Congratulations, your company has been growing! You’re probably already invested in online advertising, whether search, display, or both, but it’s beginning to overwhelm you. You need to focus on the core of your business, and while you see the value in online ads, you know you’re probably not capitalizing on all opportunities and may even be wasting some of your ad spend. What are some signs you should let an agency manage your ads for you? (Full disclosure – we’d love to be that agency. More on that in a sec.)
You’re not getting the ROI you expect or desire.
You hear the statistics. 85% of consumers use the internet to find local businesses. But it sure doesn’t feel that way for your business. There are many reasons your ROI may not be up to industry standards:
- Are you only using one keyword type? Have you added negative keywords to your account? Are you looking at the actual search queries, to see what users are searching before clicking one of your ads? You might be getting clicks, but you’ll want to ensure these are quality clicks before patting yourself on the back.
- Are you taking full advantage of ad extensions? I wrote a separate blog on AdWords extensions, and an updated post on AdWords’ new(ish) Callout extensions. These extensions help your ad stand out by providing users important information, such as your company address, phone number, benefit statements, site links and more. These can have a drastic impact on your click-through-rates (CTR), cost-per-click (CPC) and average ad position.
- Are you tracking conversions, and integrating AdWords with Google Analytics? While AdWords can provide important data on Impressions, Clicks, CTR, CPC, etc., Google Analytics opens up a whole new can of worms. By integrating AdWords with Google Analytics, you can see the bounce rate, pages per visit, and time spent on site at the keyword level. Plus, you can import your Google Analytics goals (you have those, right?) into AdWords for conversion tracking.
If you’re not testing keyword types, utilizing ad extensions, and integrating AdWords with Google Analytics, you’re ROI for search advertising can almost certainly be improved.
You’re unable to keep up with the rapidly evolving industry.
It’s no secret that Google makes a ton of money from online advertising. Between search, display, YouTube, Google Apps, etc., nobody underplays the importance of advertising as it pertains to Google’s bottom line. So it’s also not a secret that Google is constantly working to improve their search advertising platforms, such as AdWords, in an effort to appease advertisers, and therefore business owners like you.
In doing so, Google rolls out a ton of updates. If you’re not actively involved in the industry, it can be easy to miss out on valuable new features. As you can see from the Google AdWords blog, new functionality and updates are seemingly rolled out weekly.
You’re not taking advantage of the myriad of customization settings.
I briefly mentioned one of my favorite customizations earlier in the post: ad extensions. However, the number of customization opportunities is nearly endless. If you’re not constantly testing and optimizing your AdWords account, you’re likely wasting valuable ad budget.
- Are you modifying your bids for mobile? Hopefully your website is responsive, and your landing pages are optimized for mobile traffic. If they’re not, you’ll want to a) consider redesigning your landing pages, but also b) decrease your mobile bids by 100% so they only show on desktop. A poor mobile phone experience will have people leaving your site quicker than you can say “gosh darn it, I just lost another potential customer.” Or, you might notice that your mobile visitors are converting more often than desktop, in which case you’d wanto to increase your mobile bids.
- Are you geo-targeting your ads? In addition to language targeting, it’s very important you take full advantage of geo-targeting. If you’re looking to sell more flowers at your store in Boston, MA, it probably doesn’t make sense to show your ads in Los Angeles. If you only ship your product domestically, it certainly doesn’t make sense to show your ads in Canada.
- Are you scheduling your ads? There are many examples where running your ads 24/7, 365 just isn’t logical. If you’re a restaurant that closes at 6pm on Sundays, it doesn’t make sense to promote yourself at 8:30 Sunday night. In AdWords, you can customize your bids based on day of the week and hour of the day, to truly hone in on quality clicks, and discover when converting clicks take place.
By the way, it’s important to note that I’ve primarily focused on AdWords in this post. This is simply due to the fact that Google owns a majority of search engine traffic, and also innovates far more than their competition (namely, Bing Ads). However, as I’ve written in the past, Bing is certainly not to be ignored, and I always recommend testing AdWords campaigns on Bing as well (Bing search advertisements display on both Bing and Yahoo!, so by using AdWords and Bing Ads you’re covered on nearly all search engine traffic).
Next Steps
So, successfull business owner: if you’re not taking advantage of this important digital space, why not? Let me know in the comments!
And to those of you that are thinking, “Wow, this industry is significantly more complex than I could have ever imagined…” never fear! We’d love to help. InfoTrust is a Google Adwords Certified Partner, Bing Ads Accredited Partner, and a Google Analytics Certified Partner. Digital advertising and web analytics is what we eat and breathe every day. We’d love to help you!
