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Before You Use Google AdWords…

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Although creating an Google AdWords account is easy and free, there is a good amount of preparation work that should be done before paying for your first PPC click. Before you put your company credit card info in AdWords, make sure you can clearly answer the following questions:

What Is The End Goal For Your PPC?

Stephen Covey wrote it best in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, “Begin with the end in mind.”  Knowing if you want to build a subscriber list, generate leads via form submissions, or increase online sales, will change your campaign targeting and setting as well as your keywords, call to actions, and extensions.

Who Is The Target Audience For Your Google AdWords Ads?

Know who you want to reach and engage with online. This will impact audience targeting setting including which network(s) to target (Search and/or Display). Are you trying to generate new traffic or focused on driving return visitors via remarketing? This would drastically impact the verbiage of your ad copy and landing page(s). Pairing the answer to the first two questions, will help you write targeted and clear Call-To-Actions within your ad copy and landing pages.

Why Should Your Audience Click On Your PPC Ad?

Without knowing your company’s value proposition, your ad copy on Google AdWords will be very generic and unlikely to get clicks. Make sure you highlight features and benefits that you (and only you) can offer your customers. Give them a reason to click on your ad. Here is the example (with my notes) from Google AdWords Support:

The Headlines hint at who they are targeting  – someone looking for insurance within their budget.

The body/ad description line builds trust, offers and discount and the suggested call to action is request an online quote. (Sidenote – don’t forget to leverage Ad Extensions to add more specific details to your ads.)

How Will Your Customers Reach You After Their AdWords Click?

Go through your customers journey yourself. What are they searching, does your ad catch your own attention, and is your landing page relevant and easy to use/navigate? After you have done that once, consider doing it again on a different devices (computer, tablet, or most importantly mobile.)

After, going through these quick questions, you will be prepared to setup and begin running your Google AdWords. As you go through the setup process, keep in mind your target audience and what their needs/wants are. Use your ad copy and landing page to speak directly to their problem/pain points and your solution to them. Ensure your landing pages are as mobile friendly as possible and that your conversion funnel/path can be easily completed on any devices. Once you are ready to go live, start collecting data and reap the benefit of all your preparation work.

Have any questions, or think we missed a crucial piece of preparation work for setting up a PPC campaign, let us know in the comments or via twitter or facebook.

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