3 Big Reasons to Love Google AdWords

As a small business owner you love Google… and you hate Google.

You know that loads of great prospects are searching for your exact services on Google.  Yet, day in and day out, they’re not finding you.  Could anything be more frustrating?

(Also see How AdWords Became Critical for Your Business in 2013)

Well, it’s time to make your peace with Google and embrace Google AdWords with open arms.

Here are the top 3 reasons why you should love Google AdWords for your small business marketing.

1) AdWords yields a PRECISE ROI

You can calculate a precise Return-On-Investment (ROI) for your marketing efforts with Google AdWords metrics.

Can you say that about your other advertising?  Can you say that about your print, radio, tv, direct mail or social media campaigns?

If you can’t measure the results of your marketing, then you’re just guessing and hoping.  That’s hardly a recipe for business success. Big companies may have a budget to risk on such ventures, but the rest of us don’t.

With AdWords you can track each desired visitor engagement (“conversion“) to whatever level of detail you want.  You can track:

• Purchases
• Form submissions
• Phone calls
• Content downloads
• Video plays
• Email opt-ins

… and more!

You can even assign different conversion values to different types of conversions.  For example, perhaps you know that a lead who contacts you is 10x more valuable than a lead who downloads your white paper.  You can enter that data into AdWords, and it will do all the ROI math for you.

Here’s an example metrics snapshot from one of my AdWords lead generation campaigns:

I can easily see that I spent $242.61 on ad clicks to get 44 visitors to my website.  Of those visitors, 4 converted, which provided an expected revenue value of $2,600 (given my lead close rate).  That’s a “conversion value / cost” ratio of 10.7, or a return on ad spending of about 1,000%.

This is invaluable information, and I don’t need to do the math myself.  It’s automatically calculated for me by AdWords!

If you need to be able to see a clear ROI for your marketing, then you should love Google AdWords.

2) AdWords forces you to create EFFECTIVE MARKETING

Google AdWords rewards businesses that provide the best marketing experience to their own prospects.

This aligns with Google’s mission of always delivering the most relevant and helpful search results possible.  It’s what keeps Google ahead of its competitors.

Specifically, Google AdWords motivates you to improve your marketing by giving you tangible rewards.  It rewards you with more ad impressions, higher ad positions, and less expensive cost-per-click.

Google AdWords rewards:

1. Focus: You must distill your business offering down to the most compelling 1-3 customer benefits.  And you must present them clearly in just a few words.
2. Consistency: The promises you make in your ad copy must align with your landing page experience and, indeed, your entire website experience.
3. Quality: You must meet or exceed searcher expectations through your website experience in order to engage them and convert them into leads or customers.

Did you notice that these attributes that Google AdWords rewards are exactly the attributes that you want in your business marketing anyway?

Here’s one of my high-performing AdWords ads:

It says a lot to my target prospects in just a few words.  And the listed services are emphasized and detailed on the subsequent landing page.  This creates a focused, consistent high-quality experience for my prospects.  And it was all thanks to my need to create an effective AdWords campaign.

If you want to improve all your business marketing, you should love Google AdWords.

3) AdWords delivers HOT PROSPECTS

Most marketing is “interruption marketing”.  Do you make cold-calls, use display banners (whether on a highway or on a website), or place ads in magazines?  If so, you are interrupting people when they are doing something else.

Often this interruption is simply ignored (especially in this day and age).  Sometimes the interruption is so unwelcome that the prospect develops a negative opinion of you.  Only once in a while will a prospect have interest in your offer right now and be able to act on it.

That’s hard.  And that’s why a “good” Click-Through-Rate (CTR) for online interruption ads is a mere 0.025%.

Google AdWords Search Ads are a completely different beast.  They are a form of “permission marketing”.

A prospect types a phrase into the Google Search box and hits “enter”.  By doing this they give Google (and its advertisers) permission to show them the most relevant results possible.

The prospects are begging for your help to solve their problem or meet their need or desire.  Better yet, you can target search queries that indicate the prospects are close to the “buying” stage of the sales funnel.  In this way you get truly hot prospects delivered to your doorstep (or website).

What could be better than reaching your ideal prospects at the exact moment they’re looking for you?  This is why a “good” Click-Through-Rate (CTR) for online permission ads is over 1%.  That’s 40x greater than for interruption ads!

Let’s look at another one of my high-performing AdWords ads:

This ad virtually guarantees hot prospects for me.  It says “click me!” if you’ve been frustrated by your efforts to date and you want to hire an expert now.  Those are my ideal leads, and I’ve structured this AdWords campaign to attract them.

If you want hot prospects handed to you, you should love Google AdWords.

Conclusion

Stop and pause the next time you find yourself swearing at Google for this or that.

Instead, create an effective Google AdWords campaign. You will improve all your marketing, know your precise ROI, and reach hot prospects who are ready to buy now.

It’s time to learn to love Google AdWords!

Do you need help getting a positive ROI from  your AdWords campaigns?  Ask a question in the comments below or contact me directly.