AdWords is a Google product that helps to make brands and businesses more visible to consumers by giving them advertisement slots that will show up in relevant search results on Google. This can help to enhance your brand’s digital marketing campaign by making you more discoverable. Say you own a coffee brand and you’re looking to reach more consumers. By giving you an ad that shows up in searches for coffee, Google AdWords is essentially connecting you with people who are already in search of the products that you are offering.
How Does It Work?
Although AdWords can be a phenomenal marketing tool for your brand that has been developed using complex algorithms, it is actually easy to use and there are just a few simple steps to put it to work for your brand:
- Sign Up - The very first step is to sign up for the adwords service. (You can sign up here.) During this stage, you’ll be able to select your preferences and provide Google with the keywords and information that you want people to see. This is where you choose the precise search terms that will make the ad show up in someone’s Google search results. Once you’ve set this up and chosen a daily budget, the ad is ready to go live.
- Get Seen - What happens next is that people begin to see your ad when they perform searches that match the search terms you have entered. At this point, Google’s search engine is essentially “pairing” demand with easy-to-locate supply.
- Grow Your Audience - Once people come across your ad, they’re quite likely to click on it and visit your website or call your directly if you provide what they are looking for. This all happens in a matter of seconds thanks to the power of adwords.
What Does It Cost?
For those who might be worried about the cost of Google AdWords, here’s the best part: you only pay when someone actually clicks on your ad. This pay-per-click pricing means that you’re only paying for your ad in direct relation to how effective it is and bringing people to your brand.
Is It Worth It?
Marketing budgets are always tight, so many brand managers wonder if AdWords really gives the value that it proposes to offer. For many brands, it is the perfect complement to their other marketing channels. For one thing, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that paid search traffic has a much higher conversion rate than organic traffic because it is so targeted (wordstream.com). To get the most out of your brand’s investment into Google AdWords campaigns, one expert suggests that you monitor the results and adapt your ads accordingly. You can compare the analytics on your adwords account with the analytics on your website to see if the click rates on your ad are actually leading to a much higher rate of traffic on your site (eucalyptmedia.com) There’s no point in using adwords if you aren’t also using analytics to gauge how effective your efforts are.
Adwords in Action
There are plenty of Google AdWords success stories from brands who have seen the kind of results that it can generate for their marketing. One such brand is American Meadows, a large flower seed brand based out of Vermont. Former CEO Ray Allen says that Google, more specifically Google AdWords, has been key to the brand’s on-going success. Since they ran their first Google AdWords campaign, the brand has increased its leads by an astounding 120% (americanmeadows.com). Allen admits that one step that has made their AdWords campaigns so effective is the use of analytics to discover what people are searching for.
Consider advertising your brand through Google AdWords to leverage the power of the world’s largest search engine and continue to build awareness for your brand.