Although more sophisticated, Google Adwords can be compared to billboards. Companies use billboards to target consumers by geography. A company based in Connecticut wouldn’t advertise on a billboard in Nevada. Similarly, Adwords helps businesses target their ideal customer. Search terms allow businesses to more effectively reach consumers who buy their products, instead of putting up a billboard and reaching every single commuter.
For example, a garden shop puts up a billboard on the highway and reaches every car that goes by. The drivers could live in apartments where they don’t have gardens, or be visiting a friend and not live in the area – these impressions are not qualified leads for the local garden shop. If the garden shop advertises with Adwords, they can target by geography, but also, the consumers who are searching for “garden tools” or “red roses local”. Only qualified leads see the ads.
In addition to targeting local clientele, the garden shop could expand their customer base. Similar to targeting local traffic, an ad could be modified to target online customers. For example, the garden shops local ad mentions “free delivery” and “locally owned” to attract local residents. The ad settings would also restrict browsers outside certain zip code from seeing the ad. For an eCommerce store an ad eliminates the zip code restriction. The copy of the ad mentions “free shipping” and “30% Off Sale” to attract online sales. Utilizing different copy in the ads and geography settings attracts different consumers and shows different results.
A garden shop advertises during peak months in the spring and summer. The Adwords tool allows businesses to set up their own budget. A monthly advertising budget of $1000 per month from May to September can be set as the maximum spend. In the fall and winter the ads can be stopped or the budgeted can be lowered.
Clicks on the ad spend the budget, called Pay Per Click. Each click costs money. The amount spent per click is dependent on the cost of the search terms, or keywords. Keywords with the most competition cost more than those with low competition. The cost also varies per day and per hour.
Google Adwords is an effective way for businesses to target consumers. By utilizing different ad strategies and copy, they can reach their marketing goals for in store traffic or online sales.
