Is Google Ads a poor channel or have you just experienced poor account management?
Some of the most common objections we hear when discussing using Google Ads for their business are:
- It’s too expensive
- It’s a waste of money
- I’ve tried it before and didn’t get anything from it
However, these objections aren’t the fault of the channel itself and it often comes down to poor management of accounts. Here are some of the main reasons why we believe we keep hearing these.
1. Tracking Not Set Up
It’s almost laughable the amount of times you hear “I didn’t get anything from it” to you then asking what conversion actions they’ve been tracking and getting asked what you mean by that.
If you don’t track conversions you’re not going to know if your campaign is successful or unsuccessful!
If you’ve tried Google Ads before, but not had tracking setup correctly then it may be worth giving it a second chance, but this time at least track your success metrics. Once these are set up you can see which parts of your campaign are working and what are wasting money. When you know these you can start making adjustments to see an increase in ROI from the channel.
When setting up tracking we usually look at tracking the usage of form submissions, phone link clicks and email link clicks. However, if the website is an ecommerce site we would usually focus on sales.
2. Amateur Account Setup
Unfortunately, the best way to setup a new account are rarely exposed by industry experts, and not having the optimum setup from the go can see you wasting spend. This can be small things such as understanding the difference between broad match and broad match modified which can have a huge impact on which search terms your ads will show on.
Therefore if you’ve tried the DIY approach with Google Ads in the past, we would recommend approaching a Google Ads agency to setup and manage your account. Whilst this is a more expensive route to go down, it will be worth it in the end as the ROI you receive, even with management fees included, is likely to be much larger.
3. Not Assessing Search Query Reports
In order to get the most exposure to your ads and get shown for those long tail keywords you’re going to want to use broad match modified keywords. These are keywords which will show when all the keywords in the phrase are included, but can include additional words too.
If you are using broad match keywords, you therefore need to assess your search query report on a regular basis. This is one of the best places to find wastage in spend. It shows you all the phrases which have triggered your ads and from there you can determine whether they are relative to your campaign or not. If you deem part of a phrase irrelevant you can then add that as a negative keyword, stopping your ads from showing for phrases which include that in the future.
4. Not understanding the ROI
With one of the main objections being that Google Ads is expensive, it’s important that you understand how budgets work in Google Ads, that you can choose what you want to spend and how to determine the ROI of your campaigns.
Google Ads budgets are set at a daily rate and are capped at a monthly level. The budget can be overspent on a daily basis, but will be capped at 30.4 times the daily budget each month. This means you won’t go over the budget each month. This allows Google to show your ads more on busier days. The budgets are usually set on a per campaign basis, however shared budgets can be setup which can then assigned to different campaigns.
When looking at budgets it’s important to make sure that the amount set is affordable for your business. There is no lower budget, so there’s no need to have this set higher than you can afford and it can always be increased if you come into further funds. On top of this it’s also important to look at search volumes and cost per clicks to ensure that you will be able to see enough traction from your budget in order to get a return on your investment.
Finally, you need to understand how to calculate the ROI of your campaigns. If you can’t work this out then you’re unlikely to be able to determine whether Google Ads is actually working for you or not. As an agency we usually work off a cost per lead for service based businesses. This can simply be worked out by:
Ad Spend / Number of Leads = Cost Per Lead
As a business you may then want to take into consideration your lead to sales rate, your average customer value and your margins. From this you then be able to determine whether your Google Ads campaigns are profitable or not.
Ready To Give Google Ads Another Try?
If you’ve read this article and think it’s time to give Google Ads another chance, then you might want to get in touch with us here at Pinnacle Digital in order to see how we can help you achieve success with your Google Ads campaigns. You can get in touch by calling 01724 231159 or visiting our contact page.