Deciding to run an online advertising campaign online is not a decision that should be taken lightly. There are 3 fundamental considerations. Are your customers online? Are they using Google as their search engine? (Okay, the answer to the second question is yes because everybody uses Google.)
Third, you have to determine if your website is ready to for you to run an online Ads campaign. Is your website mobile responsive? (we will discuss why mobile responsive is now imperative in future blogs). Is your website, and more specifically your landing pages, optimized for the campaign(s) you want to run?
If all of the answers are yes, then you'll have to ask yourself, "do you have the advertising budget to support a viable Google Ads (formally known as Google Adwords) campaign"?
I'm breaking this down into 3 separate blogs so that I can really drill down why 3 questions have to be answered before you give your credit card to the all mighty Google.
Are you customers online?
This questions may seem a bit silly, especially if you are a 20-something. Believe it or not, there is still a population of non-online consumers. Albeit, that population is rapidly shrinking. Some research suggests the percent may be as high as 15%. Even if you subscribe to that notion today, consider that at least 85% of consumers are online and actively making transactions via the internet.
There are a number of ways to determine if your customers are searching for products like yours online. You can take the shortest and most direct route, simply ask your customers as you come into contact with them. Most customer will be honest about how they found you and what medium they used (mobile vs. laptop.)
Another great approach is to use Google Analytics to track the amount of traffic coming to your site. Google Analytics can track where your website users geographical location is, what medium is most popular among your website audience, and event what age group your website users fall into. This information is useful to identify how your customers are using your website and how they are navigating through it.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. Next time I will address how you can evaluate your website to determine if it is capable of supporting a Google Ads campaign.
Written by Nikki Wardle
Nikki has a degree in Marketing from Boise State University and worked as an Inbound Marketing Specialist at Tribute Media from 2014 to 2019. She's a Google Whiz and dog lover, now serving as a marketing director for a local veterinary clinic.
