How well does your agency score?
The past couple of articles have highlighted red flags and what to ‘avoid’ when it comes to choosing a Google Ads Agency. If you haven’t seen these yet, check them out so you can get informed.
This article focuses on best practices in Google Ads Management. Now, I’m going to be honest – I’m not giving away my techniques because it’s taken years of training, hard work and a relentless pursuit of excellence to get the best results for my clients. But, I have devised a seven step checklist to help you score your current Google Ads agency.
Google ads can be a great way to generate new leads, but only if your account is being managed well. Otherwise, you’ll end up spending a lot of money with nothing to show for it. Not all agencies are working in their clients best interests. Be sure you know what to look for to ensure you’re getting the most out of your spend.
1- You have a Google Ads strategy focused on lead generation, not traffic!
Google Ads is a fantastic tool for growing your business, but it has to be managed well for it to work. Many agencies focus on traffic and make website visits the measure of success. But this could be poor quality traffic. Instead you should focus on your business goals, and what you’re wanting to achieve. For example:
- What is your ideal client/lead?
- What are your more profitable products or services?
- What leads are most valuable to your business?
- What types of enquiries are not as valuable to your business? What are you wanting to avoid?
- What types of searches do you not want to show for? For example if you sell new products, worlds like repairs, parts and secondhand should be added to a Negative Keyword Library so you don’t show for them.
- What key messages should appear consistently across your advertising?
- What locations do you want to focus on? When throughout the day do you want your ads to show?
- What is your ideal demographic?
- Besides search, what other types of campaigns do you want to try? E.g. shopping, video, display, search.
- What messages will you highlight in Remarketing?
- What messages will differentiate you from your competition for Display?
Your agency should create a digital marketing plan for your business, in consultation with you. This plan should be revisited and revised according to the needs of your business, be that monthly, bi-monthly, quarterly or half-yearly.
2- You have professional Display Ads that show on popular, trustworthy websites.
Display ads are fantastic for brand awareness, and the great thing about them is that they don’t cost much. They work well for building credibility and linking to helpful, useful content. They also work well for promoting special offers.
To have maximum impact they should look professional, generate interest and be worded well.
They should be updated to reflect trends and changes in consumer behaviour.
3- You’re remarketing to website visitors.
This is important especially for products or services that people like to shop around for. You would have noticed that when visiting some websites, ads from that company show to you on other websites you browse like the NZ Herald. This is remarketing and it helps you to stay top of mind. But like anything else, the messages and imagery need to stand-out so to create interest in your products or services.
4- Your ads are showing for highly relevant and lucrative search terms.
While display ads and remarketing is a vital tool, the bulk of your advertising spend should go to the people who are actively searching for your goods or services. Key-in some of those search terms. How often are you showing? Are you in the top three positions? If you’re not seeing your ads until page two or even three of google, you’re missing out on valuable opportunities. The fewer competitors potential clients have to crawl through before they come across your company, the better!
5- Reports you receive are highly detailed and show:
- Ad spend by campaign – search and display
- Conversions – leads and or sales including number and value
- Cost per conversion – how much you had to spend for each conversion
- Which keywords lead to conversions
- Search impression share (how often your ads are showing) and ad rank (in what position).
You can also request demographic information like age, gender, income bracket.
6- They have mechanisms in place to prevent wasted clicks.
Irrelevant clicks, competitor clicks, bot or invalid traffic (fake clicks from blocked IPs, attempts at data-spoofing) can chew through your budget in no time at all. It’s a problem that affects small and large advertisers. Click fraud is real and it’s costing business owners in wasted ad spend and lost opportunities.
7- Your business is growing!
That’s the whole point of advertising, and so you should notice an increase in sales or enquiries. If you don’t, your agency should be working with you to improve your website. Google Ads bring prospects to your website, but it’s the website’s job to convert them. If your agency just focuses solely on digital marketing, this can be a problem. By choosing an agency that has considerable experience (for the record we have 20 years) and is renowned for building high performing websites (check out our portfolio), you get the benefit of both digital marketing and web design expertise.
Your digital marketing and website work together to create a powerful sales funnel. But they need to be revisited frequently to ensure they are still doing their job. Sometimes it just involves a simple change of text on a button, or a pop-up with a special offer. Other times it involves revisiting your content and customer journeys. The point is, your agency should be across that too. They should be able to look at your website and tell you how it can be improved.
Want to know if you’re doing everything you can to maximise leads to your business? Request a free consultation and audit from digitalstream..
