Boost Sales, Generate Leads, & Change Your World with Paid Search Advertising

Advertising has changed. Most organizations are no longer trying to get in front of the most people — they’re trying to get in front of the right people.

Paid search advertising is one of the most important keys to our new targeted advertising age. If your company wants to effectively compete for the hearts, minds, and pocketbooks of your potential customers, you need to know about this critical advertising channel.

WHAT IS PAID SEARCH ADVERTISING?

Simply put . . .

You choose keywords and write ads. When people search for your keywords online they see your ads. You pay the search engine if a user clicks your ad.

You pay for each click your ads receive, which is why paid search advertising is one of the advertising channels labeled pay-per-click (PPC).

Google and Bing are the primary search engines advertisers use for paid search (ads on Bing also appear on Yahoo). Google’s paid search — and performance display — service is Google AdWords, and Bing’s is called Bing Ads.

If you were a business in the old days (Hint: last decade) you might buy an ad in the New York Times, rent a billboard, or create a listing in your local Yellow Pages. You would pay to reach massive amounts of people and hope that a micro-percentage of them become your customers. You wouldn’t know for sure how many new customers your ads generated, and much of the time you wouldn’t know if an alternative image/offer/slogan would have been more effective. And you would pay to advertise to untold numbers of people who couldn’t care less about you.

Paid search advertising has helped change all of that.

Let’s pretend that you’re a national real estate company. You list properties for sale and you connect local clients with real estate agents.

When Mr. Jones types “homes for sale in timbuctoo california” into Google, you show him an ad for your Timbuctoo listings and take him to a landing page which lists homes for sale in Timbuctoo.

When Mrs. Smith searches “real estate agent in truth or consequences new mexico”, you show her an ad for your local real estate agents in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. (Yes, that’s a real place.) She clicks, picks an agent, and fills out a contact form.

In each case you’ve targeted a person looking for what you provide, and you’ve given them an ad to click that offers exactly what they want. And you didn’t pay for 999 people living in San Francisco to see your ads.

WHO, WHAT, WHEN, WHERE, HOW?

PPC takes a lot of the guesswork out of advertising.

Google AdWords and Bing Ads mesh with analytics tools such as Google Analytics to show you:

The exact search queries your visitors are typing into search engines to find you
Which of your ads convert the most visitors into customers
The length of your sales cycle
Which geographic regions are bringing you the most customers
And so much more

If PPC had a motto it would be Optimization. PPC is all about constantly testing your ad copy, keywords, landing pages, and other elements of your campaigns to see what gets you the highest number of most valuable customers for the lowest cost.

DOES PAID SEARCH ADVERTISING WORK FOR LOCAL BUSINESSES?

You bet!

Google AdWords and Bing Ads allow businesses to pinpoint who they want to show ads to based upon location.

If you’re a roofer in Arkansas you can target a 25-mile radius around your location and thus only show ads to people you know you can service. If you’re a national restaurant chain you can create location-specific ad campaigns and only target hungry people in Seattle. (Google hasn’t yet integrated its search engine with your stomach, but if somebody’s searching for a five-pound steak they’re probably a bit peckish.)

MOBILE SOCIETY

The mobile market is becoming increasingly important as more and more consumers switch to living life on their cell phones. With PPC you can write mobile-optimized ads and associate them with your phone number so that searchers can see your ad, click a “call” button, and instantly be ringing your business. You can also show your location on a map and let mobile users click for directions to your building.

CAN I MANAGE MY PPC CAMPAIGNS MYSELF?

You can. Google AdWords and Bing Ads are both programmed so that you can dive right in and start choosing keywords, writing ads, and getting new clients.

But . . .

Both programs are complicated and not always intuitive, with so much available data that it’s easy to be overwhelmed or come to a wrong conclusion.

Here at StubGroup we’re biased towards advertising agencies because we are one, so take everything we say with a grain of salt. But, here are four reasons that working with a PPC agency like StubGroup might be a good idea for you.

PPC is our job. We’re certified to use our tools and we spend our life in this world.
We have more data. We can test strategies and glean information from many accounts across many verticals.
You don’t have unlimited time. Neither do we, but we spend our time on PPC so you can spend yours doing what you do best — serving your clients.
We stay on top of the constantly changing rules and best practices of paid search. The search engine landscape changes as often as the weather in Texas, and we constantly monitor these changes so that your campaign doesn’t get left in the dust.

Is paid search advertising right for you? Ask us! Call (817) 382-7475, or fill out our form for a free AdWords evaluation. We’ll talk with you to determine your unique business goals and advise you whether paid search or other PPC channels are a cost-effective strategy for your business. We’ll be honest with you if PPC isn’t a good use for your money. But if it is, and if you’d like to work with StubGroup as your management agency, we look forward to delivering you new leads and customers soon.