If you’ve ever worked with a marketing consultant or done a Google search, you’ve probably had someone tell you to use Google AdWords (now called Google Ads).
Pay-per-click (PPC) ads that appear on Google search results pages can be an effective way to generate traffic—particularly traffic that converts into customers—by jumping to the top of search results.
If you choose the right keywords and budget, you can buy your way to the top of the results page. In some cases, like the above, searchers might even need to scroll down before they get past your ads.
At the same time, Google Ads makes it easy to spend a lot of money very quickly. If you aren’t quite comfortable with what you’re doing, you could blow through your whole marketing budget.
So are PPC ads worth it for small businesses?
Are Google Ads worth it for small businesses?
Google Ads are worth it for small businesses. Advertising on Google is great for small businesses that need to reach targeted audiences and want to be able to track their ROI. Google Ads budgets can get big, but you don’t need a big budget to get started.
If you learn how to use Google Ads, especially local ad listings, Google Ads can be one of the most profitable ways to get new business.
Why use PPC ads for small businesses?
PPC and Google Ads can be worth it for small businesses—if you know when they make sense and how to optimize them.
Here are six of the advantages of Google Ads:
- Reach people when they’re looking for you
- Target based on geography
- Target multiple audiences that use the same product
- Send people to specific landing pages
- Track results easily
- Get results quickly
- Reach people when they’re looking for you
If you target the right keywords with PPC ads, you can get in front of potential customers at the exact moment they’re looking for your products.
The “buy glasses online” example above illustrates this point. Just about everyone googling that term is looking to buy glasses in the near future (except for me, I guess).
Having an ad that serves up your products on transactional keywords is a great way to get new customers.
Target based on geography
If you run a local business, you don’t care about appearing in search results outside of your area.
Google Ads lets you target your searches based on geography, which can help you get in front of potential customers near you.
Combined with local SEO, geographically-targeted PPC ads can help you get more customers from your community.
Target multiple audiences that use the same product
If you sell products that can appeal to multiple different audiences, PPC ads can help you reach those audiences by letting you target different keywords.
Say, for example, you sell filter papers that can be used in both laboratory research and industrial manufacturing.
If you created a product page and tried to optimize it for search, you might have to choose between your two audiences—or choose a more general term like “carbon activated filter paper.”
PPC ads would let you target each audience individually by using industry-specific keywords. “Industrial smog filters” and “chromatography filter paper” may apply to similar products, but they attract very different audiences—PPC lets you target both.
Send people to specific landing pages
When someone clicks on a PPC ad, they get sent to a page on your website. One of the strengths of PPC ads is that you get to choose that page.
A lot of people send PPC traffic to their home page, which is ok (if not ideal). But one of the major strengths of PPC is that you can send people to customized landing pages that are optimized to convert.
By sending people to landing pages that offer what they’re looking for, you can increase your chances of converting them into customers.
Track results easily
With PPC ads, you can track clickthrough rate, ad spend, and conversion rate on landing pages. You can A/B test different ad copy and landing pages easily to maximize ROI.
One reason PPC ads are such an attractive marketing tactic is the ability to track ROI. Return on investment is a huge consideration for your marketing budget, and PPC ads won’t leave you guessing.
Get results quickly
Other approaches to getting seen in search engines can take a long time to start working. The conversion process is longer and more difficult to measure.
If you have the know-how, products, ad copy, and landing pages together already, PPC ads are a simple way to start getting sales.
PPC ads aren’t a silver bullet, but they will get you results much faster than most other marketing tactics.
Source: https://www.activecampaign.com/
