Google AdWords for Small Businesses

When it comes to promoting your business services or products on line, this is achievable for small businesses using Google AdWords. Small businesses can even tackle the big guns in their industry for an achievable budget on this platform. By setting up an AdWords account correctly, even a small budget can yield impressions and clicks on Google provided you use the right targeting options and account structure.

The Issue

The main point to understand about Google AdWords is that it is a complicated platform and is difficult to master. Anyone who tells you it is a walk in the park is not telling you the truth, however when implemented correctly it can bring great results to your business objectives. Don’t get me wrong. Anyone can go in and set up a campaign. However, to maximise it and make it work for most businesses AdWords takes careful planning and practice to master which can take time. Time most business owners just don’t have, in addition to their already loaded work schedule. This is one of the reasons there are so many businesses who don’t think AdWords really works. However, with time, effort and patience your Google AdWords campaign can yield great returns and there are many businesses out there who have increased their profits dramatically and others who use it as their main advertising medium.

Keep It Simple

What a lot of business owners think about AdWords is that you need to have a huge account with hundreds of keywords in it or a huge budget. The fact is, you don’t need a huge campaign to be successful. If you have an AdWords account with too many words and not enough time to manage it you will most probably overreach and waste money. The best approach is to start your campaign small and over time as you become more comfortable with the platform gradually grow your account. Obviously the size of your account deciphers how much time is required to manage it.

Tracking Your AdWords Progress

One of the best pieces of advice we can give you is to track your AdWords account. By this we mean setting up a Google Analytics account for your website so you can get accurate data on your visits, users etc. You can then link your AdWords and Analytics account and monitor the return from your AdWords campaigns. Also set up AdWords Conversion Tracking which gives you data on your Campaigns, Ad Groups, Ads and Keywords. This tracking informs you of clicks and conversions from specific keywords and gives you a great insight into how each keyword or Ad Group is performing.

Don’t Overreach

Keep your account manageable and don’t try to overreach. This can happen in a number of situations such as miss-targeting your ads. Be it network, location, device targeting or even down to the match types used for your keywords, incorrectly targeted ads will guarantee to lose you money. It is always best to plan your account and target your campaigns towards pre-qualified search users, by doing this you will get higher click-through rates and hence higher conversions.

Don’t Overpay – Set A Consistent AdWords Budget

Getting to the top of Google SERP page is not essential in AdWords campaigns, it probably won’t even be a reality when running your campaign on a small budget. So our advice is to take a step back and look at your budgeting realistically. Firstly, set a daily budget that will determine how much you will pay over the month. In AdWords you decide your monthly budget and divide it by the number of days you are running your campaign in the month, to get your daily budget. The budget must tie in with your businesses financials e.g. don’t spend more on clicks that will eat into your company profit unless you have a strategy in place to drive return on investment whether in the short or long term.

By careful planning around your budget. Set up your campaign clearly, this will reduce your time and effort around changing your budget. Also bear in mind if you keep changing your budget it means Google has to recalibrate how it shows your ads and hence can impact negatively on your account.

Google will suggest increasing your budget in order to increase your clicks. Before doing this, ensure that the clicks you are targeting will drive the right traffic for your business.

Bidding In AdWords For Small Businesses

Bidding is a very important factor in determining your ad positioning so it is essential that you calculate correctly how much you will be bidding based on your budget to ensure an ROI. Here is a nice formula to work off:

Revenue or Customer’s LTV * conversion rate = Max Bid

Once you have decided on your maximum bid, your quality score will determine your ad positioning. The higher your quality score, the more likely you are to rank towards the top of the page.

Next Steps

Now having made informed decisions on your targeted traffic, budget calculated and set correctly and bidding set, you are on the way to running a profitable AdWords account.

If you need help setting up or managing your pay per click campaigns, contact WebResults. We have dedicated PPC specialists with the expertise to get your AdWords campaign working for your business. Call us on 01-2071872 or email us at info@webresults.ie

Google’s New Keyword Planner: Positives & Negatives

Google Keyword Planner

 

The once useful and efficient Google Keyword tool is no longer in use. It has now been reincarnated as Google Keyword Planner. This has earned a mixed response from its users, and there are both positives and negatives to be found with this new Keyword Planner application.

The Keyword Planner function is a combination of the Keyword Tool and the Traffic Estimator, which aims to give you results for both through one platform. Here is a breakdown of the positives and negatives of this new Keyword Planner.

 

 

Positives of Keyword Planner:

• A major development in the Keyword Planner is its ability to provide the volume of a keyword search at a city level, which enables organisations to segment their audience to specific geographic locations for optimum results.
• Users can now upload up to 10,000 keywords from their own list to get performance data.
• The Keyword Planner also allows users to categorise results by ad group, landing page, among others.

 

Negatives of Keyword Planner:

To use the Keyword Planner, users must now login to a registered AdWords account.

The Keyword Planner doesn’t offer the following;

• Match type data for search volume.
• Global vs. Local monthly searches.
• Device targeting.

Are you having problems with the new Keyword Planner?

At WebResults, we have a team of Adwords experts who know how to best use the Keyword Planner tool for optimum results. Please contact us, and we can help you set up an effective Adwords campaign, among our many other services.

An Overview of Mobile’s Importance in Digital Marketing

Rise in Mobile: An Overview

                                                                                                                

Mobile is growing faster than any other technology before it. Smartphones are quickly developing with 47% Irish people currently owning one (Mediascope, 2013). Smartphones are the perfect medium for those wanting to access the web while on the go enabling people to always stay connected. Approximately 1.2 million Irish people go online using a mobile device (Mediascope 2013). This creates an ideal opportunity for marketers to attract those browsing the web on their phones through mobile marketing.

This means companies must make their websites mobile responsive so these potential customers can access your site through their phones. Those browsing on their phone do not want to have to pinch and grab their way through a site. On clicking through to a site on their mobile, they should be brought to a site which is fitted to suit the size of their screen. Once set up correctly this will be done automatically.

Google have also been quick to consider mobile devices when delivering search results. If Google is aware that a search is being conducted on a mobile device, then it filters search results to cater for those on the go. This is particularly effective for those with paid Google Adwords campaigns.

Tablets such as Ipads are also constantly growing in use with 12% of Irish people currently going online on a tablet device (Mediascope 2013). These devices are known to be used more frequently at home, particularly in the evening time for browsing the web.

This rise in mobile should also be considered when using email as a component of your marketing strategy. In research done by Litmus, they found that email opens on smartphones and tablets have increased 80% over the last six months. People who are opening emails on their phone are unlikely to download any image attachments which accompany emails. This means that your email campaign should aim to get its information across textually without relying on fancy imagery, as to accommodate your mobile audience.

Why use Mobile Marketing?

Reach a wider audience:

When using mobile marketing as a part of your marketing strategy, you can now reach a wider market of consumers who are constantly on the go. This is a very specific type of consumer, but also a vital type.

Stand out from the competition:

Mobile marketing is growing fast however a majority of sites are unresponsive to mobile; it would therefore be refreshing for a mobile consumer to come across your page which caters to their needs. A small improvement such as this can reflect well on your business.

Bridge the gap between Offline and Online:

Mobile marketing is unique in that consumers can instantly react to traditional advertising campaigns. If a person where to see a poster advert at a bus stop, by placing a QR code on that poster, then the customer can scan it and be taken directly to a specific area of your site.

If you have any enquiries about mobile marketing or any other digital marketing services, please contact us

Enhanced Campaigns have arrived

Enhanced campaigns are finally here and it is time to start taking advantage of some of the new features. As we mentioned on Friday today is the day that your Google Adwords PPC advertising will be automatically moved over to enhanced campaigns if you have not already moved it.

The switch over to enhanced campaigns brings with it some great new features. There are new bidding options. Before you would have had to set up new adgroups and even new campaigns to target different devices and different geographic regions. With the enhanced campaigns you can target different devices from the one campaign and adjust their bids accordingly and minimise spend where bids may for example be less competitive on mobile.

You can also adjust bids for certain areas of your targeted geographic region, you may have a campaign for Ireland, but you want to increase your bids for searches in Dublin as it may be more competitive. Also, if you had noticed that more clicks on a Wednesday convert than any other day you can increase the bids for Wednesdays to ensure your ad appears in the highest position possible on Wednesdays.

There are also more reporting tools available in enhanced campaigns, one of which allows you to measure the number of calls from mobile campaigns.

At WebResults.ie we offer a wide range of web marketing services including set up and management of your PPC advertising.

We can help your business manage the move over to enhanced campaigns to ensure you are not wasting budget on irrelevant clicks and that you are making the most out of the new features in enhanced campaigns. Contact us on (01) 208 1872 or email us at info@webresults.ie for more information.

Final call for enhanced campaigns

This coming Monday July 22^nd is the date when all adwords campaigns will switch over to “enhanced campaigns”. Google announced the change back in February saying that any campaigns not already changed over will be moved over by them.

Enhanced campaigns bring many new features to PPC advertising on the adwords platform including new bidding features across all devices. When you first switch over it seems you are required to target mobile devices but you can adjust the bid to -100% of your bids for your desktop/laptop campaign, which basically turns it off.  You can also place higher or lower bids for tablets and mobiles as it may be more or less competitive on a different device.  It even gives you the ability to bid higher when showing your ad on mobile devices to users who are within a certain distance of your business. Other new features include optimising your ads for varying user contexts – ability to show the right sitelink, app or extension based on the context of the potential customer and the device they’re using. There are also new advanced reports available in enhanced campaigns such as the ability to track new conversion types.

Google strongly advises businesses using adwords PPC advertising to make the switch to enhanced campaigns themselves rather than it being automatically switched over.  Otherwise, if you don’t manage the switch over yourself, you may show in results for mobile even though you previously had mobile targeting turned off as your site is not mobile friendly.

Our advice is to ensure that you do make the switch over before Monday and put some time into setting up your enhanced campaign and take advantage of the new features. You will otherwise waste valuable budget, paying for irrelevant clicks.

At Webresults.ie we set up and manage Google Adwords campaigns. We can move your PPC Advertising campaign for you and ensure you are getting the most from your advertising budget. Contact us now to find out more.

WebResults.ie offers a wide range of web marketing services. We identify which activities will drive the best results for your business based on your business objectives and your target market. Whether it is a PPC advertising campaign, Social media activities or SEO Services, contact us now for a free consultation and we will get the web generating sales for your business – (01) 207 1872 or email info@webresults.ie.

Back to School With Your PPC Campaign

PPC campaigns need constant monitoring and refreshing, check out our “back to school” PPC tips for advice and help on your PPC campaign and its ROI.

To read the full article, visit Back to School With Your PPC Campaign.

For more information on PPC advertising and web marketing, contact us.  For further information on this topic, click here.

5 Essentials of PPC

Is your PPC marketing not going as well as you would have hoped?  Read on for our 5 essentials of PPC to get a greater understanding of where you might be falling short and see how you could improve your PPC campaign.

To read the full article, visit 5 Essentials of PPC.

If you need any information or assistance with PPC and web marketing, contact us.  For more information on this topic, click here.

Conducting A PPC Audit In 5 Minutes

Do you monitor your PPC campaign on a regular basis?  Read our 5 minute PPC audit that could help your campaign thrive and see if there are any aspects of your PPC advertisement that you could improve.

To read the full article, visit Conducting A PPC Audit In 5 Minutes.

For more information on PPC and web marketing, contact us.  For more information on this topic, click here.

PPC and Your Competitors

Ever wondered what you competitors are doing on their PPC campaigns? Read our article on PPC and Your Competitors to find some quick and easy ways to get more information about their keywords and more.

For addional information on PPC click here.

To avail of our PPC special offer, click here.

For more info on our PPC Services call us on 01 2071872 or submit a query via our contact form.

9 Questions to Ask Before Entering Into A PPC Campaign

Are you entering the world of PPC?  Have one or two final questions before you click the Okay button on your campaign?  Read our article on PPC FAQ’s to see if we can answer your questions!

To read the full article, visit 9 Questions to Ask Before Entering Into A PPC Campaign.

For more information on PPC and web marketing, contact us.  For more information on this topic, click here.