Does advertising at Google work?
Generally speaking, it does. But not for everyone.
There are four reasons advertising at Google using Google Adwords doesn’t work.
- You didn’t set it up properly
- Your website doesn’t do a good job of conversion**, in general
- You don’t have the profit margin to support paying $1 to $5 a click
- You don’t have the time to properly monitor the results and make any necessary adjustments
** Conversion meaning turning website visitors into inquiries.
Set-up
Make no mistake, Google Adwords advertising is complicated. If anyone tells you differently they are either a member of Mensa or misleading you. If you don’t understand how it works, how to properly set-up campaigns in targeted AdGroups, and write *GREAT* advertising copy within limited constraints, you’re probably just going to throw money into a blow-torch advertising at Google. And while Google Adwords “Express” seems like an easy-choice, and they promote it as such like crazy, the BEST PRACTICE is to use the full-feature Adwords program – not the express version. The “full” version gives you more tools, functionality, and reporting.
Conversion
If your website doesn’t do a good job of converting visitors into inquiries NOW, using advertising at Google is a waste of money. Frankly, advertising ANYWHERE online is a waste of money.
Paying to drive traffic to a website that doesn’t work, or isn’t properly optimized for CONVERSION (i.e. turning visitors into inquiries and phone calls), is simply wasting money.
Don’t blame Google, or WeddingWire, or The Knot, when the real problem is… your website.
Profit Margin
Here’s the (conservative) math.
Expect to pay $5/click.
Expect less than 1/2 of your clicks to convert into actual inquiries.
You don’t close all of your inquiries, so you have to factor that in also.
- 100 clicks
- $5.00 per click
- Cost: $500.00
- Click -to-Inquiry ratio: 25:1
- Result: 4 inquiries
- Inquiry to Sale ratio – 50%
- 2 sales
- Cost per sale: $250
If you are a Wedding Officiant and your average sale is $750, the math here probably isn’t good. Maybe you can live with that.
If you are a Wedding Photographer and your average sale is $3000, the math probably works.
If you own a wedding venue, and your average sale is $5000, you’ll probably want to do this all year long.
Whatever your category, the most important factor is how well your current website converts visitors into inquiries.
9 out of 10 people reading this don’t know the answer to: “How well is your current website converting?”
If CONVERSION is a current weakness in your Internet marketing model STOP – you need to fix that.
If you don’t, any advertising you do online (or offline) is not likely deliver a good ROI.
