Why Your Small Business Needs to Run Google Ads: 10 Reasons

Google is the most popular search engine, and it doesn’t look like that is changing anytime soon. With over 8.5 billion searches daily, Google is the best place for small businesses to get noticed. While advertising may seem complicated, and it certainly can be, Google makes it relatively easy for anyone to set up a Google Ad account and begin running promotions immediately. Here are 10 reasons why your small business needs to run Google ads:

Expand Your Customer Reach

As we’ve already mentioned, Google has an enormous reach. The search engine has become so widely used that Merriam Webster Dictionary made it an official verb; “googled; googling” meaning to search something on Google. If that doesn’t tell you how popular Google is, we’re not sure what will. 

The users that made this possible were just people looking for an answer to their question. And many times, the answer can be your product or service. In order to get in front of these people, you need to ensure your business appears at the top of the results page for related searches. Google Ads are automatically placed at the top of page one and you can manually set which keyword terms and phrases you want to target. 

Focus on Different Audience Segments

If you have a broad audience that you want to segment or already have an idea of your different buyer personas, you’ll want to target them differently. This may mean focusing on different keywords, playing with the ad copy, and promoting different products. Google makes it easy to separate different audiences based on their interests and place in the research funnel.

Finetune Intent

The major advantage of using Google ads over other forms of advertising, such as paid social media, is the ability to reach different people based on their intent. For example, when you advertise on social media platforms, you can only target people based on their interests and demographics. You have no real way of telling where they are in their research journey.

With Google, you can target specific keywords and phrases to ensure you are reaching the user at exactly the right time. Let’s take a hair stylist looking for a website developer as an example. Their first search may be “how to design a website” then once they do more research it may change to “websites for hairstylists.” Eventually, their searches will become more fine tuned as they do more research and it will become “website developers for hair salons.” This is the point where website developers want to show up on the results page, as the user is ready to make a purchase.

Maintain Control Over Campaigns

There is no question about your campaign when it’s run through Google. Google gives you complete control over the promotion, including:

• Budget
• Schedule (times and days)
• Audience segments
• Website placement
• Keyword targeting

Manage Your Budget

Let’s dive into budgeting a bit more. On Google, it is not as basic as setting an overall campaign budget if you are interested in more intricate spend control. Google allows you to adjust your:

• Cost per click bid
• Daily spend
• Keyword bid
• Maximum bids

With this level of spend control, you can rest assured that you will not exceed your desired budget.

User-Friendly Dashboard

Some advertisement dashboards make it nearly impossible to understand why a promotion isn’t succeeding with complicated analytics and no assessment. Google Ads take the guesswork out of analytics and shows exactly which ads are performing the best alongside the top key performance indicators (KPIs). With their easy-to-use platform, you can easily view:

• Impressions
• Clicks
• Keyword bids
• Cost per click

Improve Google Ranking

Search engine optimization (SEO) is still a valuable tool used among most, if not all, major sites. However, a sustainable SEO strategy requires patience and consistent practice. Most companies want results now and don’t want to invest the labor and time into SEO. Google Ads push you to the top of the results page immediately without all of the extra hassle of SEO. So if you are looking for a quick way to get noticed, Google Ads is your best bet. 

Build Brand Awareness

Most people think of conversions when they hear Google Ads. And while many businesses do run them for driving traffic to their site, it is also extremely effective for brand awareness. A study found that marketers prioritize brand awareness campaigns, making these promotions extremely useful. Whether a business is just starting and trying to establish their brand or introducing a new product, brand awareness is essential for gaining trust. Most users won’t make a purchase unless they are familiar with a company, making brand awareness an important first step for every marketer.

Improve Conversion Rates

Google Ads uses complex algorithms to determine which ads are running best at which times to maximize conversions. This takes all of the guesswork out for marketers trying to optimize their campaign performance. Google Ads will even make edit suggestions on click bids and ad copies to improve conversions.

Maximize ROI

Google has established different forms of bidding to ensure every business can maximize their ROI. Depending on the campaign type, businesses may be interested in:

• Cost-per-click (CPC) bidding is recommended for generating website traffic.
• Cost-per-thousand (CPM) bidding is recommended for brand awareness campaigns.
• Cost-per-action (CPA) bidding is recommended for specific conversions, such as product purchases or email sign-ups.

Now that you understand the benefits of running Google Ads, talk with your team about how you could best utilize them.