Adwords is a powerful marketing tool but it can have a very expensive with a long learning curve if certain steps are not followed. Remember, a successful campaign is not only about clicks to the website but do those clicks actually convert into sales. The success is fairly easy to track if selling a product but a service makes it a little more difficult. We will discuss the steps to take to make sure your company is receiving the data it needs to track the campaigns success.
Adwords Rule #1, Analyze Website Traffic
Before starting any Adwords campaign it is important to analyze the bounce rate of your companies website. The bounce rate tracks if an interested customer clicks with a page to learn more about say a procedure in our type of business. Our goal is to have the potential customer engage with the content of the website which will help with sales and SEO as a whole. Have your web developer set up a free service called Google Analytics in the backend of the company website and you will be able to view the data.
If bounce rate is high, over 50%, think of ways to engage the customer to learn more information about a service. If time on the page is short, create a video discussing the specifics of that procedure. Be creative and think what the client may want to know.
Adwords Rule #2, Create Landing Pages
Now that you know you can track the website traffic for a specific page, it is crucial that you do this for the Adwords campaign. To do this, it is best to have a specific page, called a landing page, where the interested customers that click on your ad are directed to. This page should have a specific offer so when they call the office to schedule an appointment the staff can easily track that they came from the google ad. Wether it is a paper list or delineated in the companies client database it is crucial to have this information.
Adwords Rule #3 – Create Specific Ads
When using Adwords, the goal is for the interested client to click on the ad so we need to track which ads are most successful. Think about the specific person you want to see the ad and use words that would entice them. For these ads Google allows (2) 30 character Headlines and (1) 80 character Descriptive line. It is best to create multiple ads but keep the descriptive line the same which will allow you to see which Headlines worked the best. You can use the data collected after the completion of the campaign to adjust the Headline words that were used.
Rule #4 Use Google Adwords Keyword Planner
Google allows us to use the Keyword Planner to find words that will be used in the pay per click campaign. Once you get into the Adwords page, click on Keyword Planner then Search for new keywords using a phrase or term. This list can get overwhelming so you may want to start with basic procedure terms or you can try a service called spyfu.com to see what keywords your competitors are using. I would suggest you narrow down the search based on the area where most of your customers come from. Think of it this way, you do not want to advertise to customers in Florida if your practice is in Los Angeles.
Adwords Rule #5, How Much to Spend
This is a very difficult question to answer when it comes to a campaign because specific keywords cost more to bid on the others and a budget can disappear quickly if using the most popular terms. Try to be as creative as possible with keyword choices.
We always say, Crawl, Walk, Run and test the success. A good rule of thumb is if your marketing budget is say $1000, spend 25% initially and increase spending as you get more data and tweak the campaign. We all want the best RIO and this is the only way of making sure it is worth while.
Adwords Conclusion
The best advice is TEST, ANALYZE DATA, ADJUST CAMPAIGN AND LANDING PAGES then TEST again. A successful Adwords marketing campaign will not happen out of the gate so do not get discouraged and push on. MD Needle Pen, Educating Our Practitioners for Success.
