What are the Pros and Cons of using Google Ads

What are the Pros and Cons of using Google Ads?

There are many pros and cons of using Google Ads. Google Ads is a great marketing strategy for many businesses, but there are a few things to note when jumping into Google Ads. Let’s first start with what Google Ads are.

What are Google Ads

Google Ads, formerly Google AdWords, is Google’s online advertising platform. The platform operates on a Pay-Per-Click (PPC) model whereby advertisers bid on keywords and only pay when someone clicks on them. Google also uses an auction system to determine which ads appear, in what order, based on the bid amount and the ad quality score.

One of the key advantages of Google Ads is the ability to target audiences, keywords, and search intent. You can target an audience based on their location, language, demographics, interests, and online behavior. The platform also provides detailed analytics, the ability to measure the campaign’s performance, giving you great insights into your campaign.

Pros of Google Ads

Instant Visibility

Instant visibility is the biggest advantage of Google Ads. As soon as you create and publish your ad, it goes live, you can start getting traffic to your website and converting those visitors into paying clients.

Precise Targeting

Google Ads allows for precise targeting through location targeting and keyword targeting. As you create your ad campaign, you can set the location targeting as precisely as you would like. This may include cities, suburbs, and postal codes.

Targeting through keyword targeting. You can use phrase match, broad match, or exact match keywords to target the exact phrase and related phrases to ensure you correctly target the searcher who has the correct intent. In SEO, we have search intent. Search intent boils down to commercial, local, transactional, navigational, and informational intent. If you are a small local business, aim for commercial and local intent first, as you may get better results with your PPC campaign.

Measurable Results

Google Ads allows you to measure your campaign results. The key metrics that you can measure include the following:

• Impressions – The impressions are the number of times you appear in Google.
• Clicks – The number of times someone clicks on your advertisement.
• Click-Through Rates (CTR) – The percentage of users who click on your ad after clicking on your ad.
• Conversions – The number of times a user clicks on an advertisement, arrives on your website, and even perhaps contacts you. These can all be treated with conversions.
• Cost-Per-Click (CPC) – The average cost each time someone clicks on your advertisement.
• Return On Ad Spend (ROAS) – ROAS is the return on every dollar you spend on your PPC campaign.

Being able to measure these results allows you to carefully track and improve your Google Ads campaigns, ensuring profitability in the long run.

Control Over Spending

With Google Ads, you can control overspending on your campaigns. You can control your daily budget, monthly spending, and add negative keywords to the campaign, like “cheap” or “free”. You are even able to schedule ads and create bidding strategies.

High ROI Potential

Google Ads has a high ROI potential. This is because you can target the keywords that will generate the most amount of money for your business, and because you can also set the Cost-Per-Click, you can ensure that your campaign will generate a high ROI.

Increase Brand Awareness

Increasing brand awareness is somewhat simple with Google Ads. This is because with every query you plan to target, you can rank at the top of Google. Over time, your business may become a household name in your industry. This is particularly easy if you are a local business servicing specific needs like plumbing or electrical work. People would remember your company and the great service you provide, and refer you to them.

Rapidly Drive Sales

Google Ads can rapidly drive sales. You can rank immediately, and with a large enough budget, you can rapidly drive sales and traffic to your site, the convert them into paying clients.

Cons of Google Ads

High Cost

One of the largest downsides and deterrents to Google Ads is the cost. The cost of the clicks can be high. It can become incredibly expensive if you do not correctly optimize your Ad campaign and ensure the Ad Quality and Ad Relevance are on point. 

If you don’t, the result is wasted budget and no sales. PPC is worth getting right, and you should keep tweaking it to ensure you always achieve a better ROAS and Conversion Rate.

Competition

Competition is another variable. Competition significantly affects your Google Ads campaigns. These factors include the ad positioning on Google, the Cost-Per-Click (CPC), and the campaign performance itself. With higher levels of competition, you may find the result being higher costs, less visibility, and overall fewer clicks.

Click Fraud

Click fraud is a common occurrence with PPC ads. Some estimated campaigns can be affected, with around 14% to 22% of all clicks being fraudulent. A way to determine whether click fraud is happening is through abnormal click patterns, high traffic rate, no conversions, or a high bounce rate.

Using something like ClickCease may be in your best interest to ensure you aren’t too badly affected.

Ongoing Management

Google Ads requires continuous ongoing management. Whether it’s at a strategy level or campaign level, Google Ads always needs to be managed. A Google Ads management company can be costly, and business owners don’t always have the time or staff complement to ensure the ads are taken care of. This leads to problems with the campaign.

Budget Limitations

Every company has budget limitations. When you get started with PPC, it is best advised that you test and experiment with your campaign to see how best to get the campaign “just right”. The problem with this is that the CPC will usually be high, your conversions will be low, and you can only stretch your budget so far.

Always be mindful of your budget limitations.

Not Always Effective At Driving Sales

Sometimes Google ads aren’t effective at driving sales. Many factors can affect the ability to drive sales. These may be a bad sales team or a poor account structure, or even a very high cost-per-click that may not make Google ads effective at driving sales.

Factors To Consider When Choosing Google Ads For Your Home Service Business

Campaign Type

When it comes to Google Ads, there are different types of Ads. You get Search Engine Ads, Display Ads, Video Ads (on YouTube), Shopping Ads, and Performance Max ads.

For home services businesses, most owners should stick to Search Engine Ads and perhaps Local Service Area Ads. These are where the best leads and conversions will come from.

Audience Targeting

Audience targeting can be broken down to demographic targeting (such as age, gender, income, and parental status), location targeting (such as city, country, and postal code), and device targeting (such as phone or desktop browsing). 

With search ads, this is simple to achieve. You could easily target the device and location, and then focus on the chosen demographic through keyword choice.

Budget And Pricing

Understanding your budget and budget restraints when planning an Ad campaign. The pricing of each keyword you bid on is also a variable. 

When planning your budget, you should consider your daily and total budgets. If you have a limited budget, you should develop a focused strategy. If you do have a low budget, you should focus on Google’s Search Ads and high-intent keywords, and ensure your campaign is set up with narrow targeting. Narrow targeting could be location and exact match keywords, for example.

Ad Quality

Another factor to consider is the Ad Quality. Several factors influence Ad Quality. These include the expected Click-Through Rate (CTR), how relevant the Ad is to the query, and the landing page itself.

The reasons why Ad Quality matters are that a quality Ad results in lower costs, better ad rankings, more visibility in the SERPs, and an improved ROI.

If you are concerned about ad quality, there are ways to improve it:

You can write clear, compelling ad copy that is relevant to the search query and keyword. You should also pay attention to the landing page and optimize it for user experience and relevance. Lastly, you should continuously be testing and refining your ad strategy and keyword selection.

Are Google Ads Worth It

Yes, Google Ads are indeed worth it – but only when done correctly. In 99% of cases, having a well throughout plan and strategy, with consistent monitoring should see the Google Ads campaign a success.

We are of the impression that if you are mindful about your budget, can plan out your campaign, and keep on top of it, you should succeed with LSA ads and Google Search Ads as a local business.

Conclusion

There are many pros and cons to using Google Ads. As mentioned, they are great options for home services businesses, but only when done correctly, and having a well-thought-out plan is part of that strategy. Do you think your business can benefit from Google Ads? Let us know.

If you need help with your marketing or would like to learn about our Digital Marketing Services, contact us today.