How to Utilize Google Ads for Your Small Business

Transcript

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Gene (00:02):

Hey everybody, this is Gene Marks and welcome to another episode of the Hartford Small Biz Ahead Podcast. Thank you so much for joining me, and let’s get right to it. This week I want to talk about Google advertising and some tips that I have for you. Now, where do I come from with these tips? Well, first of all, just to be aware, I run a technology services firm, so we do a lot of consulting with clients on all sorts of things relating to technology. But my company, I’ve been, I’ve been spending a lot of time and money actually on Google advertising over the past two years to try and get leads from my business as well. And I just wanna make sure that you are completely familiar with what you wanna be doing when it comes to Google advertising and setting up Google Ads.

Gene (00:44):

So first of all, if you are looking to get into Google Ads, the first place that you’re gonna be going is to Google to do that. And if you go to ads.google.com, that’s your first place where you’re gonna start to set up your ads. And of course, you’re gonna need to have a Google ID and relevant security information to set up your account. Okay? Now, if you’re gonna advertise, here’s some of the things that I’ve personally learned from doing this, okay? Number one is you’ve gotta have a specific goal in mind when you advertise on Google. So if you’re gonna place an ad, whether it’s a text-based ad or a display ad, even a video ad, that’s fine, but there’s gotta be a call to action. So for me, it took me a while to learn that if I’m gonna be placing an ad for leads, do I just want people to see the ad, or do I want them to click on the ad?

Gene (01:39):

And the answer was, I want them to click on the ad so it would get them to my website. But even after they get to my website, what am I, what am I offering? What am I giving them? The people that I know that have succeeded the most with Google Ads guys are the ones that have a specific landing page dedicated to that ad. So you’ve gotta set up a landing page, it’s gotta perform really well and really fast, and that the ad drives people to that specific landing page so that they can download something or request information or buy something directly for you or give you some information about their business. There’s gotta be some call to action, okay? So have a specific goal in mind for your ads. In other words, you really want people to give you their information.

Gene (02:31):

I mean, in the best case scenario, buy something from you, but it can’t just be like a generic thing that’s, not specifically defined. They’ve gotta have that specific goal. And number two is you’ve gotta have a fast performing dedicated landing page on your site, which means if you’re gonna run six campaigns, 10 Google campaigns, say you’re gonna get into all of that, that’s great, but you really have to have individual landing pages for each of those campaigns so you can analyze them and see how well they’re doing. So that’s for sure what you want to do. The next thing that I have to… some other advice, and I do have a lot of advice here… has to do with budget. Google can eat up your budget really, really fast. So it’s really, really important to start small and see what works.

Gene (03:19):

If you’re gonna be placing ads, it’s all based on keywords. It’s all based on whether or not those ads are gonna show up when people are searching and even when people search whether or not they’re gonna click on that ad to go directly to your site, to your landing page. You’re not gonna know what’s gonna work and what’s not gonna work. So you probably wanna run multiple campaigns for 50 bucks, a hundred bucks, 200 bucks, small amounts so you can test, test, test to see which makes the most sense. We had to do that a lot. It took us months when we ran certain ads to people to download a white paper or request information about our software that we offer. We had to run multiple campaigns over the course of these months to see which keywords we’re working and which was getting the most click-throughs.

Gene (04:04):

And then once we figured it out, then we’re like, okay, we can spend a lot more money on this campaign cause we can expand it. It’s clearly getting results. Have that budget and spend your money wisely. The other thing I wanted to recommend when it comes to Google Ads is localization. Google is big on localization, and in fact, that’s where small businesses can benefit the most. I mean, we sell CRM software in my business from some of the biggest brand names are competing with us. And, if I just do a generic national ad, it’s gonna get buried by people with a lot more resources. But I found that if I focus my keywords and drive my ads towards people in my local area, I live in the Philadelphia area, so I’m using towns all around me like Narberth and Ardmore and Cherry Hill and states and counties along with my keywords.

Gene (05:03):

You’d be surprised how many people are searching for your products or services and on their street or in their county or in their town. That’s how small businesses can get found more on Google by actually localizing your ads. So that’s also really, really important to do. Two more things, and I know there’s a lot from Google Ads, but these are the things that I’ve learned the most. You definitely want to use Google Analytics. You can set up Google Analytics for free, you connect it to your Google ad campaigns, and then that way you can measure the performance of your ads as well. It gives you a ton of data to analyze. So Google Analytics, it’s a critical tool that you want to make sure that you are using. And finally, and most importantly, don’t do this yourself. I mean, I know I’m giving you all this advice for doing Google Ad campaigns, but I gotta tell you, it’s a specialty.

Gene (05:58):

I mean, I’m a CPA, taxes and financial stuff are specialties, Google Ads is a specialty. You need to find somebody or train and nurture somebody to really do all of this for you. Now, you can go on LinkedIn and find Google Ads specialists. You can go on sites like Fiverr for example, or Upwork and find independent people that I’ve experienced with Google Ads, and that’s great as well. I actually hired somebody with minimal experience in Google Ads. I’m paying them by the hour to learn specifically for my business. It took that person a good four to five months to really, really get up to speed and proficient. But I got news for you. That person’s really, really good at Google Ads now. It just depends on how you want to do it, but the bottom line is this, you’re not gonna do it.

Gene (06:48):

You’re not specialist in, in Google advertising. You’re a specialist in your business and what you do, that’s why you outsource your payroll and you outsource your accounting and you outsource your cleaning of your office even. I mean, it’s just not something that you do or that you do very well. So my advice to you is to hire somebody to learn all of this stuff when it comes to Google Ads. So okay, let me just recap, just to make sure that you’ve got this message going for it. If you want to dip your toes into Google advertising, right? Make sure you’ve got specific goals. People need that call to action. Don’t just have a random ad up there. It has to be asking, it has to be providing information to you from the user so that you can use it as a lead or better yet a sale.

Gene (07:34):

You wanna make sure that also you have dynamic fast performing landing pages for each of your ads. Because Google really looks at that very, very closely. It’s an important thing to have. You wanna make sure that when you budget this, you’re gonna run multiple campaigns for very small amounts so that you can test, test, test to see which ads are actually working and which ads are not working. And then when you find the combination of keywords that are working, you can double down on that. You really wanna go local. Google loves local advertising, particularly for small businesses. It will give you a leg up against your bigger competitors. You wanna make sure you’re using Google Analytics and tie it to your Google advertising campaign account so that you can really get, down and dirty on all the metrics that you are using. And finally, and I think most importantly, don’t do this yourself.

Gene (08:28):

I think you’re gonna need, as part of your marketing budget, you will need to hire somebody on the outside. Yes, it can be somebody experienced with Google Ads and I get it, and that’s fine. You’re gonna pay for that experience, but that’s cool. Or you can do what I did and I invested in somebody for a few months to get up to speed on Google Ads. I mean, I just want you to know it’s not, this is not like building the space shuttle. I mean, it’s something that’s very learnable, but it does, it takes time and practice and a lot of analysis and you don’t have the time to do it, because I know I don’t have the time to do it. We have businesses to run. So that’s my advice on Google advertising. By the way, I am scratching the surface on this. If you really wanna learn more about Google Ads, well again, go to ads.google.com that not only helps you get set up with Google Ads, but also there is a ton of resources, materials, videos, written stuff and support to help you make your ad campaigns as effective as possible.

Gene (09:26):

Hope this information helps you have been listening to The Hartford Small Biz Ahead podcast. My name is Gene Marks. Thank you so much for joining me this week. I will be back to you next week with some other tip or piece of advice to help you run your business. Take care.

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