Google Ads for Marketing

[Amy Raye Rogers]

I've been scrubbing through the forums to find people's thoughts on Google Ads.  Anyone have any success with these?  Any tips?

[Ed Brancheau]

OK. Full disclosure. I own a digital marketing agency so I have a lot more experience than 99% of the people on BP.

And you're likely to get a lot of people saying they lost their shirt with Google Ads. I don't deny that that happens to 95%+ people with no experience.

Since I primarily work with real estate businesses like real estate agents, I find that they're way too busy to do a good job themselves because you only have so many hours per day and you can continuously scale your business.

If you decide to do it yourself, the best place to start is with Google's free training. Plus, start slow but not cheap!

The #1 mistake that newbies make is that they think they should bid the least amount and then increase their bids as they have success. But they only think this way because they think that it's a regular bidding system like eBay.

It's not.

It's actually very easy for the #1 ad to pay less per click than any of it's competitors.

Search Engine Land has an excellent article about how bidding works on Google Ads but here's an example:

But the problem with this is that the Quality Score is the most important factor... not the cost per click (CPC.)

What I do is create dozens upon dozens of ads and ad sets to split-test them all. 

Plus, I bid about three times what Google recommends (keep in mind that it never ends up being that high.)

After about three days, I'll know which are winners and which are losers.

Of course, I'll ditch the losers.

Then, with the winners, I start slowly decreasing my bid by 15% until I drop to #2.

At that point, I bump my bid back up to the previous bid to get back to #1, and I slowly lower my bid by 5% until I hit #2 again.

Bump it back up and then start lowering by 1% until... well... guess what.

This all takes about a month of testing and making sure that I don't forget or I'll get burned.

THERE ARE THREE CRITICAL THINGS YOU NEED TO DO TO MAKE THIS WORK

1. Respond to new leads within five minutes. "But that's not possible, Ed, because well I'm not always available."
2. True. That's why you need an automated system to respond to new leads if you can't pick up the phone right away.
3. You must track all traffic coming to your site and "remarket" or "retarget" them because you'll rarely make a sale the first time someone calls you. These are what cause all of those ads to follow you all over the internet.

OK. NOW HERE'S WHAT YOU SHOULD DO INSTEAD ESPECIALLY IF YOU DON'T HAVE AN ESTABLISHED BUSINESS...

This is a simple but powerful strategy that has worked for every single one of my Realtor clients. And I have clients selling $5M houses in Beverly Hills beating out the agent from Bravo's Million Dollar Listing.

I like to call it the Youtube Spiral:

1. Buy a cheap but decent lavalier mic and a little cell phone holder that makes it easier to hold your camera. You need the mic because the sound on Youtube videos is more important than the visual.
2. Pick one point on a map. You don't have to actually live or work there but it's going to be the only area you focus on. For example, the agent working in Beverly Hills lived up in North Hollywood but she wanted to focus on Beverly Hills. Honestly, I wasn't sure my strategy would work in such a competitive environment but it did.
3. From that one point, start walking and shooting videos about everything you come across and just spiral out, block by block. Make a separate video about every park, school, store, gas station, library, church, temple, even restaurant. Even little things like a secret tree swing or a little piece of grass where you can have a picnic. Everything!
4. Do short little interviews with the business owners, pastors, teachers, firemen, etc.
5. Do this all day, every day (your Fitbit is going to start posting some crazy step numbers!) unless you are actually with a client or following up with a potential client.
6. Always mention your name, phone number, and call to action. Then post the videos on Youtube and Facebook. While the content should be high-quality, the "production value" doesn't need to be professional. Just be sure to flip your phone sideways so that the video displays horizontally. Down and dirty works best.
7. Stop all marketing and whatever else you think you have to do. You'll start it again later and it will work even better than before because you'll have hundreds of videos all doing one thing...

Presenting you as THE GO-TO EXPERT for your area!

Whereas your competition will SAY they're an expert, and they may be but how would anyone know, you'll be SHOWING that you're an expert.

And here's what will happen... all of those people that talked to, especially businesses, are going to remember you. Plus, they're going to refer people to you because you're helping to get the word out about their businesses.

Then, when potential clients do a search for you, and 85% of people search for business' reputations, they're going to find hundreds of videos showing how phenomenal you are.

I guarantee that you're going to get at least one referral within 30 days plus you'll continue to get them without any additional work.

Once you do all of that, I recommend creating Youtube Ads because they're really affordable plus people on Youtube will naturally come across all of these videos after they see your Youtube Ad.

This has worked for every single client of mine in even the toughest markets in the country and it will work for you. All it costs is $50 and probably a new pair of shoes when your done because the soles will be worn down.

This has got to be my longest post ever so I how you enjoy it.