Google Ads For Small Businesses – Is It Worth It?

As of today, the UK economy presents a mixed landscape for small businesses, characterised by both challenges and opportunities. So if you consider yourself a small business; can Google Ads help?

What Can Google Ads Do?

Google Ads has the potential to help you achieve a wide range of business and marketing goals. Whether that’s brand exposure, form submissions or purchases on your site, it’s all possible through Google Ads.

It also supports the sales funnel and the path your prospects take from initial awareness to loyal customers. You can connect with ‘warm’ leads that are likely to engage with your brand by reaching them at the right stage of their journey.

Not only that, but you can also use the data to enhance and optimise other areas of your digital marketing strategy.

Types Of Campaigns

There are many types of Google Ads campaigns to choose from:

• Search ads
• Performance max campaigns
• Display ads
• Demand gen campaigns
• Shopping ads
• YouTube ads
• App ads

The campaign type we select is based on your marketing goals, and how much time you can invest. Google provide a handy guide behind each campaign type.

What Steps Should Small Businesses Take to Build an Effective Google Ads Strategy?

DISCLAIMER: Google Ads is not a magical tool which will transform a bad user journey into a good one.

Before you consider paying for any form of traffic, there are certain prerequisites every business must have:

High-Quality Website

Your ads are designed to send prospective customers to your site. Therefore, your website must be visually appealing, easy-to-navigate, and rich in valuable content. Gone are the days of the old click-to-convert model, modern consumers now seek value, knowledge, and a sense of connection.

Your website should be full of quality content that showcases your products or services, learning materials, readily available answers to common questions – all in a site that is fast and easy to navigate.

Unique Selling Proposition (USP)

Consider your favourite products: What sets them apart? Is it their commitment to sustainability, product quality or exceptional customer service?

Your unique selling proposition is key to the success and longevity of your campaigns. It not only attracts return traffic but also significantly reduces cost, as it’s six times more cost-effective to sell to an existing customer than to acquire a new one.

Reasonable Monthly Budget

View your monthly budget as an investment from the outset. This investment allows you to gather essential data to discern what works, what doesn’t, and where you can optimise your campaigns effectively within a reasonable timeframe.

Appropriate Timeframe Expectations

It bears repeating that Google is a learning machine. And learning takes times.

In the past, we usually waited 90 days for a campaign to be fully optimised and deliver tangible results. This meant that after 90 days, we would have enough data to determine whether the campaign would work long-term.

The introduction of Performance Max has slightly altered this timeframe, and now it typically takes around 45 days to gauge the effectiveness of a campaign.

Your Ideal Customer

This one is important.

You need to know the people you will sell to on a very deep level: Who are they? Where do they live? What do they read? What are their goals? What are their pain points? We do this by creating customer profiles (avatars).

All in the confines of data protection of course.

Once you have your avatars clearly defined, you’ll need customised assets (photos, videos and ad-copy) specifically catered to these audiences.

In Conclusion

Once you’re happy with your website setup, you’re ready to start your Google Ads journey!

It is important to mention that websites are like houses; there are always improvements to be made and items can look outdated over time. So although your website could do with some improvements, you may feel it is good enough at this stage to start bringing in paid traffic.

Although it shouldn’t be mistaken that a seamless user journey paired with a unique business offering would result in the best return in investment.

Northern Media’s Google Ads team have over 10 years’ experience managing Google Ads campaigns for a variety of small to medium sized businesses, helping them scale and gain a foothold in the digital market space.

Get in touch with our team today to see how we can help.