Perth Businesses and Google Ads: Best Paid Search Campaign Strategy
Google AdWords is now called Google Ads
Google AdWords has become a popular word past few years. A lot of people with different levels of knowledge talk about Google AdWords. This is a sign that Google has built an empire, and a solid branding around one of their star service: selling ads.
Since the 24th of July 2018, Google AdWords officially became Google Ads. But “AdWords” is still largely used by digital agencies and companies, so their audiences still know what they are talking about.
Google Ads’ core concept is to display links, most of the time on top of the Search Engine Result Page (SERP), so these links have a higher probability to be clicked.
Search Engine Marketing often uses the acronym “PPC” for “Pay Per Click”.
Perth Businesses: with Google Ads, do paid search campaigns (PPC: Pay Per Click) really work?
Let’s do the maths…
If I was telling you that:
85% of retailers state that Google searches is the most effective consumer acquisition tactic (source: https://searchenginewatch.com/sew/study/2357163/85-of-retailers-say-paid-search-is-most-effective-acquisition-channel)
93% of online experiences (e-commerce, informational websites) begin with a search engine intent (https://www.imforza.com/blog/8-seo-stats-that-are-hard-to-ignore/)
The number one traffic driver is: search. It surpasses social media by more than 300% (https://www.searchenginejournal.com/seo-101/seo-statistics/)
Google is a huge company. It generates several billions of US Dollars a year. Why? Because it works for those who use it! So they keep using it.
Google likes when users click your ads, so they can generate income. That’s the reason why Google provides a range of tools that you can use to help you improve your strategies. We will talk about it a bit later.
There is no doubt that paid PPC campaigns are a great and quick way to get more clicks. It also increases the brand awareness. Google provides a paid way to be shown in more search results, even if your content is not fully optimized for SEO.
SEM PPC campaigns are extraordinarily flexible and scalable. You can test ads, optimize them, and get tons of reports and follow live trends. Plus, one of the best things is that with a Search campaign, you only pay when a user clicks your ad! If the user doesn’t click on your ad, it doesn’t cost you anything.
Search campaigns using Google Ads are the consequence of the user intent. For example, someone living in Greenwood and looking for an electrician will probably type in these keywords on Google: “electrician Greenwood”. This user had a direct and clear intent: finding an electrician located in the Greenwood area, North of the River of Perth. Like this is a real business opportunity right here!
Example of a search: “electrical company perth”
Best Perth SEM Strategy 1: Perth Business Analysis
Let’s dive into it!
To start with, there are a few things that you should be considering before starting a paid search campaign.
Is your space competitive in Perth?
Perth is a relatively small city compared to the other big megalopolis. Do you know your competitors? Is there a lot of them? Where would you position your business compared to the leaders in Perth? What are the main values you would want customers to know about you: quality, family oriented business, fast and reliable, cheap, expensive, flexible hours?
What is your average conversion income?
What is the amount of money generated by your business per job? What is your profit margin per service or product? Knowing these figures will help you define a budget for advertising on Google.
For example, an electrical company based in Perth would generate in average $500 per job. If a user is filling a lead form on the electrician’s website, what are the chances for this user to buy a service?
Allow at least 6 months with regular tracking to get relevant and helpful metrics. If the users who are filling a contact form are 20% of the actual customers who buy, it means that for 100 contact forms filled, 20 customers spend $500 on average.
Consequently, it means that for every 100 forms submissions, the electrical company generates $10,000. We can then determine that a contact form submission can be seen as a conversion worth $100.
What service or good would you like to advertise for your Perth based audience?
Is there a particular service or good that you know is a best seller? Is your service or product good enough to consider advertising? As long as you provide real value to customers, it is definitely a good idea to advertise on Google.
Use landing pages to advertise on your services or products
One of the riskiest and costly ways to advertise using search ads is to simply send the user to your homepage. Why’s that?
You pay for each click on your ads. You need to make sure that what the user will see will encourage him to convert. It’s like opening your coffee shop in the morning without having it all ready to go (coffee machine on, tables cleaned, chairs nicely set up, menus available, etc…).
A landing page is also known as a lead capture page. It is basically made to “push” the user to convert. Most of the time, landing pages do not show any main navigation menu. It is like only giving a few options to the user like buying (e-commerce), entering pieces of information (lead), calling the company, etc…
After all, if your ad is 100% matching with what the user is looking for, and if your landing page is exactly showing that the user wants, that should be good enough to increase the conversions from similar types of users.
What is your budget?
Let’s make it clear: advertising on Google is not cheap! Why is expensive? It’s because it works and generates profits… when it is done the proper way. If you have in mind to reach only potential customers located North of the River of Perth, you could define a more accurate budget for your upcoming campaigns.
Google Ads allows you to set a daily or monthly budget for your campaigns.
Who are your customers?
Do you know about your customers’ demographics? Do they know how to use a computer and how to perform a search on Google?
Where in Perth are they located?
Have you got an idea of where your customers are in the Perth region? Are they located North of the River, South of the River, East or West? Are they living in the CBD?
Areas in Perth have different populations and different expectations.
It is crucial to do this research before you start any campaign. These details will help you to plan your campaign using realistic and genuine data.
Knowing your audience will help you build the most effective and appropriate ads. You can use the language they understand, slang, or expressions they may be using.
Best Perth SEM Strategy 2: Keyword research
The keyword research is a combination of different parameters:
Your services or products
You must advertise on services or products that you can genuinely provide to customers. Do not advertise on services or products that you do not sell: it will make the users confused and they will bounce out of your website as quickly as they came in.
Lots of Perth companies set up campaigns and ads with appealing keywords, but they don’t have products or services related to these keywords. It can be great for brand awareness, but in the long run, these companies end up paying more for fewer conversions.
What the audience is typing on Google when searching online for these services or products
Potential customers or existing customers may be searching for your services or products using different keywords. Why? Because you know your industry and its terminology, but do your customers know as much as you?
Put yourself in your customers’ shoes. It is a good practice to make every ad understandable and simple to your audience.
Only consider searches from the audience located in Perth, Western Australia
Google offers free tools like the Keyword Planner, available in Google Ads. With the Google Keyword Planner, you can narrow your keyword search for the Perth area (including all suburbs North and South of the River). The Keyword Planner also allows you to see the volume of searches for one specific keyword, the biding cost, the competition level, as well as tons of other useful metrics.
The Keyword Planner is also extremely useful to understand what your audience is currently typing in when searching for similar products or services. It can provide new ideas and trends.
How competitive is a keyword?
The cost of keywords is calculated using different parameters, including the level of competition for this keyword. So, it makes sense that the more a keyword is competitive, the more expansive it will be.
Different types of keywords
Keywords can vary with length and meaning. Often, you will hear about short tail keyword and long tail keyword.
Short tail keywords are small and generally broad types of words or phrases. They are most of the time matching with a general search and they serve a large audience.
For example, “electrician” is a short tail keyword. It has the root keyword and that’s pretty much all it is. It is expected that this word may be highly competitive as it is a general word used by lots of industries and businesses in Perth.
Long tail keywords are matching with a more specific intent from the user. A customer typing a long tail keyword would generally be close to a conversion, as the intent is more personalised and focused.
If a user types in “reliable electrician 24/7 in Greenwood 6024”, we are talking about a long tail keyword. This phrase or group of words would likely match with a strong intent from the user. That keyword would likely lead to a conversion for the business advertising on it.
Your budget and strategies can be around short and long tail keywords.
As you can see, each click can be pricey. The last thing you want is users to click on your ads and not converting!
Best Perth SEM Strategy 3: Optimize the Click Through Rate (CTR)
The Click Through Rate is a metric that allows knowing the ratio of users clicking an ad to the number of users who see the ad.
The highest the CTR is, the best it is for your ad, and the more chances you have to convert your potential customers.
Who is using paid search ads in your industry?
A very simple way to know what your competitors are doing is to type in keywords related to your services or products and see what is on the top of the result page. The ones on the very top are likely the ones Google think are the most efficient ones.
It’s also a good practice to perform searches and see what companies are advertising, so you can see a full list of your competitors in Perth!
What type of ads are they having?
Look at the ads on the top of the result page. The top ads are the ones you can take inspiration from. Chances are that these competitors would advertise for the same products or services as you.
Do better than your competitors
Because top ads are the ones that a performing the best, your goal now is to make sure that your ad copy is better than theirs. Use USP (Unique Selling Proposal) and ESP (Emotional Selling Proposal) to catch your potential customers’ attention, and make them click on your ad.
The keyword that the user is typing in must be in the ad copy
You must put the most important keyword in your ad copy. Your ad must be a perfect match with what a user would type in. if you can bring the user a perfect answer to his request, this same user would more likely convert on your website.
Schedule your ads
Are you advertising for Perth Businesses (B2B) or for Perth customers (B2C)? Companies operate during the day, but direct customers can be looking for your products or services anytime.
With Google Ads, you can schedule your ads and set when you want them to be displayed. By doing so, you can make sure that only your audience will be exposed to your ads. After all, why getting users to click your ads when you know they are not the ones who will buy from you.
Your ads must be “Perth” related
Every city has its own market. So, it is necessary to put Perth users first. All ads copies have to be for Perth Businesses or Perth Customers. This is why advertising on Google for search makes everything more flexible and easier. You can, within minutes, create ads for an audience that will be a perfect match for you.
You can also target the geolocation with a distance radius. This will allow you to make your ad even more narrowed to the specific audience you’re after.
Customers reviews and ratings are influencing users’ decisions
Ratings can make a huge difference when it comes to deciding what company a user should call for a service. If an ad features lots of positive customers reviews, it makes sense that the ad will look more appealing and genuine.
Encourage your customers to write reviews about your business. It will boost the click-through rate of your ads and give your company more chances to convert new clients. You will dominate your industry in Perth!
You won the first part of the game: the user clicked your ad
If your potential customers see your ad as a perfect match for what they are looking for, then the chances for this user to click the ad will be high. Once the user has clicked the ad, what you have to offer must be spot on! If it’s the case, the chances for the user to convert will be high.
Best Perth SEM Strategy 3: Bid management
Google Ads provides several ways to bid on keywords. According to your goals, you can choose the most appropriate bidding strategy.
Take direct action on your site
Smart biding allows you to encourage users to take action on your website. Google offers several biding strategies through the smart biding options:
Target CPA (cost-per-acquisition)
If you know your Cost Per Acquisition (CPA), you can use the target CPA bidding. Google will help you maximise conversions while targeting your predefined CPA.
Target ROAS (return-on-ad-spend)
Google will help you to get the best return on ad spend.
Maximise Conversions
You can use Google to automatically optimize and maximise the number of conversions. It will spend your daily budget, and get the best ratio for your ad exposure.
Enhanced cost-per-click (ECPC)
If you use the manual biding strategy, and which to get a maximised biding for your keyword, ECPC is the way to go. But it can be expensive in the long run.
Generate traffic
As you want to have users coming to your website, it is a good practice to use the Cost Per Click (CPC) biding. It allows you to monitor and control the amount of money you want to spend on each click.
Increase your brand awareness
For this strategy, you want users to see your ad. You want to increase the awareness for your company, so users know that you exist. vCPM would be a good biding strategy, as it allows you to pay for viewable thousand impressions.
You can also use “Target Outranking Share”, which will ensure that your ad shows on top of your competitors’ ads.
Maximising the clicks on your website
It is an automated bidding strategy that Google is using to make sure you get the maximum number of clicks on your ad according to your daily budget. Google will not go over the budget limit, but it allows an extra 20% increase in case if positive results can be brought.
Have more control over your biding
Manual CPC can be used to manage the maximum Cost Per Click bids yourself. It offers more control, but it is more time-consuming. You can bid for each ad group or directly for each keyword and you can control the position of your ads too.
Best Perth SEM Strategy 4: 4 steps for a successful SEM campaign
A paid search campaign is not a static digital marketing strategy. It is based on a middle term to long-term process, in order to reduce costs and maximize revenues.
Four steps to help you build successful SEM campaigns
Campaign Launch
You start the paid search campaign. Your ads are ready, your landing pages are optimized.
Manage the campaign
You must have a budget and know how to manage it.
Your ad ranking is a combination of the quality score of your ad and the cost of the click.
You can manage your campaign by increasing CPC for geo-targeted audiences and type of device used (mobile or computer).
Optimize your campaign
You can optimize your campaign using remarketing, software’s, AB testing experiments, other search networks. I won’t be going through all the different ways to optimize your campaigns, as there are lots of ways to do it.
Reporting the campaign results
It is extremely important to understand what Key Points Indicators (KPI) your business need to show. These metrics allow you to understand key aspects of the users of your website.
You can track the user’s behaviour and actions using Google Analytics. For this, make sure that you have a tracking code present on all your website’s pages.
You can only manage what you can measure.