How Effective Is Google Ads?

Is Google Ads Effective?

In short, absolutely. Like many things, the effectiveness of Google Ads depends on several factors. If you use bad “tools” for a job, then you’ll get bad results. If you use the right “tools” and manage your campaigns well, then you can get some great results.

Whether you are a small business, large corporation or someone who has a side hobby, you can take advantage of Google Ads to generate sales and business leads.

So, how effective they can be for you truly depends on many things. I’ll provide a few basic considerations.

1) Is there demand for your product or service? If the answer is yes, then you are off to a good start.

2) How does the price of your product/service compare against the competition? Are you a low price leader in your market? Obviously, being able to sell your product or service at the lowest price creates a competitive advantage. But, this is not always possible. Remember the other side of the coin – costs. Many successful businesses can increase profits by reducing costs. It’s not always about price when it comes to the bottom line.

3) How can you differentiate your product or service from others? Branding is a great way to do this. Other ways to differentiate yourself can involve customer service, user experience, provide a better product/service relative to your competitors. Read more about product differentiation.

4) Are you able to effectively find and sell to your target audience? You may have the best product and the lowest price but if nobody knows you exist, then it’s all for not. This is where your marketing strategy will help you. Google Ads can be one aspect of your marketing plan. And, it can be very effective. Further reading: How To Identify Your Target Audience.

Why Google Ads Are Effective

Google Ads Are Measurable

You don’t just need to throw money at Google Ads and hope you generate leads or sales. You can actually track sales and leads by setting up proper tracking. The lingo that gets used with pay-per-click marketing (Google Ads is a form of this) is conversions. Conversions are generally defines as leads or sales. You can measure how many phone calls you get from Google Ads, for example. You can measure web form fill outs, how many sales you got and how much revenue.

This allows you to see exactly what your cost per lead or sale is and your return on investments.

Google Ads Are Flexible

There are a vast array of different types of ads you can run on Google Ads. You can also run ads on different networks. For example, you can run ads in Google search, on Youtube, in Gmail and on the Google Display Network (What is the Google Display network). The display network includes other websites. If you have ever seen (or clicked) on advertisements on a blog or website, then you probably interacted with an ad from Google Ads.

Here are some different types of ads you can run include:

1. Text ads – you see these in Google search results
2. Shopping ads – these are the ads in Google search that show product images, titles and prices.
3. Display ads – These can be text or image ads on other websites. (What is the Google Display network?)
4. Remarketing ads – These are ads that only show to you after you have visited a website. You know, those ads that seem to follow you around the ‘net!
5. Call-only ads – These ads only show on mobile devices. They are used by businesses who only want people to call them. When you click on one of these ads you don’t get directed to a website. A phone number button pops up on your phone asking you if you want to proceed with the call.
6. Video ads – These ads show up on Youtube and some other Google properties.

You can also run ads anytime you want. You can run them just during your business hours if you want. You can run them 24/7 or just on the weekends. You have complete control over this.

You can also run ads wherever you want. You can run ads internationally, just in the U.S, in specific states and towns or down to specific zip codes.

Google Ads Offers Precise Targeting

When you perform a search on Google, you are entering words or phrases that trigger the results you get. Most of the time, you’ll see Google Ads atop the page. With Google Ads, you can choose keywords (what are Google Ads keywords?) that match your ads to these searches that people perform on Google.

For example, a florist shop in Tempe, AZ wants to target people who perform a search for ‘local flower shop’. Put another way, they want their ads to show up in the search results whenever someone does this search.

This is one way you can precisely target your target audience. You can take this a step further with time and geographical targeting. Let’s continue to use the florist example. Let’s say the florist only want to run ads for people in their area. With Google Ads they could target people in a 10 mile radius of Tempe if they wanted to. They could also just target Tempe or even specific zip codes.

Next, they could also choose to run ads during business hours. This is easily done with Google Ads.

Now, that florist shop is targeting people looking for a local florist in their specified location and during their specified time of day.

The Wrap Up

We have helped hundreds of businesses find success with effective Google Ads management. For them, Google Ads is effective. It’s effective for generate sales and leads, expanding brand awareness, promoting products & services and growing businesses.

Again, how effective they can be for you depends on several things. I’ve said the following many times.

Google Ads generates billions of dollars annually for Google. It is their cash cow. If businesses were not finding success with Google Ads, they would eventually stop using it. And, Google would not continue to make billions of dollars from it.