The 5 Simple Steps to Profit With Google AdWords

You can hear more from Phil at the upcoming Target Marketing webinar, "The 5 Steps to Profit With Google Adwords." Click here! Google AdWords search advertising is one of the best marketing opportunities for businesses. Where else can you display your product or service to prospects that are literally searching for what you have to offer? Think about that for a minute. Every day your prospects are going to Google.com and searching for your products or services. They are no longer flipping through the Yellowpages. To find a dentist in Boston, they'll search "dentist in Boston." To find a plumber nearby, they'll search "plumber nearby." You probably do this as well, right? Here's the best part—AdWords gives you the ability to get your business in front of all of those prospects at the exact moment they are looking to buy! It's not like other forms of advertising where you pray some of the people who see the ad will actually need your product or service at that time. No, with AdWords you know the time is right; It's just a matter of whether or not you're going to show up with a compelling offer. With all that said, you may already know that many businesses struggle to get AdWords campaigns profitable. It's not rocket science, but there are some common mistakes you need to avoid, and in this article I'm going to walk you through the 5 steps to set up a profitable Google AdWords campaign. Whether you're just getting started with Google AdWords or you've been advertising for years, I recommend you use this as a checklist to ensure your campaign is as profitable as possible. Step 1: Know Your NumbersI talk to a lot of businesses that want to dive right into AdWords, especially after they received a coupon for free advertising credits. Please, please, please do NOT rush to get a campaign live! It's absolutely critical to your success to take a few minutes to ensure the numbers make sense. What do I mean by know your numbers? I mean is it even remotely possible for you to be profitable based on your average value per customer and the estimated cost per click of relevant keywords? If you already know your typical sales conversion rates, then this is fairly straightforward. Take your average customer value and multiply by your overall conversion rate. For example, let's say you have an e-commerce business and a customer is worth about $100. You also know that about 2 percent of all visitors will buy. That means a visitor is worth $2 ($100 x 2 percent) and you could afford to pay up to $2 per click before you lose money on your advertising. If you have offline sales via phone or in-person visits, then you'll need to estimate how many phone calls you'll receive per visit and how many of those phone calls will convert to sales. For example, if a customer is worth $1,000, 5 percent of website visitors will call you and you'll close about 10 percent of those calls, then you could afford to pay up to $5 per click ($1,000 x 5 percent x 10 percent). In the next step we'll see if your maximum cost per click is going to work for you based on Google's estimated cost per click of relevant keywords. Step 2: Choose the Right KeywordsKeywords are the phrases typed into Google.com. As advertisers, we need to pick the best keywords to ensure our ads will display in front of our best customers. Plus, we need to compare the estimated cost per click with the maximum we calculated in step No. 1 so we know the ads could be profitable. There are three keys to choosing the right keywords for your business: Searched in Google. This should be obvious... If no one is searching then you're not going to drive any sales. Searched by your ideal prospects. Don't cast a really wide net. Stay laser focused with keywords that only your ideal prospects would search in Google. Search by your prospect in order to make a purchase. As I mentioned earlier, the best thing about AdWords is that you can get your business in front of prospects looking to buy your prospect or service. This is true, but there are also people searching in Google purely for information and research. A common mistake is targeting "research-intent" keywords. I recommend launching your campaign with only "buying-intent" keywords to give yourself the best shot to be profitable. Step 3: Write Compelling AdsAt this point, you should have a list of "buying-intent" keywords that are not too expensive for the product or service you're selling. Next, we need to draft compelling ads that will stand out from all of the competitors already advertising on your target keywords. Do a search and review the competition. How could you stand out from the crowd? Can you make a more enticing offer? Can you match the benefits of your product or service to exactly what your prospect is searching for? Don't worry about closing the sale in your ads. The goal here is to capture attention and get your prospect to click through to your landing page. Step 4: Create High-Converting Landing PagesWhen your prospect clicks on your ad, then she'll "land" on your landing page. One of the most common mistakes I see is advertisers using their homepage as the landing page. Do NOT use your homepage! Seriously, write that down. Create a unique page on your website that is 100 percent focused on the keyword and ad copy. If you're promoting a special discount, then your landing page needs to be focused on that same discount. If you're promoting a special free shipping deal, then guess what, your landing page must reiterate that same message. If you do not have a congruent message from keyword to ad to landing page, then I guarantee you will struggle to create a profitable campaign. Step 5: Set Up Conversion TrackingOK, you should have your campaign ready to go live, but there is one more step you can't forget. You must set up conversion tracking so you can measure exactly how many leads and sales are generated directly from your AdWords campaign. To track forms on your site, simply set up the built-in AdWords conversion tracking. To track phone calls, you can use the AdWords website call tracking or a call tracking tool like LogMyCalls. And finally, to track off-line sales you'll need a way to track leads from AdWords and then document when those leads convert to sales either over the phone or in-person. A simple spreadsheet works fine, or you can use a CRM (customer relationship management) system like Salesforce, ACT, or Infusionsoft. Alright, that's it! If you follow the 5 steps outlined above, then you will be well on your way to profitably advertising your business with Google AdWords. To get even more tips, then go grab our Ultimate Google AdWords Checklist here. Phil Frost is founder and CEO of New York-based marketing services and training firm Main Street ROI. Reach him at phil@mainstreetroi.com.

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The 5 Simple Steps to Profit With Google AdWords

Phil Frost

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