There is a common misconception among online marketing community and internet marketing agencies that advertising a local business on so called Google AdWords Display Network is waste of time and money and I myself was part of that camp. Notice the ‘was’ there – yep, I totally changed my mind.
Before I tell you what changed my mind, lets remind ourselves that the big G’s advertising is divided into 2 parts, namely the Search Network and Display Network.
In layman terms, search network is when advertisers post their ads on G00gle search page every time someone searches for something. Display network however is a net of hundreds of thousands of websites who have opted to show ads served by Google on their websites via the publisher (website owner) program called AdSense.
Now, most people are familiar with the Search Network as we have all searched for things on this great search engine. Some of us would have seen ads and banners on other sites and possibly never cared to find out where they come from. Granted that not all of those come through via Google, most are served there by some sort of network of which AdWords is the biggest on the planet.
While there is no doubt that advertising on the Search Network is beneficial as your ads get served only when a searcher types a term that relates to your product and service, here is why the Display Network is just a beneficial for every online marketing campaign:
- When setting up a campaign you can specify the keywords for which your ad will show on publisher websites. This is called contextual targeting. You can also pick the particular websites you want your ads to be shown, audience it is shown to by age and gender or let the automated system make most of these decisions for you and then adjust it yourself later
- You can reach large number of customers who are visiting websites and pages that relate to your product, targeting potential customers at the right time of purchasing cycle
- You will be able to utilise what they call smart pricing where you can opt to pay every time someone clicks on your ad or per every 1000 times your ad is shown – latter is great for branding purposes
- Yes, you can limit your audience to a geographical area so if your local business is in Sydney for example, you can tell the system that only people located in Sydney and visiting those websites (automatic or manual placements) will be shown your ads – handy for local businesses don’t you think 🙂
- Unlike the Search Network, you can use Image ads on the Display Network. So called Display Ad Builder is provided for advertisers to create great looking ads in minutes – no need for a great graphical design expense.
So with such great cost and targeting control – no wonder AdWords is the largest online advertising platform on the planet.
Keyword relevancy is one of the keys to success with Google AdWords. While it may be tempting to include all sorts of keywords you can get your hands on, be aware that this is often the #1 mistake advertisers make when creating their first campaign. You only want prospects who “Need You Now” and are going to be motivated to contact your company, or purchase your services if they click your ad. People bid on the wrong keywords all the time and it hurts them big time. My company was losing an average of $0.67 per click until Simon over at RDM helped us get our ducks in a row with the campaign and now it makes $2.19 per click on average instead of -$0.67. He’s really helpful on the phone.