The benefits of Google Ads, and up to 34% sales contribution

What Google Ads is

Google Ads has been a core marketing strategy for B2B and B2C businesses for years. Where a business in the 1980s coveted television, radio or a major publication, paid search is what large brands, and plenty of small ones, treat as essential now. Most people know it is good for business without knowing much more than that.

Type something into Google, for example “marketing expert”, and the first few results carry a small “Ad” label. Those businesses have paid for the placement. They have invested in the phrase “marketing expert”, or something close to it, so that they appear at the top of the results when you search for it. This is search advertising, delivered through the search network, and it begins with the customer entering a search term.

Leave that website, visit a completely different one, and you may see an advert from the same company. That is remarketing on the display network.

In that second case the advert appears without you having searched for anything. When you originally searched and visited the site, tracking code and a cookie allowed you to be recognised later, so a display advert could be shown. Display adverts can be targeted in several ways: remarketing, affinity groups, interest groups and keywords among them.

Any business can do this, so that its website is prominent in relevant search and display, and the people looking for it can find it easily.

Grabbing attention where the need starts

The most obvious advantage is prominence. Users want quick results and rarely go far beyond the first few options, let alone onto later pages, so appearing at the top makes it far more likely that your website is seen and clicked.

The deeper advantage is that search, unlike most advertising, starts with a customer need. That is why it is consistently one of the most effective formats there is.

Targeting that follows the money

One of the strongest features of Google advertising is how directly you can point your budget at the audience you want. The targeting is genuinely advanced, and comparable to the major social platforms.

You can target by location, by device, by time of day and by language. Each of those improves the return you get from the same spend, because the advert reaches people whose circumstances match what you sell.

It is not only about budget

Google Ads does not simply reward whoever spends the most. You bid for keywords, but other factors can push your advert above a higher bidder, which gives smaller businesses a real chance against larger ones.

Click-through rate is used to judge how relevant your advert is, because the priority is a good experience for the searcher: a higher-performing advert with a lower bid can outrank one that users ignore. The quality of your website and its content, measured against what the searcher expected, counts too.

Cost control

Paid search levels the field between smaller companies and global ones, largely because of cost control.

Google Ads runs on a pay-per-click basis, so you pay for the people who actively click through to your site rather than for everyone who sees the advert. You also set what you are prepared to spend, whether that is a few pounds a day or several thousand, which makes the channel accessible to a very wide range of businesses.

Measurement is built in

Analysing results is half of marketing well. You need the plan and the execution, but you also need to know what is working, where the money is going and what could be better. As set out in where SME marketing budget is wasted, setting and measuring funnel KPIs is what creates focus and cuts waste.

Google Ads reports the numbers that matter without additional tooling: click-through rate, impressions, conversion rate, cost per click and cost per acquisition. With those visible you can adjust targeting and budget until the campaign performs, and monitor return directly.

What the benchmark data shows

The Bizible AdWords Industry Benchmark Report gives a clearer picture of effectiveness by industry. The data was collected from around 120 companies between December 2015 and May 2016, so treat it as an indication of relative performance rather than a current figure.

On contribution to revenue, the lowest was 13% in software and SaaS, which is a strong floor for a lowest-ranking figure. Agency and travel followed at 14%, hardware, electronics and manufacturing at 25%, business services at 27%, and financial services at 34%.

On return on investment the picture was similar: travel at 234%, software and SaaS at 251%, business services at 332%, financial services at 364% and agency at 372%.

Across every category in that data set, businesses saw revenue increase and a healthy return from investing in Google Ads.

What it means for you

Used properly, paid search is likely to produce a profitable return and revenue you can attribute directly to it.

It also complements search engine optimisation rather than replacing it. As more businesses invest in SEO the organic competition intensifies, which is covered in 15 factors to improve SEO results. Combining strong organic performance with paid search is what produces both impressions and conversions.

Tips for using Google Ads

First, know the keywords your target audience is actually searching for. Tools or a professional will tell you not only which terms are searched, but which are worth targeting once search volume is weighed against competition.

Second, know your audience. Where do they live, when are they online, and what can you help them with? Target accordingly and both click-through rate and return improve.

Third, watch the analytics and adjust what you invest and which phrases you target until you find the pattern that works for your business.

If you want to run your own campaign, there are plenty of tutorials, but monitor and adjust it constantly. It is extremely easy to spend a great deal of money and be disappointed, because a campaign that is not set up well is scored poorly by Google, which increases what your clicks cost.

There are many details that matter. Set keywords to broad match without the right negative keywords, for instance, and your adverts will be served to the wrong audience while your budget disappears. For highly competitive keywords the cost per click can be extraordinary, and a single click can consume a small daily budget. Do the research before you commit, or use professional support.

If you want to become genuinely competent, Google offers free training modules and a certification route.

Google advertising is a method that works, and the benchmark numbers show it. Every business should at least be considering seriously how to use it.

Sources

• Bizible: AdWords Industry Benchmark Report, data collected from approximately 120 companies between December 2015 and May 2016

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