Small business doesn't mean small growth. Dare to scale with Google Ads.

1. Know your target audience

As with any digital marketing effort, knowing your customers is key. How they think, what they want, what their research journey looks like, how they want to be spoken to, etc. Mapping out your customer personas and journey may sound like marketing fluff but it's far from it. Taking the time to figure out your ideal customers is going to make everything a lot more efficient.

2. Figure out what they're searching for

So once you know who you want to target, it's time to learn how they search. Picking the right keywords is critical for your campaign and it comes down to intent. Not every Google search term leads to a sale - for example, if you were a dentist, you might be tempted to target "teeth whitening" which has over 33,000 searches.

That's a lot of potential clients! However, there's a good chance people are looking for teeth-whitening take-home kits. Or replacement strips. Sure, at least some of the 33,000 searches may result in a sale but at what cost? With a little planning and comprehensive keyword research you could drill down into exactly what a true potential sale might search for, such as "teeth whitening treatment Perth" or "teeth whitening cost". 

Pro tip: use Google Ads Keyword Planner for highly accurate search volumes, drilled down to a hyper-specific traffic radius.

3. Think about what they won't be searching for (negative)

Following on from above, you want to use negative keywords to curb irrelevant searches you might show up for. For example, if you were an online diploma provider, you might want to add "free" or "tafe" to your negative lists when someone searches for "human resources diploma" because you know your courses are neither free nor delivered in person at TAFE.

4. Set up conversion tracking before launching anything

A huge mistake made by many is running ads without tracking. Missing out on any data is doing a huge disservice to yourself. 

Connect your Google Ads to Google Analytics to read website data, and then set up goals to track every important action on your site. You can also set up secondary goals (which allow observation but don't count towards reporting, or get optimised by the platform) for an even more comprehensive overview. 

Google Ads will even allow you to assign values to certain goals (like if you knew that people filling out your contact form are more likely to convert than people who download a free guide) so you can optimise better for those high-value actions.

5. Pick the right campaign type

Video ads, Display ads, Search ads... there's so much to play with. And with the PPC model, the temptation to throw the net wide is high. But not every ad format makes sense for your marketing campaign.

Think back to what you are trying to achieve. If you're after sales or leads, high-intent ads like Search or Shopping are ideal. If you want more brand awareness, perhaps tell your story through captivating video ads. Maybe you want a bit more consideration– consider remarketing with Google Ads Display campaigns.

6. Craft a compelling ad

Being in the right place at the right time means nothing if you aren't even seen. Make your ads stand out by speaking to your target audience in a way that resonates, addresses their pain points, offers them a welcome solution and piques their interest. You monitor your quality score which usually tells you how relevant and engaging Google thinks your ad is on average (the higher the score, the more likely you are to be shown at a lower cost per click). 

Make use of Google's many ad features as well: 

• Sitelink extensions allow you to show off other links on your site that may also be useful
• Call extensions are a way to add your phone number to ads so people can call you directly
• Callouts are a good way to promote certain USPs or features
• Location extensions tell users where you're based and remind them that you're nearby

And so much more. Make sure they're engaging and useful, and you might even see your ad taking up more prime real estate.

7. Research your competitors

What they're doing is just as important as what you're doing. Who usually comes up in the top few paid ads results? What are your known competitors doing? Is anyone potentially bidding on your brand name or terms (sneaky, we know)?

Google Ads Transparency Centre is an excellent resource for finding out exactly what ads competitive businesses are running.

8. Make sure you understand the bidding strategies

Google Ads management can get very technical, so you need to know your stuff. One of the hardest things to master is bidding strategies and when they're appropriate. 

• Manual cost-per-click - you set the maximum you're willing to pay for a click 
• Enhanced cost-per-click - Google automatically adjusts your manual bids based on the likelihood of conversion
• Target cost-per-acquisition - you tell Google how much each sale or lead should cost
• Maximise conversions - Google sets bids automatically to get the most conversions it can within your budget
• Target return-on-ad-spend - you tell Google how much money you want to make for every dollar spent
• Target impressions share - Google adjusts the bids to help you show up for a certain percentage of searches
• Maximise clicks - Google sets bids automatically to get the most clicks it can within your budget
• Target outranking share - setting bids based on what it takes to beat certain competitors in the auction
• CPM bidding - adjusting the bid based on the cost to be seen every 1000 times (instead of the traditional PPC model)
• Maximise conversion value - Google adjusts the bids to make more out of each sale

9. Ensure your website is ready to convert

All the high-quality traffic means nothing if they land on your site and have a bad experience. While smart Google Ads management can get you the right audience, your website has to do the work of actually converting them. 

Think about the landing pages you're about to send people to and what you want potential customers to do when they get there. If the next step is unclear, if your site is hard to navigate, if the page doesn't have anything to do with the ad, people will leave fast.

10. Monitor closely and audit regularly

Lastly, you can't set-and-forget this. From adjusting bids to adding negative keywords, monitoring times when ads should show to favouring certain audiences, there is a lot to control, which demands a lot of time. Realistically, it's something you have to check every day to stay on top of performance and get the most out of your budget. 

You should also set up easy-to-understand reports that help you break down the data into actionable insights, and set routine check-ins with yourself to make sure you're on track with your original goals. Is your cost-per-click where you thought it would be? Are your ads converting at the rate they should? Is your landing page engagement time below par? 

Consistent review is key to success.