.
Want more of these great insights? Subscribe to our community newsletter and get invited to #BizHackLive events. Also, don’t forget to follow BizHack on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and subscribe to our YouTube channel.
Google Ads For Small Businesses: How The Google Paid Search Auction Process Works
There are many opportunities to use Google ads for small businesses, including paid search results, Google Maps, Google My Business, Google Shopping, and organic search results. Of these resources, the paid search result feature tends to be the most elusive and complicated for small business owners with little prior experience using the paid auction feature. However, it also presents numerous benefits. “It tends to get a lot of visibility with prospective customers, and it also gets a lot of click volume and interaction from people who are using Google,” Cooper said. “When you compare it to something like organic search and you’re a new business or you’re a smaller business, it’s oftentimes a lot easier to drive traffic and sales faster through these advertising components.” When you’re thinking about using Google ads for small businesses, the paid auction feature can be attractive because it can promote a new ad on the platform almost immediately. This quick turnaround and visibility are faster than trying to rank organically for search terms, as it takes a longer time frame to refine and generate visible results. The Google paid auction process is fast-paced. For each search query entered into the site, Google runs a live auction where advertisers compete against each other to rank at the top of the search results page. As the auction goes on, the platform goes through a series of steps.- Google views the list of advertisers who have submitted a bid for a specific keyword. It looks at how much each advertiser is willing to pay for one click from a Google user. The price they pay for this engagement is called the cost per click, or CPC.
- Google evaluates the quality of your ad experience or your quality score (QS). This quality score consists of how relevant your ad copy is, the quality of the user’s experience on your landing page, and your historical performance as an advertiser with Google. In other words, do users usually find what they are looking for when they engage with your ad?
- Finally, Google ranks the ads into a series of results based on a score it gives you. This score is determined by multiplying your CPC by your QS to produce a fractional value out of 10. With this scoring system, ads with a higher value out of 10 will rank higher in the search results.
- The expected click-through rate of your ad. Do you have engaging offers and compelling branding and messaging?
- Ad relevance. Does your ad use specific language that ensures users find what they are looking for?
- Landing page user experience. Is your landing page easy to navigate? Do you refrain from using spammy pop-up windows and other features that could be distracting?
Is Paid Search Worth It For Your Business?
Now that you know how Google paid search auction works, you must begin evaluating if the return on investment for this platform is worth it for your small business needs. Cooper suggested that small business owners keep two questions in mind.- How much money do I make if a visitor to my website becomes a customer? To answer this question, measure or estimate your customer value (the average revenue you earn with each transaction) and then assess where your “break-even” point is or where your customer becomes profitable.
- How many website visitors on average will become a customer? Check your current website data to see how many new customers you receive each month due to visits to your website. You can also estimate your website conversion rate. A 2%-5% conversion rate is average, Cooper said.
What Does The Current Search Market Look Like?
As you continue to explore Google paid search auctions and how they can help you run Google ads for small businesses, another valuable strategy may be to observe how the current marketplace is operating for relevant keywords to your company. Cooper recommended several data resources that help small business owners monitor the search market in action. Some of these include:- Google Ads
- SpyFu
- Semrush
- Ahrefs
- The relevance of a keyword. Can you sell your product to the user that searches this keyword? Can you fulfill the needs behind their search with your business? Should you pay to get this specific user’s attention?
- Click costs. Will you still make a profit from your ad based on the estimated CPC bids of your competitors?
Core Success Factors and Common Mistakes
Finally, Cooper advised small business owners looking to become involved with Google paid search auctions to note important areas to achieve success and common areas where mistakes are made. One of these common mistakes involves neglecting your keyword’s match type before running an ad. “A match type is the rules through which Google will actually take your keyword target and show you different search queries in that search engine results page,” Cooper said. There are three keyword match types for advertisers to keep in mind when bidding on keywords.- Broad match. This category does not use any specific notation to denote the match type, making it the default option for advertisers. Using this option decreases the relevance of your ads, making them less likely to achieve visibility.
- Phrase match. This category is indicated by using quotation marks (“) around your keyword. With this match type, your ad may be included in auctions for search queries with your keyword in a longer phrase. This category is more specific than a broad match but is still not as specific as possible.
- Exact match. Keywords in this category can be inputted using brackets ([]) on either side of the keyword. This category provides the tightest matching for ads in specific search queries. Cooper recommended that advertisers first start with an exact match to ensure that they have the highest chance of visibility.