Google Ads has become the cornerstone of online marketing. Not only are over 90% of searches taken place on Google, amounting to 3.5 billion searches per day, but they give opportunities to fast track your way to the top.
Getting to the first page of Google for certain keywords and searches is a huge endeavor. SEO techniques, a lot of great content, and many, many months are all required to get there. Alternatively, you can get there in a day by paying.
Now, paying to be at the top of Google’s results page sounds like it would cost a fortune, a bit like paying for an advert on television. This couldn’t be farther from the case, due to the pay-per-click payment system.
At the essence of this model, marketers only pay for each time a user clicks on their advert. Usually, this will be a couple of dollars, or less, per click. Limits can be set on spending so you don’t run up a huge tab, and it can be a fantastic way to A/B test a new landing page. After all, you don’t want to spend months SEO-ing a certain page for it then to convert poorly. PPC can find that out in a day – and then you can make more informed SEO decisions.
Given there’s a lot of metrics, interpretation, and management involved, Google advertising solutions such as Clever Ads are often recommended.
Google’s Premier Partner: Clever Ads
Clever Ads is a great way to simplify Adsense and its often-confusing GUI. First and foremost, Google’s keyword planner is perhaps the most in-demand tool, which can help research keywords, their search volume, and so on. Importantly, this includes the basic Google Ads Analysis, but also some of its own, and matches it on the security front.
Clever Ads offers a better searching environment, where users can toggle competition, search volume, CPC, or even exclude words. Results are easily managed, sorted, and stored. These lists of words can easily be uploaded directly to the user’s Google Ads campaign.
One other feature that Clever Ads offers is seamless integration with third-party software. Most notably, communication software like Slack and MS Teams. This can really increase efficiency among a team, who can save time by having a centralized place for performance, graphs, and schedules.
In fact, that’s essentially what Clever Ads is in and of itself: a centralized hub to manage Google Ads to help organize and optimize ad campaigns. Some other features include:
- Mobile App
- Ads Translator
- Banner Creator
- Slack integration
- Ads Audit
How to improve your Google Ads Campaign
Other than Clever Ads, users can improve their Google Ads campaign in a variety of ways. First and foremost, there is training provided directly by Google’s skill shop. Users can get their certificate in Google Ads Search in a course that has 3.7 hours worth of content. This is a beginner course, and other more intermediate training resources do exist.
Chapters include:
- Explore the value of Google Search
- Understand the Google Ads Auction
- Make Ads relevant
- Increase efficiency with automated bidding
Youtube is another resource for endless marketing and analysis content. For example, there are many tutorials taking the user around the environment of Google Ads.
Focus, Focus, Focus
PPC ads are all about being specific. A general ad for a general audience is as good as throwing money out the window. The bottom line is Return on Investment, and that means having high conversions with as minimal cost necessary.
In order to optimize the effectiveness of your ad, you need to make it more relevant to the person reading it. This requires having a specific message, and only being shown to your specific audience. Understanding your target audience is something that should be done before even creating a Google Ads account, as this is a basic fundamental of your business.
Google Ads can teach you more about your target audience though, and what makes them take action. This is why A/B testing is vital. Instead of taking weeks to prepare the theoretically perfect ad for a given keyword, you should instead create many and play around with which one performs better. Minimal amounts can be spent, and the larger portion of the budget can be used on the winner.
Conclusion
Google Ads is a staple of many businesses marketing strategies. Instead of being viewed as a replacement for SEO, it should be seen as a supplement – something that can gather more information about what is good copy, great keywords, and who exactly your target audience is. Clever Ads can be a great way to stay on top of the metrics and management of the campaign, whilst Google themselves provides the resources necessary to learn more about the platform.
Generally, it will be specificity and niching down that will see improved results. However, no amount of preparation can replace empirical data, so it’s important to A/B test before committing too strongly to a certain strategy.
