If you’ve been running Google Ads and Bing campaigns for some time, you may feel that you’ve checked all the boxes for success. You’ve got great ads, well-researched keywords, a reasonable cost-per-click and a website you’re proud of. But you’re still not seeing the return you want. What are you missing?
No matter how well-built your Google Ads campaigns are, this one piece is the lynch-pin that, when missing, will wreak havoc on your advertising budget and destroy your ROI.
What is this missing piece?
Treat your leads like gold.
At first glance, this principle may seem fairly obvious. Of course I’m going to value my leads – after all, that’s what I’m paying for when I advertise, right?
Unfortunately, this isn’t as self-evident as one would like to think. When running our clients’ accounts, we can’t tell you how many calls we see that didn’t get picked up – as many as 70-80% of calls dropped.
If you’re paying $40 for a phone call, and then you don’t pick up the phone, say goodbye to your ROI.
You could have the dream unicorn– a Google Ads campaign where 100% of clicks turn into calls and lead form submissions. But if you ignore 70-80% of those calls and lead forms, you don’t pick up the phone, you don’t call back immediately when the call goes to voicemail, and you take 10 days to respond to lead form inquiries, then your Google Ads campaign won’t help you do much besides throw away money.
Google Ads can be an awesome system for bringing you more leads.
You get to show your ads to people looking for exactly what you offer. You get to exert a high level of control over who sees your ads, when, and where. You get to see exactly what searches your ads show up on – allowing you to block the terms you don’t want to advertise on, and control which locations, zip codes, income levels, genders, and ages you want to see your ads. You get to control your budget and bids (how much you pay per click) and you get to change those numbers at any time.
When Google Ads works, it’s great. You have a good cost-per-click that you’re comfortable with, amazing near-perfect search terms, and you’re only showing up on exact searches for the services you offer. It’s like buying customers right off the shelf! If you make an average profit of $200 per customer, and you can get leads for an average cost of $40 each, you’re pocketing $160 per new customer.
That’s the thing. A perfect Google Ads campaign means nothing besides money out the door, if you don’t treat your leads like gold and turn them into paying customers.
Google Ads is great at generating leads. The one thing it can’t do is convert those leads into paying customers. That’s your job. Google Ads and Bing ads work great, but only if the advertiser treats the leads they bring in like gold.
So, the million dollar question: how do you treat leads like gold?
- Answer the phone! Don’t let your precious leads go to voicemail. The guy on the other end of the line will just call the next ad in the list and you’ll lose him.
- Follow up and call back very fast if you do have to miss a call. You want to catch them while they’re still hot.
- When you receive lead forms, contact them immediately, and follow up a couple times if they don’t respond.
Once you start treating your leads like gold, what’s next?
In Google Ads, focus on keeping those search terms top notch. Focus on continuing to get the cost per lead you want. Look at impression share (the percentage of eligible searches you’re advertising on) to see if there’s room to spend more advertising budget on your great campaign and get even more of those same, solid leads.
Best of luck to you!
