The Top Google Ads Mistake
A lot of small business owners, once they are established, begin to look at running ads to drive traffic to their website or social media pages - and why not? Online advertising can be extremely effective, generates interest from a new audience, and can reinforce a brand to an already-existing customer. In the past few years, platforms like Google and Facebook have made the ad setup process user friendly to even the most inexperienced marketers, so it’s easy to hit ‘Boost Post’ (here’s my warning against that!) or create a Google Ad.
The problem, of course, is that advertising done without knowledge and purpose can be a waste of time and money. I have heard over and over again from business owners who set up an online ad, only to be frustrated by the high costs and lack of return on investment. This is completely understandable. Smart business owners should know their numbers and be able to tell whether or not their marketing dollar are being put to good use or not - which often they are not, because an easy setup does not mean an effective ad will be created.
Google Ads in particular is a very confusing platform for a lot of reasons, including the different types of keywords you can target. There are broad match, phrase match, and exact match keywords, and the definitions of those change on a pretty continual basis. It wasn’t long ago that an ‘exact match’ keyword meant you only targeted exactly what words you typed for that particular ad, but now Google has changed the rules on that. Trust me, it’s even hard for this full-time marketing expert to keep up, and that’s my job!
The top mistake I see businesses making is two-fold. First, small business owners are generally excellent at their craft and need help in various aspects such as marketing, accounting, or organization. This is completely understandable – almost nobody gets into a landscaping business in order to become a better marketer! Some of this will happen as a natural consequence, but it is unrealistic to expect one person to be good at everything.
When you set up a simple campaign through Google – or any platform, actually – you are giving full control to their automated systems. As a result, most campaigns will commit the grievous error of only setting up broad match keywords. Without getting into the technical details (shoot me an email if you want to hear more, though!), this means that you are throwing the doors open to every search that includes even one word of the phrase you use.
Let’s say you’re an auto repair shop, so your broad match keyword is ‘auto repair shop.’ This seems great, but in reality Google can choose ANY of those words to show in search. What if someone searches ‘toaster repair?’ In theory, your ad can pop up – and unless you have a hidden talent in small appliances, that’s a big waste of money. Someone could search ‘pet shop,’ and since you have only used broad match keywords, your ad might show to them as well.
No wonder self-advertising often becomes a black hole of money that never returns a good profit margin! There are definitely success stories everywhere, but this is just one tiny example of why it’s dangerous to give control to Google rather than a marketing expert. Take it from me: you don’t know what you don’t know until you’ve wasted a lot of money figuring it out. And who has the resources for that?!
I want to hear from you: what has your experience been with online advertising? If you have any questions, I’d be happy to answer them in the comments below!