Quick Tip Episode – How To Make Google Ads Work On Just $500/Month Of Ad Spend
In the podcast:
00:26 – Episode Overview
00:57 – Areas of Google Ads – Google Search Network
01:26 – Areas of Google Ads – Google Display Network
02:20 – Areas of Google Ads – YouTube
02:38 – Areas of Google Ads – Google Shopping
03:14 – Focus on High Intent-Based Activity & Advertising
05:38 – Focus on The Match Type of Keywords
06:45 – Bid on Low on Broad Match Type Keywords
07:25 – Be Strategic on the Hours of the Day & Location
09:18 – Implement a Retargeting Campaign
Episode Overview
Welcome back to another episode of Teach Traffic. I’m your host, Ilana Wechsler. And in today’s episode, I’m going to cover how you can run Google ads on a small budget.
Many people think that you need a really large budget in order to run Google ads otherwise, it’s not worth doing. But I’m going to debunk that theory.
And I’m going to talk about some ways that you can use Google ads, even if you’ve got a really small budget. So let’s get stuck right in.
Areas of Google Ads – Google Search Network
Alright, so before I get into the strategies, That you can use Google Ads with a small budget.
So the Google Ad platform is pretty much broken down into four distinct areas or buckets.
As I like to say, the first bucket is the Google Search Network. We’ve all done a Google search before somebody that literally gone to Google and typed in something.
And those four ads come up above the organic results. Okay, that’s Google search.
Areas of Google Ads – Google Display Network
The second bucket is what’s called the Google Display Network or otherwise known as the GDN and these are banners on other people’s websites.
So for our Australian listeners, you might advertise on websites like The Sydney Morning Herald or The Age. For our American listeners, it might be the New York Times or LA Times, etc.
So as you can imagine, someone’s reading their article on such a website, and your banner is next to that article. And if you think about it, it’s a completely different form of advertising to Google Search where you’re sort of swiping in front of someone as they’ve typed something into Google.
And so typically, you will see the very, very different performance and behavior of those two different types of campaigns.
Areas of Google Ads – YouTube
Okay, the third bucket is YouTube, which is completely different in of itself, as well.
And they’re often the video ads that show up before the video you’re about to watch. Those are called in-stream videos but YouTube also behaves completely differently.
Areas of Google Ads – Google Shopping
And the fourth bucket is Google Shopping, which is if you’re an e-commerce, somebody types in a product that you sell. Those are the image ads that show up on Google.com with the price underneath the image of that product.
So those are the four distinct buckets and different ways that you can advertise on the Google Ad platform.
And with a small budget, I would absolutely recommend you do not do all four buckets of the different types of advertising at all.
Focus on High Intent-Based Activity & Advertising
So that kind of leads me into the first strategy I have for people, which is to just focus on the really high intent-based activity and advertising that’s most likely to convert the best, which would be as you can probably imagine, advertising on the Google Search Network.
So that first bucket I talked about, and if you’re in e-commerce, then the fourth bucket, which is Google Shopping. Yes, they are probably more expensive on a cost per click basis, but the catch is, but the key is they convert much, much better than really many other different types of advertising because of the very high-end intent-based nature of it, somebody has literally gone to Google and typed in exactly what you offer, or what product you sell.
And you are effectively sliding your business card under the nose of someone at literally the instant that they are searching for that.
So if you’re a service business, perhaps you’re a chiropractor, somebody just went to Google and typed in chiropractor and the suburb that your practices in and your ad shows up for that particular person.
And as you know, you only pay when somebody clicks on your ad. So typically, on the Google Search Network, you’ll see on average about a 5% click-through rate. So of the people that search 5% of them will click on your ad.
And of those people who’ve clicked on your ad if your website is set up in such a way that it’s optimized and has all the right elements in place, you’ll probably get at least a 5% conversion rate, usually more if you’ve set up your Google Ads correctly.
So it will often be a no brainer advertising decision to do because you’ll be able to see how much money you’ve spent.
And also, you know, the cost per lead that it has generated. So yeah, strategy number one is to just focus on the really high intent-based platforms or areas of Google ads, so that you’ve got the best chance of it converting.
And hopefully, then it becomes a business case of Right, well, this is profitable, and then I can consider doing other options.
Focus on The Match Type of Keywords
Okay, so strategy number two. And this is sort of continuing on from strategy number one of doing the search-based advertising is to focus on the right match type of your keywords.
You may not realize there are different match types in Google. And if you’re wondering what that is, basically, there’s a distinction Between the keyword that you’re bidding on, and what somebody actually typed into Google, most people don’t realize that.
And that is due to the match type of your keyword, I kind of go through this in-depth in my training course at TeachTraffic.com.
But basically, you want to start with a very tightly related match type, which is called an exact match and possibly even phrase match, which restricts Google from showing your ad for unrelated search terms.
So yes, focus on a very, very either exact match or phrase match type keyword when you’re doing your search campaigns. So that’s strategy number two.
Bid on Low on Broad Match Type Keywords
Strategy number three is to bid low for the broader match type. So what you’re going to find is when you do exact or phrase match type keywords that they’re going to be limited In volume, be it not many people are typing in exactly that phrase into Google.
So you need to open up the scope for Google to show your ads for other terms. So rather than bidding high for the broad match type keywords, I would be really low and pick up some sort of load, longtail cheap type keywords. Okay, so that’s, that’s strategy number three.
Be Strategic on the Hours of the Day & Location
Strategy number four would be really strategic about the hours of the day that your ad is running and also the locations. So if you think about it, if you’ve got a budget of $500 a month, that equates to about $15 per day if you’re going to advertise every day of the week, that’s $500 divided by 30 equates to about $15 per day.
Now you might find well…you know if you’re, especially if you’re a chiropractor or something, you don’t want to advertise on the weekends because you’re not open on the weekends. So possibly, it’s worth only showing ads between Monday to Friday, right?
So then your number of days that you’re advertising comes down to 20, as opposed to 30. So then suddenly, you’ve got $25 per day to spend between Monday and Friday. Okay?
Now $25 is not a huge amount of money in the Google Ad world in a day. So possibly you would add time restrictions to your ads as well.
So maybe you only show ads between 11 in the morning and two in the afternoon or three in the afternoon or nine in the morning and 11am or whatever is reasonable for your business.
The point is, you want to show your ads at the time of day, and day of the week that it’s most likely to convert so you can really spend your money wisely. So that’s my fourth point of being really strategic with the hours of the day.
And also with your location targeting. Maybe you only show ads in a very, very tight region where you know, a lot of your customers are located. And once again, you’re being very strategic in how you spend that money.
Implement a Retargeting Campaign
And the fifth and final strategy I have for you for spending, you know, for showing ads with a very tight budget is to also implement a retargeting campaign.
This is low budget stuff, and it converts very well and as a way of really capturing your existing website traffic to come back to your website and hopefully, contact you or purchase your product or whatever it is.
I have a whole course of this obviously in TeachTraffic.com you can check out but you can totally follow these steps and implement Google ads on a small budget.
So I hope you enjoyed this quick tip episode and stay tuned for more episodes to come. Thanks!