It doesn’t take much convincing to realise the worth and importance of digital marketing spearheaded by Google – a driving force search engine that gives you exactly what you are looking for without fail. To affirm just how much of an internet authority it has become, language has evolved to accommodate this search giant. You don’t search for things online; you google it!
Google’s immense popularity has secured its overwhelming amount of daily search traffic. At any given day, it processes over 5.4 billion searches. Every second accounts for 40 000 searches, and every year, 1.2 trillion searches take place. This traffic should be magnetic to any marketer or advertiser wishing to tap into a larger consumer market. To counter the overwhelming size and functionality of this platform and to align it with your business’s goals, a good starting point is a Google Ads strategy.
A Google Ads strategy gets you in on the action
Google Ads is a paid advertising platform launched in October 2000. It makes use of a pay-per-click (PPC) marketing channel, where you pay per click or impression (CPM) on an ad. With a range of extensive features, this platform allows you to increase qualified traffic to your business.
It allows you to do this by creating and sharing ads that are timed correctly to your target audience via desktop and mobile. As such, your ad will pop up on the search engine results page (SERP) at precisely the right time while your potential customers are browsing Google Search for the products and services that you offer.
Why you should be using Google Ads
This versatile and multi-faceted platform is excellent to hone in on an audience of potential customers who are positioned at various stages of the buyer’s journey through its wide range of targeting options.
What Google’s advertising platform excels at is harnessing a user’s intent. When a person performs a search, they are usually actively looking for something specific. When they see your ad, you are offering a solution to their problem, so to speak, rather than interrupting their browsing experience.
If your goal is to expand your brand and business, with the vast amount of traffic on Google, it only makes sense that your business’s reach will increase. It also gives your brand a boost by building brand awareness as a large number of users now set eyes on you and thus become familiar with your brand.
Google Ads ensures that anyone looking to advertise can do so, despite your budget. You can tailor your ads to suit your budget and include a monthly cap once that budget is reached allowing you to pause or stop your ad whenever you need to.
The advantages of working Google Ads into your marketing strategy can change the course of your business’s marketing endeavours, as demonstrated in only some of the advantages above. Still, if not approached strategically and with a good understanding of what it entails, you can be prone to making rookie mistakes in your online advertising.
What to watch out for
Despite all the obvious plusses that come with running Google Ads, here are some of the key challenges to consider that may suck the life right out of your campaigns, including:
- Not really knowing who to target.
- Overlooking your competitors.
- Forgetting about your landing page.
- Neglecting your campaigns.
- Overspending on clicks.
To account for these, among other, potential challenges and make them work in your favour, you have to have a solid Google Ads strategy in place that gets you the most for your buck and guarantees the most success. And, just like that, you too can be in on the Google Ads action!
A Google Ads strategy to up your advertising game
Now that you have an idea of what this advertising platform is about, what it can do for your business, and the potential challenges to watch out for, you can start thinking about your Google Ads strategy. Remember that a Google Ads strategy should be very carefully aligned to your unique business and its needs. Whatever your main goals are, a tailored, targeted Google Ads strategy should address those goals and continuously develop as your business grows and changes.
At iLEAD et al, we offer bespoke Google Ads strategy and management services. As a Google Premier Partner, we are leaders in the digital marketing sphere. If all of this sounds amazing, but you’re overwhelmed at the idea of doing it yourself, get in touch with us and we’ll get you started.