As the world transitions to the new digital paradigm, business adopts digital marketing. It’s a massive mandate to move from print advertising to the three most powerful constituents of the new digital marketplace: pay-per-click (PPC), Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). More and more, companies expand with electronic reach. E-commerce is growing exponentially. Yet, many commercial decision-makers are struggling to not only adopt the most effective digital marketing practices, but to keep up with their blindingly-swift evolution.
Google currently dominates the SEM world. Therefore, the company’s program, “Adwords,” is a crucial tool in the modern digital marketing model. Before diving into the program, however, it is vital to understand the digital search process.
Here’s what happens:
- The customer enters search words into an engine (Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc.) and hits “Enter.”
- Results include paid ads. The customer clicks on one that appears best able to meet their needs.
- In a matter of seconds (no kidding), the customer decides on whether to stay and seek satisfaction – or hit the “Back” button (which is called a “bounce”).
Search Engine Marketing: Satisfaction Personified
Today’s marketing success is defined by businesses’ ability to satiate the searching consumers with swift, effective and satisfying answers. Given the speed of a more mechanical world, consumers demand efficiency. Google searches produce instant results, and searchers expect those results to satisfy their needs on the spot. When consumers purchase something or download content, “conversion” occurs – a welcome opportunity for business to sell itself directly to the customer.
The question then becomes one of how businesses can best do that. Well, there is good news and bad news. On the upside, e-commerce is a cost-effective way to grow business. On the downside, digital marketing still requires up-front investment (as did all previous forms of advertising). You still have to spend some money to make some money.
“How Do I Use Google Adwords?”Â
Google Adwords is an application which directly assists entrepreneurs in growing a presence and building a business online. It empowers users to analyze and customize digital marketing campaigns. Sounds great, but it is a process.
Let’s use the above question as a great example in how it all works. Google places its own ads for Adwords according to the kinds of questions of phrases that searchers may “Google” (or search). Some of the questions might be:
- how do you use google adwords
- how many adwords accounts can i have
- how to buy google adwords
- how to join google adwords
- how to run a google adwords campaign
- how to create a new campaign in adwords
Google develops a list of key words and phrases which its customers would use to search for services. The list does not need to be exhaustive; it needs to be accurate. Google Adwords will feed businesses with exact user data on digital marketing campaigns, so it is most important to develop the key words and phrases to ensure search accessibility. Put simply, the searcher cannot buy a product if the business is not open to them online.
Empowerment
Expedience enhances satisfaction. Web site design is all about creating a positive customer experience, but the best web site design is easy to navigate. Searchers – once landed – should not have to conduct a lot of in-site searching in order to find what they seek. Google Adwords comes with several advantages for advertisers, and they all concern the concept of empowerment.
Getting The Keywords You Need
Google Adwords comes with a way to begin answering the topic of how to create a new campaign in Adwords: the Google Keyword Planner. Users can use it to find out if customers are using certain key words or phrases in order to find products. If so, the Google Keyword Planner can identify those terms. The more people search a key word or phrase, the more likely it is that those products are desired. Does a business’s product fit the most popular keyword searched? It allows entrepreneurs to check.
Pay-Per-Click
When cost determines commercial viability, Google Adwords is a click-happy way to invest wisely. Put simply, a business does not have to pay, in Google Adwords, until customers clicks on the ads. Although “conversion” is the ultimate goal, ad exposure itself does not drain the bank in Adwords. That said, pay-per-click allows businesses to achieve “conversion” (some form of transaction with a customer) much more quickly than traditional advertising forms.
If exposure is an open door to opportunity, Google Adwords is the gateway to digital advertising efficiency. Gone are the days of flat-rate ad purchases with no form of immediate accountability.
Real-Time Tracking
Market feedback is revolutionizing to a form of immediacy. Google Adwords provides real-time search engine results for a user’s search words and phrases. Did they work? Did customers stay on the site? If so, for how long? How many pages did they visit? These are simple forms of “analytics”: terms by which businesses can assess the effectiveness of online marketing. Some phrases will outperform other; Adwords provides instant returns. Thus, users can modify search terms according to the immediate results of digital marketing efforts.
Learn-Grow
It is important to understand that digital marketing is an evolutionary process. Pay-per-click with Adwords may produce instantaneous results, but users can expect to engage a process of continual development. This is one of the biggest distinctions between traditional and modern forms of advertising. Digital marketing evolves with the customer. As habits change, marketing changes. There are three steps to the process: test, learn and refine. Try search terms, analyze the results with Google Adwords and adjust the marketing parameters.
The Landing Page Experience
Search results produce Google ad landing pages – the first opportunity to satisfy customers in need. In a world increasingly focused on brevity and relevance, a successful landing page is a target-rich place to present answers to the searchers questions. In order to succeed in digital marketing, businesses must generate world-class web site experiences for their customers.
1. Landing Page Copy
Google Adwords assesses landing page effectiveness, so best practice demands that landing page information be specific, informative and brief. The broader the landing page copy, the less likely it is that a searcher’s specific question will be answered. Further, Google Adwords will assess consumers’ reactions to that momentary business opportunity. It makes sense, therefore, to invest adequately in developing the most concise wording to fit in a paid Google ad.
A transaction rests on your ability to provide instant gratification to your customer.
2. Landing Page Design
Billions are won and lost on the customers’ reactions to landing pages. They must be designed to meet exactly the customers’ needs without over-reaching into the deadly trap of clutter. Again, more is not necessarily better when visitors must decide – in an instant – to stay or not.
Is the page information first seen by customers as relevant as possible in meeting their needs? The answer is your guide.
3. The Importance of Fluidity
Even seasoned marketing professionals can fall into a trap of assuming that they know the market. The new era is an entirely fluid one; the “new normal” becomes obsolete more quickly now than at any other time in human history.
Perpetual success in modern digital advertising depends on continuous surveillance of what works, what does not work and when to adjust both. Google Adwords is a dominant pay-per-click marketing tool at the moment, but the PPC industry is still an infant. It has much growing to do, and advertisers must grow with it. They no longer have time for fruitless searches; business no longer has time for inefficiency.