Paid Search. Google paid ad stuff. Adwords. PPC. SEM. Whatever you want to call it (same same). Yes I am a Paid Search Consultant too! And I love how some small efforts can have such great results. For anyone without much budget or experience, here’s how I do it, so you can try it yourself.
Disclaimer: what worked in this case might not work for your case. Before putting any campaigns live please ensure you set up a maximum daily spend and research the right match types when you input your keywords.
My client has a Digital Product. He made a tool that solves a problem of another Security tool (the latter not owned by him, let’s call it Tool ES). Tool ES is not massively popular worldwide, but hey, the world is a big place right? The great thing about Digital Products.
I don’t really understand the technicalities of his product, but I always try to understand and empathise with the customer of a business. What’s their problem/ pain point, who’s out there solving it? How good are those guys at solving the problem and for what price are they doing it? What’s better about my client’s solution? Pretty standard marketing stuff, I’m sure I’m not telling most of you anything new here.
The first thing I always start with is tracking. Making sure you have a (FREE) tool like Google Analytics working correctly is essential before you start investing in marketing. If you sell something on your site, track the sales (implement ecommerce conversion), or if the main goal of your site is to attract leads, create a great funnel for this, (if you can) a good landing page or at the very least a simple and clear Contact page.
In this particular case, my client has a Free tool you can get if you sign up for it (so there’s a page for that) and there’s another page with the other products, the most expensive being an enterprise solution ($2970 a pop). Especially the enterprise solution needs some phone/ email selling from my client’s side. It’s semi custom. Other products have price points of $945 and $390.
It’s super important to create a “Thank you page” that comes after your lead fills in their contact details. This way, you have an opportunity to tell the customer what happens next and on top of that, that page will now become your “Goal” in Google analytics or your other Analytics tool. After all, if they reach that page it means they filled it in, right? Now you can optimise towards this goal, know exactly which of your marketing efforts contribute towards this.
You wouldn’t imagine how many of my clients and friends don’t take care of tracking before working with me. What a shame to miss out on those juicy numbers! I’d rather pull my hair out than not knowing why my efforts were or weren’t working.
Yikes. I take that back. I don’t want to be bald.
Together with my client I try to find out what language their customers use, then of course research search volumes and CPCs in the Google Keyword Planner. Research if any of the keywords are ambiguous and would get irrelevant traffic to the site (and lower my Quality Score on Google). There are free tools out there for this and again it’s all pretty standard in case you have experience with Google Adwords.
I hate a missed opportunity for an a/b test. In this particular case we tried different campaigns and within the different adgroups, we had an average of 3 Ads to test the copy.
But I love it when a plan comes together and theories (since I didn’t have any data to work with) turn out correct.
Between 17 January and 16 February. What took about 6 hours to discuss, research and set up, and with an investment 230.76 USD in ad spend, we got him 6 customers (and a lot more leads) which so far have turned into…
-> 8,610 USD in Revenue
His average Click Through Rate is pretty solid, The top campaign has a CTR of 4.14%. CTR is the rate of clicks compared to the impressions, so the number of people who’ve seen the ad. Google considers 1%-2% decent. Good CTR says something about the keywords I’m targeting as well as the Adcopy. The copy we came up with apparently appeals to people.
Sure, I went for super targeted campaigns. If we don’t touch those campaigns, the volume of traffic and leads of the current campaigns will likely not grow much unless the popularity of Tool ES grows, or if you amplify the targeting, which will cost more money and is likely to be less targeted (Lower Return On Investment). This is also why tracking is so important. You’ll know what your lead costs and what they’re worth. What a way to kickstart a new business huh?
After optimising even more and starting some new campaigns, some new tests with landing pages, set up email marketing to convert free users and retain paid users, perhaps even create a community on social media platforms around his product, this guy will likely be loaded in a while.
If you have questions about Adwords or you’re looking for a Paid Search Consultant to get you started or manage your existing campaigns, feel free to reach out to me via hello@rosannalopes.com