How To Get Started With Google Adwords

Have you ever wondered how to drive more traffic to your website? When you check visitor data, are you underwhelmed? If so, it’s likely translating to a lower number of sales. You know it’s important to have a digital presence, but what good will it do if no one sees your offers? Organic growth is possible, but it takes more time than you have. This is where paid search marketing becomes invaluable.

What is an Adwords campaign and why should you consider one?

Within the world of digital marketing, there are a limited number of ways to put your hard work in front of your audience. On the one hand, you can focus on organic growth. As mentioned above, this method takes time. It’s the slow establishment of your digital presence, and therefore it builds authority over time. As you continue to increase that authority (through optimized on-page content) you’re more likely to be shown near the top of search results.

But what if you don’t have the time? You don’t want to wait months, or even years, for your audience to find you. Enter paid advertising.

In short, when you run an Adwords campaign you are paying Google to show your results first and foremost (or as close as you can get, depending on how much you ‘bid’. More on that in a minute). When you run one of these campaigns successfully your website, and by extension your offer, is seen by more people. More eyeballs means more opportunity for your audience to convert.

The best businesses combine an organic and a paid approach. This allows them to both build their authority over time and grow a solid foundation of SEO-optimized content.

What does paid search advertising look like?

The easiest way to understand an Adwords campaign is by thinking about an auction. At an auction, people bid on a single item. If it’s a highly coveted item (say, an original Monet painting), it could turn into a bidding war, with each potential owner placing higher and higher bids until finally one prevails. The winner shells over their money and walks home with a new painting.

Running your paid search campaign is similar to this. The “item” up for bid is the coveted #1 spot on Google. How do you get there? You outbid the competition.

What are the benefits of running Adwords?

When it comes to Adwords account management, the opportunities are endless. If you target the right audience and place the right bid, you have the potential of bringing in a slew of new visitors to your website who otherwise never would have found you.

Essentially, you are fast-tracking the work of an organic growth strategy. A well-structured ad campaign can fuel your business.

Let’s break down everything an Adwords campaign can get you:

More visibility with your target audience
Faster growth for your business and a deeper understanding of shifts in your audience’s needs
The ability to move product or sell services more quickly
Time to work on other projects while ads run, sending visitors to your site on autopilot
Sounds like dream, right?

What do I need to know before running my paid marketing campaign?

If you choose to take the paid marketing route, there are a few things you can do to improve your odds. The first, of course, is understanding the system you’re using.

Here are a few terms you should be aware of:

Adwords Campaign: The top-level of your paid marketing efforts. Each campaign is comprised of ad groups (typically grouped by topic, product, audience segment, etc.), which is in turn comprised of specific ads.
Quality Score: This is a measure of how effective and relevant Google things your ad is. A low Quality Score means you probably won’t have a lot of people clicking on your ad. A high quality score means you’re right on target.
Search Network: You may have an idea of what keywords your audience may search for, but Google has its own ideas. When you choose to advertise using the Google Search Network, your ads will be shown to keywords related to the ones you choose, effectively broadening your potential reach.
Impressions: The number of impressions you gain is the number of times the ad has shown up in search results. Essentially, it’s how often your ad is being seen.
Clicks: The number of people who have physically clicked on your ad, taking them to your website.
CTR: Your click-through rate, or CTR, is the ratio of impressions to clicks. You’ll see this as a percentage within your account, and it’s determined by taking the number of clicks divided by the number of impressions, and multiplying your result by 100. The higher your CTR the more successful the ad.

Now that you know a little more about the nuts and bolts, you’re almost ready to get started. Before diving in, though, there are a few other factors to be aware of:

Know your audience: If you don’t know who your target audience is, you’ll have trouble finding them. The idea behind paid search advertising is to put your ads in front of the right people. To do that, you have to know who they are.
Select a variety of strong keywords: Once you know your audience, the next step is understanding their language. What search terms would they use? What possible keyword variations are there? Google has a Keyword Tool that will provide some possibilities.
Keep up with your data: It’s not enough to start a paid marketing campaign and wait for the visitors to roll in. Odds are, especially in the beginning, there will be some tweaking involved. Keep a close eye on your data and adjust course if necessary. This will save you money and make sure the right people are seeing your ad.

While anyone can get started with Adwords, we recognize that it can be overwhelming, especially if you have other priorities. That’s why BNP Engage offers Digital Marketing & Conversion Optimization. You can rest easy by putting the stress of running a paid campaign in the hands of professionals who understand the ins and outs. Contact us today to get started.