Google AdWords simplified for those who are planning to use the web for marketing or advertising.
After reading this blog, you will understand why advertising on the web is a great bet in many cases; and how Google AdWords can be utilised to its fullest extent.
So you have started your own business. Well done. It is a well defined business? That’s nice to hear. You are doing quite well? Great. So what next? Any self respecting businessman or entrepreneur is never happy with what he has got. He always wants more.
Ever considered advertising?
Given a chance, who would not like to advertise? However there are issues with what we call “mass media” or “traditional media” advertising. Traditional advertising is very costly. The Times of India, India’s leading English daily, charges close to Rs. 5500 per square centimeter. A newspaper sheet measures 50 cm x 35 cm approximately. So, a full page ad will cost about Rs. 96 lacs. YES. You heard that right. Rs. 96 lacs. And that too, just once. Therefore, 10 full page ads in The Times of India will cost you around Rs. 10 crores. Yes, it will be read by about 70 lac readers. So the relative cost will come to Rs. 1.37 per reader each time. Pretty cheap I would say. But the absolute cost is very high. Imagine spending Rs. 10 crores on your ad campaign.
That’s not all. TV advertising is as expensive. Prime time rates routinely go for Rs. 1.25 lacs/ 10 sec at the least. So a 30 sec ad will set you back by Rs. 3.75 lacs. Given the clutter levels on TV, you would need minimum 10 impressions in a day, meaning Rs. 37.50 lacs in a day. Just think about it.
Which brings us to the topic we are on. Web Advertising. And more specifically, Google AdWords. Google really defines the web advertising space. Apparently it makes 32 billion USD out of its paid or display advertising (About Rs. 1.72 lac crore) in a year. That is a lot of money. To compare, the revenue generated by the Indian film industry (Hindi, Tamil, Gujarati, Bengali all combined) in one year is about Rs. 12,000 crore. So we are really talking about a super giant here.
Today, internet penetration in India has reached 10%, with broadband penetration at about 2.5%. So we are talking about 3 crore Indians with broadband connectivity. That’s a big no. again. Smartphones with 3G connections is another thing. Last year, 85 lacs or so smartphones were sold. E commerce industry has reached revenues of Rs. 55,000 crores in a year. So one thing is clear. The ecosystem for web advertising to take off is there already.
So why does web advertising remain in a perpetual shadow? Perhaps it is one of those things. No real answer. Hopefully this blog will answer some of your questions, and spur you to make use of Google AdWords. Or create a Google optimised website that helps you find new customers through organic search. And grow your business.
1) Let us first understand the crucial difference between traditional advertising and web advertising. Let us play a nice TV ad:
What does this ad do, as a marketing or communication tool? It helps to introduce Cadbury Dairy Milk chocolate to you, in the best possible way. In case you were already aware of it, it refreshes your memory of it. You may or may not have been thinking of Cadbury when this ad was played, but in any case after you view this, you may think about Cadbury for a while. That’s the premise on which traditional advertising works. Seeding a consumer with information about a brand, in an interesting way, and then repeating it till the time the Brand becomes TOM (Top of Mind) with him. And once it does, make sure it stays there. It sounds simple, but it is not. There are thousands of things (and not just Brands) competing for your attention. So an ad has to work very hard to get your attention to begin with. And as we just noted, it costs a lot of money to ensure your brand becomes TOM. You could actually say that traditional advertising is now so costly that only big companies can afford it. One more reason to look towards web advertising, or Google AdWords.
2) Web advertising is “contextual”. To understand this term, just consider your own behaviour. How do you use Google? You use it only when “you” need something. For example, you might search for “short term courses” in case you are interested in doing a short term course. That is the time an advertiser gets the opportunity to serve you the ad. Note that he is not trying to “seed” your mind or anything like that. He is merely trying to fulfill the need that you have. Now this is the exciting as well as befuddling part about web advertising. Chances are you are reading these lines because you found this website for a query such as “Google AdWords Simplified”. (This is called optimising your website. We optimised this website for the keywords “Google AdWords simplified”. Today, it ranks on page two for this highly competitive keyword).
3) All about websites & keywords: Let us say you have a business or website dedicated to making science easy for students. What would you like to call it? This is very crucial, perhaps the most crucial part. A lot of us (and that is how human nature is) like to project and present ourselves as leaders. A lot of big businesses or organisations name their website after their top brands (www.dove.in or http://www.coca-cola.com). This is precisely what you should never do, unless you own a big brand. The thing is to remember how consumers think. So if we go to our original example, you should be thinking about the consumer need. What does he need? “Science made easy”? Yes. “School science made simple”. Perhaps. “Science simplified”? I think you are getting the hang of it now. So if you plan to open a business like this & create a website, it would be a good idea to call it http://www.sciencemadesimple.com. Here is the proof.
If you indeed searched for “science made simple”, the no. 1 ranked website is http://www.sciencemadesimple.com. In fact, all the top websites are a derivation of “Science Made Simple”. Have you ever thought how much would it be worth if your site were ranked no. 1 on Google or the initial pages for a particular keyword?
Let us take the example of insurance as a category. It is a highly competitive category & attracts a lot of web advertising. The following graphic captures the Google AdWords Traffic Estimator tool:
The total cost you will pay per day, if you were dealing with insurance of any kind is about Rs. 200. Now here is the catch. Insurance is a highly competitive category so a lot of people will be competing for those clicks (This is how Google makes its money) & therefore the chances are that your CTR (click through ratio) will be much lower. So you could easily end up paying 3 times the estimated money. Using this for our example, at Rs. 600 per day, you will spend Rs. 2,19,000 in a year. So would it not be great if by using the right keywords & right website, you could rank high on Google search?
As I said, a good ranking with Google is invaluable.
4) Then we come to the matter of creating your ad. Now this is a great thing with Google AdWords. You can create as many ads as you like, for as many keywords as you wish. But you don’t get much space. 5-6 words for your headline & 12-13 words for your main copy. So you need to be highly focused. Let’s say you are in the business of premium chocolates and wish to target the gifting segment. There is no space for flowery language here. Don’t say “Lovely chocolates for you” or something like that. Be direct. “Premium chocolates for gifting”. Google AdWords or web advertising in general forces you to think in terms of those staccato keywords.
If you indeed searched for “premium chocolates gifting” (The results could be different for “premium chocolates for gifting”), this is what you get. And note that the first bit on the top is a paid for ad. Surprisingly, no one seems to have used these keywords in their website.
5) Now let us come to the basic things associated with Google AdWords. The great thing about web advertising is that all the metrics can be tracked, and the campaign starts instantly (except if you wish to do image or gif animated ads). So you have control over what you are doing all the way. You can see how many impressions of your ad were served, how many people “clicked” your ad, which are best performing keywords, how much are you paying per click (called “Cost per Click”), and finally, what is your CTR (click through ratio – the no. of people who clicked on your ad divided by the no. of times your ad was served). Given all these metrics, you can easily calculate your ROI.
Even better, through Google Analytics, a simple to set up but highly intuitive tool, you can get valuable insights into how your website is faring with visitors.
6) The best part comes now. Google hands over the command to you. You decide how much you want to spend per day (you could spend as little as Rs. 50 per day). You decide how much you want to pay per click (called your bid or Max. Cost Per Click). So unlike other media, web & Google are completely measurable and hand over the command to you. Heck, you can even pause or completely stop your campaign instantly.
So I hope I have presented the case for web advertising to you. Remember, the web now reaches more people in India than the Print medium. And it is the medium of the future. Today no one buys anything without referring to some review or other on the web. Advertising on the web is simple & completely measurable.
Now, though this blog is about Google AdWords, we at WEB MARKETING INDIA, do not deal in Google AdWords. Our forte is creating effective business websites that help find you fresh customers by ranking well in Google search. Our websites are optimised for Google search, so you are able to find new customers on the web for no extra cost. In other words, your customers are searching for a solution, and through your website you give them the solution. Your customers searching for you. What could be better than that?
For a complete overview of us & what we do, just log on to http://firstpagelistingongoogle.wordpress.com.
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Google AdWords Simplified 