So you have decided that running a Google Adwords campaign is going to benefit your business and bring you additional web traffic and sales, but do you try and take on the arduous task of doing it yourself, or simply hire a Google Pay Per Click expert to manage everything for you?
Since I am in the business of running Google pay per click campaigns for my clients, I don’t want to make this post too one-sided in favor of hiring an expert, so what I will do is explain the different aspects involved in setting up and running a campaign and let you decide if it is something you would like to take on yourself.
Running a Google Ad words campaign that has already been set up comes with its fair share of challenges especially if you do not know your way around the Google adwords interface. Not only do you need to be aware of what all the tabs and links mean, you will need to know how to extract search term reports, review them, understand them, and then take the appropriate action to tweak your campaigns and realize the maximum benefit of your investment. You will need to know how to access campaigns and ad groups within campaigns, how to edit them, create new ones, delete old ones, update keywords, change maximum bids, and many more things.
Keyword Research
The biggest aspect of any search engine optimization or Google pay per click campaign is the keyword research. Without proper analysis of the best performing keywords your efforts just simply will not be successful. Using the keyword tool provided by Google is an ideal way to perform your research so you can establish the keywords that have the right balance between a high enough volume of monthly traffic and as little competition as possible. This process is fairly in depth and involves a lot of research and review of hundreds of different keyword combinations. Finding keywords that a lot of people are searching for each month, but not a lot of businesses are competing for is not easy, and in some cases is nearly impossible. Having a professional guide you through this process is advisable.
Setting up Google Ad words campaigns and Ad groups
Once your keyword research is complete it is time to set up your campaigns and different ad groups if you want to target different keyword sets. Setting up your ads involves deciding on a daily and monthly budget, inputting the chosen keywords from your prior research, deciding on whether you would like ads to appear based on an “exact match” “broad match” or “phrase match” of your keywords, creating the text for your ads within the limits provided by Google, and deciding on where you would like your ads to appear on Google’s networks, and in what geographical locations.
Ongoing Google Ad Words Management
Once your campaigns and ads have been approved by Google you must monitor and tweak things accordingly to make sure you are getting the best return on your investment. You will need to generate reports to establish how many times your ad is appearing, how many time people are clicking on it, how much it is costing you per click, when your budget will run out, and whether your click-through percentage is in line with industry standards.
Summary
The bottom line with setting up and running a Google Ad Words campaign is that there is a lot of work involved in doing it properly so you maximize the return on your total investment. The inherent nature of running a pay per click campaign is that you can easily spend a lot of money in a short space of time if you are not familiar with the intricacies of setting up and running an effective campaign. I have spoken to many a client who has spent their monthly budget within with first few days or week of their campaign, just because a few settings were overlooked.
If you are looking to manage your own campaigns then consider the amount of your time you will invest if you do it yourself, or if you have to pay one of your members of staff to dedicate time each week to the project. You might be surprised to know that it is quite affordable to hire a professional Google Ad Manager to take care of all the aspects of running a successful campaign for you, and who will make sure you receive the positive results your business deserves.
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Twitter: ustopsweating
I would say hire an expert to run your Google ad campaign. In the beginning we tried it ourselves and ended up spending a lot of money because we didn’t really know what we were doing! There is a lot to consider, like different campaigns, different ads within those campaigns, and then keywords and bidding etc. We pay around $150.00 per month to have a company run our google ad words campaign, and it has saved us a bunch!
Great work lad, keep it up and good luck with your PPC campaigns!
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