Google’s advertising program, Google Ads, generates tens of billions of dollars in revenue for the Internet giant every year. While many large corporations contribute vast amounts toward that total, far smaller businesses are frequent and eager participants, as well.
One reason why Google Ads has been so successful is that Google has made it very easy for anyone to get started. Despite that fact, many experts believe that nearly every Google Ads campaign would be better handled by a professional. When it comes to Google Ads, don’t do it yourself.
A Deceptively Easy, Streamlined Google Ads Startup Process
Signing up for a Google Ads account takes only seconds, and live ads can be placed not long at all after that. Given those facts and the dominance of Google Ads in the field, many small business owners and entrepreneurs end up succumbing to an excessive level of complacency.
Google has carefully crafted the Ads onboarding experience to encourage even those who are least prepared to jump right in. It does so with a variety of prompts and features that are meant to make succeeding with Google Ads seem entirely simple and straightforward, such as:
- Recommendations. The Google Ads platform freely offers up suggestions so that even those with no idea as to where to start will have plenty of inspiration and options before them. Unfortunately, these recommendations rarely correspond at all to the best possible way to design and manage a Google Ads campaign for a given business and market.
- Budgeting. Just about every small business owner needs to keep a careful eye on spending of all kinds. This statement is especially true of advertising, where business owners can easily waste their budget without producing results. Google Ads seems to have such issues in mind when it offers help with managing spending, but the advice and tools it provides are designed more to instill confidence than to rule out these kinds of dangers.
- The appearance of results. Given that it seems so easy to get Google Ads advertisements running, many new users end up feeling as if they had accomplished a great deal right from the beginning. In practice, of course, a Google Ads campaign will only ever be worthwhile if it produces results. Google Ad’s pay-per-click approach can give the illusion of successfully increasing traffic, but that quite often proves to be deceptive.
Many Believe the Google Ads Balance is Tilted Against the Little Guy
What ends up happening in many cases, thanks to Google Ads features like these, is that an initial surge of optimism and confidence gives way before long to feelings of having been manipulated. Many experts even argue that this is a reality which Google has intentionally built into the system.
While large businesses that are almost sure to spend many millions on Google Ads will be courted and supported personally and catered to, much smaller ones are left by Google to fend for themselves. Many have come to believe that the Google Ads platform is designed to entice and encourage as many of these small-time ad buyers as possible, regardless of whether financially viable results will be forthcoming for them.
That could well make good business sense for Google, which stands to benefit from the ad placements of small companies only in vast volumes. At the same time, it means that many smaller companies end up wasting time and money on Google Ads campaigns that have little chance of ever paying off.
What It Takes to Succeed With Google Ads
None of this is to say that Google Ads cannot be a viable option for a small business, however. Google Ads management experts regularly help even the smallest of businesses make effective, rewarding use of the program.
Choosing a capable, dedicated Google Ads Partner will almost always be the best or only way to achieve such results. Some of the issues that you need to account for in every case include:
- Keyword selection. While the recommendations that Google offers up sometimes make good starting points, they will rarely be the best choices for most small companies. It’s necessary to do market-informed keyword research to identify those terms which will be most worth focusing on. This research can also include adding negative keywords to better focus the targeting of particular ads.
- Ad quality. One of the cornerstones of the Google Ads system is an incentive whereby high-quality ads end up costing less per click. Pay per click management experts, therefore, view ad quality as equally important as other factors when it comes to determining the return on investment of a given campaign.
- Testing. Above all else, every ad and campaign needs to assessed in as detailed and accurate of a fashion as possible. Ads that do not convert into sales or other desirable results must be jettisoned in favor of those that are more effective. Unfortunately, most small business owners who try to handle their campaigns fail to do this, a fact which has contributed to the “don’t run Google Ads without an expert” thought process.
Seeking Out Some Help With Google Ads Will Always Be Your Best Bet
Fortunately, there is plenty of assistance available for business owners who realize that Google Ads is better tackled with some support. Finding and working with the best PPC company for a given business will virtually ensure the kind of success with Google Ads that so many hope for early on but fail to achieve on their own.
ROI Amplified has created a useful guide for those who want to take a deeper dive into Google Ads management. If you’re ready to get expert help, contact us today.
