Does Google Adwords work and will it work for you? These are great questions to consider if you are looking for more business.
Google Adwords is one of the most measurable forms of marketing. This means if your account is set up properly you can track exactly what you are spending and how many calls / sales / enquiry form submissions you are getting. You can even track the exact keyword that led to each enquiry, what web page the person was on, what sort of device they were using, what city they were in at the time….
All of this data means that it is much easier to tell if google adwords is working. Whereas a lot of other forms of marketing especially ones that take time like PR, brand building and social media can be a lot harder to measure. This doesn’t mean other forms of marketing don’t work of course, just that Adwords is one of the easiest to measure.
Not everyone has a well set up Google Adwords Campaign with tracking but a lot of people do. And those people between them chose to spend billions on Google Adwords every year. Businesses can see exactly what they are getting back from Google Adwords and they choose to continue spending billions between them, that is a pretty good sign that it works. Adwords works on a bidding system so you end up paying about the same as what your competitors are paying. This helps ensure that adwords is profitable as your competitors tend to have the same sort profit margins per client.
For some companies like ecommerce it is easier to track as they can see for example that they may spend £10,000 and get £50,000 back in sales. For Service businesses they can use call tracking so they can calculate what they are paying per enquiry e.g. they get an enquiry for every £20 they spend or whatever.
The price is also very fair. Google doesn’t choose the price, your competitors do. So if you sell Birthday Cards your competitors are likely willing to pay pennies for each website visitor. If you sell houses or expensive software then your competitors are willing to pay more and you will have to pay a comparable amount. If your competitor is paying £50 per enquiry and you have a better campaign then you may get away with a significantly better return like £30 per enquiry. The quality of your campaign makes a big difference, it is important to have a good campaign manager.
With up to 4 ads showing up above the natural results more business than ever is coming through to adwords advertisers. A lot of people click on the ads without even realising they have clicked on an advert. Also all the data that comes back allows you (or the agency you use) to continually improve your campaign so that it generates more leads and at a lower cost per lead.
Does Google Adwords Work For Small Businesses?
The ads work on a bidding system, the more you are willing to pay for each click the higher up you appear and the more of the clicks you will get. This means that small businesses that are only after a small slice of all the business out there can spend their budget comfortably in a lower ad position i.e. they can bid less and therefore pay less for each click. So each enquiry works out cheaper. You can also ramp up the campaign when businesses is going well or you need the work, and you can pause it if you are busy or away on holiday.
Will it work for your industry?
If people search for your services on Google then there is a good chance it will work. A good adwords agency will do keyword research first to confirm that there are searches for your services. They will also be able to give you an idea of how much competition there is.
If you are thinking about trying Google Adwords then feel free to give get in touch.