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8 Ways to Lowering Your Facebook Ad Costs in 2022

by Red, The Motorcycling Marketer | Apr 19, 2022 | Advertising Wollongong, Digital Marketing SOPs, Digital marketing wollongong, direct response marketing, Lead generation, local seo, social media marketing

Have you been wondering how to stretch your Facebook ad budget? You’re not alone. Many marketers are still wondering how to grow their organic reach, avoid the Facebook penalty and keep up with all of the changes at Facebook. It’s for these reasons I’ve put together a list of 8 ways to stretch your Facebook ad budget in 2022.

Factors that affect the cost of Facebook ads

Just like Instagram ads costs, Facebook ad costs are influenced by a number of variables.

First and foremost, the campaign objective you select for your campaign will have a significant impact on pricing since it relates to the value of the desired goal and where in the funnel your users are. For example, Brand awareness or Engagement campaigns will cost less than lower-funnel campaigns like Conversions that drive purchases. It’s easier to get someone to engage with an ad than it is to entice them to click through, open up their wallet, and complete a purchase.

Next, audience size plays a role in Facebook ad costs as well. Ads targeting larger and broader audiences will generally cost less than ads targeted at smaller audiences. You will typically see lower costs in prospecting, upper-funnel, cold-audience campaigns compared to retargeting, lower-funnel, warmer-audience campaigns because the audiences of the latter tend to be more specific and smaller in size—therefore more competitive.

Facebook’s algorithm is in constant learning mode, so it will continue to optimise your ads over time. The longer your campaign runs, the more data Facebook has to work with, which can result in lower costs.

This is where a high daily budget comes in handy. For example, if you have a $5 daily budget for a new ad set and only spend $1 on a given day, Facebook may take longer to exit the Learning Phase because it received less data to work with. The same will happen if you have a very low-performing ad set — if the ad set doesn’t reach Facebook’s minimum goal for engagement or conversion volume by the end of the day, then it may not be able to learn enough to optimise your ads well.

If your daily budget is on the higher end, Facebook may be able to exit the Learning Phase faster because it has enough data and a large enough audience pool to draw from. With a higher daily budget, Facebook also has more room in its budget optimisation algorithm to push your ads out more frequently, increasing your chances of getting new conversions and engaging with new users.

Bidding strategy is another factor that influences the cost of your Facebook ads.

A bidding strategy is the way you instruct Facebook to spend your ad budget, and there are a variety of options.

If you choose a lowest-cost bidding strategy, it will try to spend as little money as possible while focusing on getting the most out of your ad for you. A maximum value strategy prioritizes maximizing the value of each conversion. A cost cap strategy is more expensive than a lowest-cost option but allows you to set a limit on how much you’re willing to spend on each click or conversion. Similar to cost cap, minimum ROAS (return on ad spend) involves setting a specific dollar amount that you want to get back from each dollar spent. Finally, manual bidding gives you direct control over your bids for clicks or impressions, with no optimisation by Facebook’s algorithm.

Click-through rate can also play a role in you Facebook ad costs. If click-through rate is low, especially in a website traffic campaign, you may then see higher costs as Facebook understands that there may be some disconnect between your target audience and the messaging in your ads.

A healthy Facebook click-through rate is about 2%. More often than not, the higher your click-through rate climbs, the lower your cost per clicks will be.

There are many factors that influence the cost of Facebook ads, and the most important one is industry.As you saw in our benchmarks above, Facebook costs vary by industry, which also includes varying click-through rates. It’s also important to look at the ROI by industry. For example, the average CPA for restaurants is $12.91. But if your customer spends $50 and keeps coming back for years to come, you’re essentially making money off of that ad.

Of course, other factors play into ad costs as well, such as:

The level of competition in your industry (for example, in real estate)

How many times a user has converted on your site or app

Whether or not you’re advertising mobile or desktop apps

The cost of your product or service

Seasonality: Historically speaking, in the latter part of Q3 and Q4, costs tend to temporarily increase as the advertising landscape changes for the holiday ecommerce season. Competition ramps up as brands increase their budgets and gain more impression share, thus, increasing costs for all advertising brands.

Keep that in mind as you budget for the year and if you aren’t in ecommerce or running promotions during the end of the year, you may want to strategize on whether to keep a presence or to scale back.

Location: If you’re targeting a smaller metropolitan area like Peoria, IL versus New York City, your costs may be lower given that there will be less competition for those impressions.

Competition: The more saturated your industry is with advertisers, the higher costs will be. There are simply more brands vying for those same impressions and clicks from your target audience.

Source: Wordstream.com

Lowering your Facebook ad costs

Running a Facebook ad campaign isn’t easy! Success comes as a result of constant testing and optimisation. There are ways of making things easier and reduce your costs without having to take shortcuts. We’ve put together 8 proven ways to help you lower your Facebook ad costs.

1. Create a full-funnel strategy

To use your budget wisely, choose funnel-appropriate campaign objectives. In general, Awareness and Consideration campaigns are suited for the top of the funnel; Consideration and Conversion campaigns align with the middle of the funnel; and Conversion campaigns are best for bottom-funnel conversions.

In short, begin with upper-funnel campaigns to reach more people in your target audience at a lower cost, and then move your way toward conversion campaigns that optimize for your purchase-driving conversion events.

Note that some brands can certainly run a Conversion campaign targeting upper-funnel audiences with lower priced products or something that may make for a good impulse buy.

People can and do make purchases upon first interaction with a brand on Facebook, however, most will need more touch points from a brand so you can gain their trust, showcase your benefits, and entice them to convert.

Source: Wordstream.com

2. Use the Automatic Placements setting

While it can be tempting to pick and choose where you want your ads to appear within the Facebook network, the best way to save money is to start with the default Automatic Placements setting. In fact, not doing so is on our list of 7 Budget-Wasting Facebook Ads Mistakes. By appearing on all placements, Facebook can get a better idea on where to best serve your ads, thus lowering your costs. You’ll also get out of the learning period faster so that you can apply data-informed money-saving optimizations as soon as possible. Your targeting conditions will remain the same regardless of placement, which means Facebook can then serve ads to user in a lower volume, but lower cost placement that can help drive incremental revenue for you.

3. Broaden Your Audience

Your audience size impacts how much Facebook ads cost. So while you want to keep your targeting narrow, you should strive to make those targeted audiences as large as possible. This has become trickier as a result of privacy measures implemented by Facebook, but the benefit is increased privacy for Facebook users and the opportunity for marketers to target more precisely and identify more effective strategies for reaching their target audience. If you’re not sure where to start, look for commonalities among your current customers and try targeting people in your own network who share those characteristics.

Check audience overlap

Check audience overlap. Facebook’s audience overlap tool can be instrumental in saving money. Let’s say you have one ad targeting an audience of people interested in startups and another ad for people interested in entrepreneurship. You have different Facebook ad copy and creative to appeal to these different audiences. However, the overlap tool shows you that half of the startup audience overlaps with the entrepreneurship audience. Knowing this, you can use exclusions so those ads don’t overlap. Otherwise, you’d lose money bidding against yourself.

Source: Wordstream.com

5. Bid caps

Bid caps are the manual bidding strategy in Facebook ads, where you can set a maximum bid instead of allowing Facebook to dynamically bid based on your goals. But this should be used with caution. It’s for advertisers who have a solid understanding of the conversion rate and profit margin, and requires regular maintenance. If you set your bid cap too low, Facebook might have a hard time spending all of your budget.

6. Use the Pixel and the Facebook Conversions API

The goal of both of these pieces of technology is for you to track your ad performance. With visibility into what’s working and what’s not, you can allocate budget accordingly. You can also gain insights about the people viewing your ads, which you can use to further optimise your campaigns and maximise your budget.

The Facebook Pixel is still a thing, but it is losing its power since it’s cookie-based and cookies are crumbling. The Facebook Conversions API does not rely on cookies, but it doesn’t pick up the same exact information as the pixel. So, using the two together will ensure you capture the most accurate data. Refer to SOP “Installing facebook pixel on your site” below.

SOP 005: Install the Facebook Pixel on Your Site

7. Run Facebook A/B testing

Facebook isn’t the set-it-and-forget-it type of platform. If you want to get the most bang for your buck, you’ve got to stay active, and that includes running tests at the ad level.

Running tests can help improve your engagement rates and CTR, which will stretch your budget further. Here are some tips on how to lower your Facebook ad costs through testing:

Run A/B tests on ad sets
Run A/B tests on ads

Lowering your Facebook ad costs can be tricky. If you’re reading this, you know as well as anyone that Facebook is constantly making changes to its platform, and sometimes those changes aren’t so great for advertisers.

But there are still plenty of ways to make sure your campaign achieves the results you want while keeping costs low. We put together a list of the top 8 ways we’ve found to help lower your Facebook ad costs—and get more bang for your buck.

8. Target your page fans separately

1. Target “People who like your page and their friends” with a different ad than what you’re showing other audiences because this audience will convert at a much higher rate than cold traffic, but remember: just because it converts better doesn’t mean you should spend more in this audience than other audiences.

2. Don’t target people who like your page if all you want them to do is engage with an ad, not convert—that will just cost you more money because they’re already familiar with your brand and content.

3. Target only the interests that are relevant to your business, even though Facebook gives users the option to select multiple interests when creating campaigns on its platform (such as beauty products or tech gadgets).

4. Use remarketing ads instead of retargeting

SOP 074: How to select your Facebook Ads Targeting

SOP 075: How to plan your Facebook Ads Campaign

SOP 007: Creating a Cart-Abandonment Remarketing Campaign Using Facebook Ads

Considering the above facts, it should come as no surprise that Facebook Ads are more cost efficient per thousand impressions than other social media platforms. However, there are other factors to consider when making a final decision on where to spend your ad budget. No matter what platform you choose, keeping your costs down will always be an important element of running successful campaigns.

Dedicated to Your Marketing Success

John

The Value of Lead Generation

by Red, The Motorcycling Marketer | Apr 9, 2022 | Advertising Wollongong, customer retention strategy, Digital Marketing SOPs, Digital marketing wollongong, Google Ads, Lead generation, local seo, niche marketing, Online Advertising Wollongong, word of mouth marketing

Whether you’re a B2C or a B2B, if your business has sales, it should be generating leads. A lead is a potential customer, and lead generation is the process of creating and nurturing those potential customers.

The benefits of lead generation include:

Credibility: By offering valuable, reliable information to potential customers, you establish your business as an authority in your field. This means that when they’re ready to buy, they’ll be looking for you first.

More sales: You’re not only attracting new customers when you generate leads, you’re also working on keeping them around for the long haul. Leads are carefully cultivated through the sales process so that by the time they reach conversion, they are ready to do business with you.

Less effort: Lead generation allows you to have more control over the sales process while simultaneously reducing your own workload. By automating certain steps of the process and making sure every lead gets a personalized experience, your team will spend less time chasing down leads and more time closing deals.

What’s the real cost of lead generation?

Lead generation is a valuable marketing tool. It helps businesses build their pipelines and drive sales, and for those who are just getting started with it, it can be a game-changer—especially because there are so many free resources available.

But what’s the real cost of lead generation? And how can you make sure that you’re actually getting your money’s worth?

One of the more popular methods for generating leads is to “buy them” from lead generation companies like Hipages, Oneflare, Airtasker and Service Seeking.
It seems easy enough, pay your hardearned, get a lead, and go from there..

So what’s the catch? Lead generation companies are expensive. They charge a percentage of the total job value, in most cases is 15% plus a monthly fee plan which can be anywhere between $99 to $1200. In fact, on average, it ends up costing you more than $30 – $60 per lead in some cases. That’s per lead. Not per job or sale.

It’s for this reason that we don’t recommend using pay per lead platforms such as those mentioned above. We’ve had dissatisfied clients who’ve used these sites, and generally speaking, each lead they accepted was 30 to 40 dollars. Often once accepted the “client” wouldn’t answer calls or they were just curious as to the cost. After a few leads like this it becomes extremely costly. This only bumped up the price for the next client as we couldn’t afford to keep paying for such expensive leads.

If you own a franchise and are required to pay a set monthly fee regardless of your revenue, it can be costly, and most large franchises will sends leads your way for a price, which on the surface may seem low, anywhere between $4 – $10, but factor in the complusory monthly fees and those leads could be upwards of $60 plus each.

So what is the alternative?

Google or Facebook?

Search is no longer just a place to discover new products and services. It’s become the go-to destination for consumers who are ready to buy. Even if they aren’t sure exactly what they want, search engines are where most people start their research.

So why not get in front of those potential customers at the moment of highest purchase intent?

In a recent survey, 71% of respondents said that search engines were the first place they looked for information about products or services. And with paid search ads, you can show up at the top of those search results—and beat your competitors to the punch.

Paid search ads are highly effective because they put you in front of consumers when they want your product or service most.

Google and Bing Search Ads: Average Cost Per Click, Click-Through Rate, Cost Per Lead, and Conversion Rate by Industry

If you’re considering running Google or Bing search ads, you’ll want to first get an idea of what you can expect to pay for cost per click, click-through rate, lead cost, and conversion rate. These factors will play a large role in how much your ad campaign costs overall.

To help you get a sense of what’s possible in your industry, we’ve compiled the top 20 industries that run Google and Bing search ads (according to their own data). The data is broken down by industry so that you can get an idea of where you need to improve to stay competitive.

Also read: “The cost of Google Ads in 2022”

Pay only for interested leads

What is cost per lead?

Cost per lead, also known as cost per action, cost per conversion, or cost per acquisition, tells you how much you spent in order to get someone to complete a desired action—whether to fill out a form, call you, or make a purchase.

How much does it cost to get a lead?

According to Wordstream market research, the average across all industries is $41.40. This overall average is lower than what we’ve seen in the past, which is good news for advertisers. The automotive vertical has consistently been in the lowest bracket in our past findings.

Which industries have the highest cost per lead?

Industries with the highest cost per lead include attorneys and legal services ($73.70), furniture ($64.72), and finance and insurance ($62.80).

Which industries have the lowest cost per lead?

Industries with the lowest cost per lead are animals and pets ($14.88), automotive repair, service, and parts ($17.81), and restaurants ($20.49).

Which industries have the highest conversion rates?

The conversion rate of an ad is the number of people who clicked on your ad and then did what you want them to do (like contact you or buy something from your site). This is one of the most important numbers you’ll ever look at, because it tells you whether your marketing dollars are being spent in a way that creates value for your business.

We found the average conversion rate across all industries to be 8.82%, ranging from 3.25% to 19.19%.

Industries with the highest conversion rates include animals and pets (19.19%), physicians and surgeons (19.15%), and automotive repair, service, and parts (15.23%). Industries with the lowest conversion rates were furniture (3.25%), apparel/fashion and jewelry (3.6%), and real estate (3.93%). Our past data also finds the highest conversion rates in the legal and automotive verticals and the lowest in real estate and apparel.

On the other hand, the personals conversion rate has historically been higher than what we’re seeing here.

I am not a marketer, I run a business, so how can I do both successfully?

You’re not alone. You think you’re the only one who’s ever been through this, but we’ve heard from many business owners just like yourself.

You’ve built your business on passion and hard work, so it can be a rude awakening when you realize that you need to give all that same passion and attention to crafting an effective marketing strategy.

For a lot of people, it’s especially hard because they don’t have a background in marketing—they’re just business owners. But the good news is, we can not only help you with that, we can also help turn you into a marketer who happens to own a business.

Here’s how:

Three Words: “Standard Operating Procedures”
We have been developing and using our marketing SOPs to great success. Our SOPs provide you with step by step instructions that make setting up effective ads simple and straight forward. They are easy to follow even if you are a beginner or don’t have any experience in creating Facebook or Google ads.

Our SOPs come with detailed instructions on how to set up your ads, tricks of the trade that save you time, money, frustration and improve your results. We have been working with different audiences over the years and have tested what works best for your market.

Like to know more? Click this link

Dedicated To Your Marketing Success

John

Reasons Why Your Google Ads Don’t Work & How To Fix ’em

by Red, The Motorcycling Marketer | Apr 1, 2022 | Google Ads, Online Advertising Wollongong

The Ugly Side

You have a handsome face, you have a beautiful smile …but what you have with your Google Ads is nothing short of ugly! Yeah, I know — your Google Ads don’t work for you either. To save you the trouble of digging up those unsightly stats, we’ve found some of the most likely reasons and how to fix them, to help you prevent death by advertising fatigue (or just make sure you don’t enter it in the first place)…

No, your Google ads aren’t broken. It’s not you, it’s Google… Well, maybe it’s you. Maybe your Google Ads aren’t showing for a number of reasons unrelated to the quality of your ads, landing pages, ad groups, etc. In other words: Even if you’re doing a stellar job of adhering to Google Ads best practices, there are still plenty of reasons as to why your Google ads may stop showing. Here’s eleven of the most probable causes…

Non performance issues

1. I noticed that you tried to pay for Google ads with Monopoly money.

If you’re paying for your Google Ads account via automatic payments, Google will charge you when (1) you reach your pre-set payment threshold or (2) your current billing period ends.

It depends on which happens first. Obviously, in order for these transactions to go smoothly, the payment information linked to your account needs to be valid and up-to-date. If Google can’t charge you, your ads won’t show up in the search results.

2. Your bids are either too high or too low to attract customers.

It might seem like your Google ads aren’t showing because you haven’t set them up properly, but it might also be that your ads are just straight-up not bidding high enough.

When you set up a Google Ads campaign, you have to set a daily budget. If the maximum cost per click (CPC) bid you set for a particular keyword exceeds the budget of the campaign it lives within, your ads won’t show for queries that match to that keyword. Make sure your account is free of these conflicts between campaign budgets and keyword bids.

At the other end of the spectrum, your Google ads may not be showing because your bids are too low. Your ad rank for a given auction depends on your quality score for the keyword you’re bidding on as well as the bid itself. If you navigate to the Keywords section of your Google Ads account, you can use bid simulators to estimate the impact of increasing your bids by different amounts.

3. Keyword search volume is too low, and Google rules our lives.

We’ve all been there. You were targeting a keyword that you were SURE was going to drive a lot of traffic and sales, but after your ads had been running for a while (and spending your budget), you found that… it just wasn’t happening.

It turns out that the keyword you chose just didn’t get enough search volume each month to really make an impact on your sales. So, Google decided not to run the ad anymore.

Now what? Well, I hate to say it, but waiting is probably not your best bet. Search volume might increase later on down the road, but if you can’t afford to wait or if you need results ASAP, I’d suggest looking into similar keywords with higher search volume. Google’s Keyword Planner in your Ad account or a Free Keyword Tool like Ubersuggest are great resources for this!

>>Refer to our SOP’s library<<

4. Oh no! my ads not worthy!

Did you know that Google is actually really picky? It’s a bit of a diva, really. One day it loves your ads, and the next, it decides to stop showing them. There are a few reasons why that could be happening.

It’s possible that your Google ads have been paused—or that the ad groups or campaigns that house them have been paused. If this is the case, all you need to do is switch them from Paused to Enabled.

Alternatively, your ads may not be showing because they—or their corresponding ad groups or campaigns—have been removed from your account for one reason or another. Unfortunately, if this is indeed the case, you’ll have to start from scratch.

To see if you’ve accidentally paused or removed anything within your account, simply navigate to Change History. This way, you can see the changes that have been made to your account and filter by Status.

Or maybe they’ve been disapproved.

It sounds obvious, but sometimes we overlook it when trying to troubleshoot our ad campaigns. Any ad that has been disapproved is ineligible to show to users. To fix any disapproved ads and get them back on the SERPs, you can check out Google’s ad policies for help.

5. My Ads campaign has a scheduling or targeting error.

So, you’ve set up your Google Ads campaigns, and they just aren’t showing—even though your ads are fully approved.

Maybe you’ve checked your budget (it’s fine). Maybe you’ve read every one of the [number] reasons your Google Ads aren’t showing.

And maybe—just maybe—you’re still a little stumped.

You may be running into this problem because of two settings you can find in the Settings section of each campaign: Ad Schedule and Location targeting.

Ad Schedule

Just as you set a budget for each of your Google Ads campaigns, you also set an advertising schedule for each campaign—thus allowing you to tell Google which days of the week and hours of the day you’d like your ads to show. Navigate to the Ad Schedule tab of the campaign you’re concerned about and make sure your ads aren’t scheduled too narrowly.

Location Targeting

Next to that Ad Schedule tab you’ll also find the location targeting parameters for your campaign. It’s possible that your Google ads aren’t showing simply because there’s not enough keyword search traffic coming from the geographic region you’re targeting. Fix that by broadening your target location!

6. Negative keywords are like antimatter in search marketing.

You want to know what’s a bummer? Negative keywords.

And I’m not talking about the “sad” kind of negative. I’m talking about the “not X,” “X-free,” or “no X” kinds of negative keywords—the type that keep your ad from showing for queries that are irrelevant to your product or service.

Let me give you an example. Say you want to advertise for a “free trial for CRM software.” You could set that as a broad match keyword with free CRM as the campaign-level negative keyword. But what if someone searches for, say, “free CRM?” That search won’t show your ad, even though it might be relevant to someone looking for a free trial of a CRM. Why? Because the negative keyword is overriding the active keyword.

Instead, you could switch from the broad match negative free CRM to the exact match negative [free CRM]. Doing so would allow you to advertise to users looking for a free trial of a CRM while simultaneously withholding your ads from users looking for a CRM that doesn’t cost anything.

7. Your negative bid adjustments in your Ad campaigns are big enough to choke a horse.

You’re bidding yourself out of the race with your negative bid adjustments.

It’s easy to get carried away with your negative bid adjustments—but if you’re not careful, it could be costing you.

When you set up a Google ad campaign, you can apply negative bid adjustments to individual ads or ad groups. Setting these adjustments allows you to automatically decrease your bids for specific situations: If a user is on a mobile phone, for example, or if they’re searching within a certain time frame.

Unfortunately, it’s easy to get carried away with these adjustments and start bidding your ad rank into oblivion. If that’s what’s happening in your campaign, here are some easy ways to fix the problem:

—Check your settings and make sure your negative bid adjustments aren’t too extreme. You want them to work for you, not against you!

—Look at the performance data for each adjustment and see if any are consistently underperforming. Those may need further adjustment or elimination altogether.

—Make sure your other bids are competitive enough to balance out the effect of the negative adjustments. You don’t want one part of your strategy pulling against another!

Performance issues (no not those types)

Sometimes, you’ll find that your Google ads aren’t showing because you’re not quite meeting Google’s standards when it comes to PPC best practices. In other words: There are times when getting your Google ads to show is a matter of optimization. That’s what we’ll be talking about for the remainder of this guide.

8. Your ad group doesn’t have a clear focus

Do you know why your ad groups are called ad groups? It’s because they are groups of ads.

And if you’re not happy with how your ad groups are performing, that means you’ve got the wrong ads in them!

Your Google Ads account has lots of ad groups. Each one contains two components: keywords and ads. Those keywords and ads go together like peanut butter and jelly, or like a hot dog and a bun. And when one of your keywords is triggered by a user’s search query, Google knows to select one of the ads that you’ve tied to that keyword.

To get your ad groups working for you instead of against you, make sure each group is targeted towards a specific search query, product, service or market segment – basically, anything that sets one group apart from another.

Your Google ads are like the mullet of hair styles: business in the ad auction, party in the landing page.

If your ads aren’t showing up in the Google search results, it might be because your ad groups aren’t focused enough. Basically, you’re trying to use a whole bunch of keywords that are only sort of related to one another. The reason this is a problem is that Google rewards relevant ads and penalizes irrelevant ones. In other words, if you want your ads to show up more often, you need to make them more relevant.

So how do you make sure your ad is relevant? You start by building ad groups comprised of closely related keywords. If the keywords within your ad group are closely related to one another, then it’s practically guaranteed that your ad will be relevant to the user’s query―no matter which keyword is triggered, no matter which ad is selected. Which means that if you want your ads to show up more often, focus on making sure each of your ad groups has a narrow focus.

9. Your ad copy isn’t as cool as it could be.

You should know that getting your ads to rank highly in the search results doesn’t start and end with creating focused ad groups. It’s just as important that you optimise your ad copy.

Fortunately, this is a bit more straightforward than optimising your ad group structure.

In a nutshell, optimising an ad to rank highly in the paid search results means incorporating your target keyword into your copy. By writing copy that includes your target keyword, you’re effectively telling Google that your ad is relevant to the user’s search query.

Let’s walk through an example. Say you sell dog food and dog snacks. You have an ad group with the keywords “dog food,” “dog snacks,” and “pet food.” But within that ad group, you only have one ad—and it doesn’t mention any of these keywords at all.

So even if Google is dying to show your ads, it can’t: It has no way of knowing whether or not your products align with what searchers are looking for.

The bottom line: If your ads aren’t showing, chances are you’re missing some relevant keywords in your copy.

10. Your landing page fell in a black hole.

Sometimes your landing page falls into a black hole. Not literally—but close enough. (refer to our Funnels SOPs)

When you have a subpar landing page, it’s like sending your landing page off into that black hole of no-man’s land, where it can’t be found. And if Google can’t find it, your ad won’t rank highly and you won’t get any clicks.

Essentially, if your landing page fails to help users do what they need to do—as signified by the intent behind their search queries—you’ll do poorly in the ad auction.

You need to look closely at each of the keywords you’re targeting with your Google ads. Think about the users whose queries are triggering these keywords. What are they struggling with? What are they trying to accomplish? What can you do to help them out?
Failing to answer these questions is like jumping off a cliff with no parachute. You’ll inevitably fall, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it. It’s also kind of like falling into a black hole (which is how your landing page ended up there).

11. Your click-through rate is low, which means people aren’t clicking on your ads.

What’s the difference between your ads and a cute dog? One of them is not getting any clicks.

If your ads aren’t showing, it might be because you’re not getting enough clicks. Google rewards advertisers who write ads that resonate with users. So, the lower your CTR for a given ad (or keyword), the worse you can expect to perform in the ad auction. If you want to give your ad a better chance of consistently showing to your prospects, you need to write copy that grabs their attention and compels them to click.

So, what are some ways to fix this? You can start by revising the text of your ad.
Try highlighting specific features or benefits in your headline or description lines and avoid using generic language like “Our product” or “We offer.” Specificity is key! It’s almost always better to have a targeted message than a generic one. Also try adding punctuation or special characters into your copy if appropriate—these small tweaks can help make an ad stand out from other results on a page.

You should also consider doing A/B testing (refer to our funnel SOPs) for different versions of an ad—give one set users some information about pricing while another group gets details about features instead. By doing this, you can see which messages resonate.

Bottom line? Write an ad that solves a problem.

This is the best way to ensure your ad will be clicked, and, most importantly, to maximise your return on investment in advertising.

Dedicated To Your Marketing Success

John

The Cost of Google Ads In 2022

by Red, The Motorcycling Marketer | Mar 31, 2022 | Advertising Wollongong, Digital marketing wollongong, Google Ads, Online Advertising Wollongong

Google Ads

The cost of Google Ads is one of those questions that sounds simple. But the truth is, there’s no one answer—in fact, the price can vary wildly.

Google Ads is an auction-based system. As such, the cost of running Google Ads campaigns varies from industry to industry, and even from campaign to campaign. Because these variables aren’t set in stone, it can be hard to predict how much you’ll end up paying for Google Ads.

But don’t worry. In this guide, we’re going to cover all of the variables involved in Google Ads pricing so you can understand how much Google Ads will cost for your business and how to set a realistic budget.

Factors That Help Determine Google Ad Prices

As mentioned above (and precisely why we’ve written this guide), there is no simple or one-size-fits all answer to the question of how much Google Ads will cost your business. Google Ads pricing varies depending on your industry, customer lifecycle, current trends, and how well you manage your account.

There are many factors that can influence the pricing of your Google Ads. Some have a bigger impact than others, but it’s important to be aware of them since they all work together to determine whether or not you’ll see a return on investment with your ad spend.

In this post, we’ll cover each factor in depth so you can better understand what determines the cost of running paid search ads on Google and how it affects your bottom line.

By Industry

The biggest influence on Google Ads pricing is industry. For example, the business services market segment, such as (legal, accounting, real estate, etc.) is one of the more competitive verticals in Google Ads, which generally translates to higher costs per click (CPC). This is due to the nature of the professional services industry: one new client could yield upwards of $1,000 – $10,000 depending on your business, so a CPC of $50 is a small price to pay for that client.

For businesses in the arts and entertainment vertical, their CPCs are relatively low in comparison to other verticals, but their conversion rates are also lower. To reach the $1,000 – $10,000 number, they need to reach a lot more customers.

The importance of customer lifecycle

You also have to take into account the lifecycle of your customer. For bigger ticket offerings, it takes longer for potential clients to move through the decision-making process, and your business needs to stay top-of-mind throughout that journey. This may involve multiple visits to your website, a content download or two, participation in a webinar, and more—before taking that final step.

Because of this, you likely won’t see a boatload of conversions at once—instead they will trickle in over an extended period of time. But your initial investment isn’t just going toward those conversions—it’s also an investment in additional leads and potential sales down the road.

Of course, if you’re selling something small like a t-shirt, odds are good that someone who sees your ad is going to buy it within seconds or minutes.

Trends

Neither consumer trends nor online advertising platforms are ever in a state of rest. It’s important to keep up with what’s going in your industry and within your niche—sentimentally and empirically. Take COVID, for example. At the height of the pandemic, average cost per click for the apparel industry was about $1.40. It dropped down to $0.70 in April when average conversion rates went up, and then ended up at $0.89 in May.

So much can impact your CPC, from seasonal events and holidays to competitor activity, economic shifts, and even public opinion about your brand or industry. You might have noticed that a lot of things are still up in the air these days, but one thing is certain: there’s a lot of opportunity for businesses to take advantage of reduced CPCs by increasing their marketing budgets.

Manage your Google Ads

Even if you’re pretty new to Google Ads, you’ve probably heard that Google Ads is the most powerful advertising platform out there. And the numbers back it up: a recent study by Google showed that the average ROI on Google Ads is 800%—that is, $8 for every $1 spent.

Of course, this all depends on how well you manage your account. You can’t just activate your ads and kick back. If you want to keep your Google Ads costs low and your returns high, you need to:

Keep a proper Google Ads account structure.
Report on your performance and make data-driven optimisations.
Maintain your keyword lists.
Perform regular account audits, and more.

How does Google Ads determine the price per click you will be charged when advertising with them?

The great part about Google Ads is that while it works as an auction, the winners aren’t chosen based on bid alone, and you don’t necessarily pay your maximum bid. How is this possible? Let’s take a quick run-through on how Google Ads determines the winners and what they pay per click.

Your Ads Quality Score

When a Google user searches for terms related to your business (a “query”), Google looks in its database to see if any advertisers are bidding on keywords relevant to that query. If yes, an auction is triggered and Google enters all relevant ads into the auction. Its first step in choosing a winner is to assign each ad a Quality Score.

When it comes to PPC (pay-per-click) advertising—and the resulting clickthrough rates and conversions—Quality Score is king.

What Is Quality Score?

Simply put, Quality Score is a relevance metric used by Google to determine how well your ad copy and landing page match a given keyword. It’s then used to calculate your cost per click (CPC) and ad rank for that keyword. The higher your Quality Score, the better your ranking and the less you pay every time someone clicks on your ad.

It’s really that simple.

Ad Rank & How It Works

The next step is for Google to calculate each contending ad’s Ad Rank, which determines if and where your ad will be placed in the paid results section.

If you have a high enough Ad Rank, your ad will be placed in the paid results section of the search engine and show up when a user searches that keyword or phrase.

Ad Rank is determined by multiplying your Quality Score (based on the quality of your landing page, click-through rate, and other factors) by your maximum bid (the most you are willing to pay per click).

Ads with the highest Ad Rank get shown most often.

Cost per click (CPC)

You can only pay for Google Ads if someone clicks on your ad. Depending on how much you bid and the quality of your ad, you may not have to pay your maximum bid. For example, if your bid is $1 and the ad below you has a lower Ad Rank than yours, you might only have to pay $0.50.

The Google Ads cost per click formula is: the Ad Rank of the ad below yours divided by your Quality Score, plus one cent. With this formula, an advertiser can pay less per click than another advertiser in the SERP (search engine results page) and still be in a higher position due to a better Quality Score. This lets advertisers with a small budget compete with big spenders on Google.

How does Google Ads budgeting work?

Google Ads budgets are often misunderstood. It’s not uncommon for advertisers to feel like their budget has been burned up in a matter of days, and to believe that Google Ads is prohibitively expensive. Here’s the thing: Google Ads isn’t necessarily expensive, but it is complex, especially when it comes to cost. So let’s set the record straight!

You’ve probably heard of Google Ads bids and budgets, but what do they really mean? Well, the amount you put into your budget is how much you’re able to spend on Google Ads. Your bid is the most you’re willing to pay for a click on your ad. If your ad participates in an auction, then Google takes out of your budget the amount that your bid was worth (or more). That amount is called your spend. The actual amount you end up paying for a click on your ad is called your cost.

Set a daily average budget/and spending limits

Your daily budget is an average you’d like Google to spend on your ads each day.

Say you set a daily budget of $10 a day, but your campaign’s first ad costs $3.19 and gets clicked on 5 times. That’s fine! Google will not automatically stop showing your ad because it spent less than $10 in the first hour of that day—it still has plenty of time to figure out how best to spread the remaining $6.81 around those other 23 hours.

Of course, if your ads are getting a lot of clicks and conversions, they will likely exceed whatever daily budget you’ve set for them. In that case, it’s important to note that Google will never spend more than twice your daily budget in any given day.

Spending limits are the maximum amount you’ll ever pay for a click, a conversion, or an ad. The average daily budget is the average amount you want to spend on your ads per day.

Google Ads originally could spend up to 20% more than the daily average budget—until October 2017 when it announced it could spend up to 100% more of, or double, your budget—if it means more clicks or conversions. This means that if you set a daily average budget of $50, your daily spending limit is $100. You will never pay more in a day than your daily spending limit, and you will never pay more than a month than your monthly spending limit (your average daily budget x 30.4; although if you’re not paying for Google Ads with the invoice method, you can set a monthly spend limit at the account level).

Determine your average daily budget

If you have a budget you’d like to spend on a specific campaign over a specific amount of time, it helps to know how much you can spend each day. This is your average daily budget, and it tells you the average amount of money that can be spent per day on your campaign.

To calculate your average daily budget, simply take your budget for the month for that campaign and divide it by 30.4. What should your monthly budget be?

This depends on:

Your overall Google Ads budget.

The average cost per click of the keywords you’re bidding on (which you can get with Google Keyword Planner or any other keyword research tool).

The importance of that campaign relative to the others in your account.

For example, you may want to dedicate more budget to Campaign A, advertising your best-selling product, than to Campaign B, which promotes content to prospective customers at the top of the funnel.

Bidding

When you use Google Ads, you will bid on how much you are willing to pay per click on your ad. This is called a bid. You can set your bids manually, or you can choose an automated approach.

If you set your bids manually, you set one maximum CPC (cost-per-click) for each ad group. You can also set different bids for each keyword in that ad group.

If you choose an automated approach, it means that Google will determine the best bid for your ads by looking at the behavior of users on the SERPs (search engine results pages). There are several automated approaches to bidding including maximize clicks and target impression share.
Many search engines have automated bidding options that help advertisers manage their campaigns.
Automated bidding helps advertisers reach their marketing goals more efficiently by using machine learning algorithms to adjust bids across their campaigns.

Google’s Maximize Clicks strategy aims to get the most clicks possible within your budget. Google predicts how many clicks you can get for each ad group and campaign in your account under a given budget, then adjusts your bid accordingly so that as many people as possible will see and click on your ads. You can set a target cost-per-click (CPC) based on the average CPC for a particular keyword or ad group. You can also set an average daily budget, which is the amount you want to spend daily over the course of an entire month.

Google’s Target Impression Share strategy aims to get as many impressions as possible at or above a target impression share rate (CPM). For example, if you have an impression share goal of 90%, your ads will be shown whenever they’re likely to get 90% of all possible impressions–not necessarily when they’ll get 90% of all paid impressions.

How much does a Google Ads click typically cost?

If you’re thinking about using Google Ads to promote your business, one of the first things you’ll need to know is how much does a typical click in Google Ads cost.

The key influence on pricing in Google Ads: keywords

In some ways, you can think of PPC advertising roughly along the same lines as traditional print advertising; you’d expect to spend more on a glossy full-page ad in a national magazine than you would for a classified ad in a local newspaper. In digital marketing, however, the pricing isn’t influenced by the format of the ad, but rather the intent of and competition for the keywords you’re bidding on. So you can expect to spend more on a high-intent keyword like “roof repair near me” than something lower intent like “how much does it cost to repair a roof.”

If you’re in a super-competitive market such as legal or accounting, clicks can get much pricier. Think about it: how many law firms do you think are advertising on Google?

We’ve pulled together some keyword benchmarks in Google Ads to give you an idea of how much a click can cost for your business.

So, what’s the average cost-per-click in Google Ads?

It depends on a lot of things… but overall, the average CPC in Google Ads is between $1 and $2. That’s on the Search Network. On the Google Display network, clicks tend to be cheaper, averaging under $1.

The price you pay for a click depends on (as mentioned before) your industry and what type of business you have. It also depends on if you’re using the Search Network or Display network—and even then, ad placement matters. If you’re using the Display network and your ads are showing up on YouTube videos or Gmail accounts, for example, you can expect to pay more than if your ads are appearing in banner ads on news sites or blogs.

If you want to get an idea of how much your campaign will cost you before you run it, use Google Ads Keyword Planner.

How much are you paying for clicks on long-tail keywords?

Google Ads can be expensive, especially for broad keyword categories. But if you’re looking to save money while still driving qualified traffic, long-tail keywords are your best bet.

The reality is, broad keywords only make up a small portion of total searches—long-tail keywords account for the majority. Even better? They’re generally cheaper than their shorter counterparts.

For example, if someone has an ant problem in their kitchen, “exterminator [their town],” is one search they might perform. “Exterminator” is a broad keyword with a volume of 97,000 and a cost per click of $16.00 in Ahrefs. But they might also search for “how to get rid of ants in the kitchen.” This is a long-tail keyword with a volume of 9,100 and a cost per click of $1.40—much lower. The intent may not be as strong, since they could be looking to DIY, but it’s still pretty strong, so they’ll likely be open to—or even click on—an ad for an exterminator.

Key points to remember

You’ve been here a while, and we just want to thank you for sticking around and learning so much about the cost of Google Ads.

In this guide, we’ve talked a lot about the factors impacting your cost of Google Ads, but let’s do a quick recap:

The cost of Google Ads depends on your industry, customer lifecycle, and current consumer trends.
Google Ads operates on an auction system that rewards high-quality ads with lower costs and better ad placement.
You can exercise tight control over how your Google Ads budget is spent by using tactics like ad scheduling, geotargeting, and device targeting.
The average cost per click in Google Ads is between $1 and $2 on the Search Network. The average cost per click on the Display Network is under $1.
The most expensive keywords in Google Ads and Bing Ads can cost $50 or more per click. These are generally highly competitive keywords in industries that have high customer lifetime values, like law and insurance.
The average small- to mid-size company spends about $1,000 to $10,000 per month on its Google paid search campaigns. That’s about $12,000 to $120,000 per year.

The point is, before you open a Google Ads account, take the time to figure out what your budget will be. It’s one of those things that’s not just going to magically appear; you need to know what it is before you get started. And if possible, spend some time thinking about future campaigns as well—it never hurts to have a little extra on hand for when an unexpected opportunity arises.

Need a hand? Try our SOP library or give one of our helpful team a call.

Dedicated to your success

John

Can My Local Business Benefit From Guerrilla Marketing Strategies

by Red, The Motorcycling Marketer | Mar 15, 2022 | Advertising Wollongong, Digital marketing wollongong, guerrilla marketing wollongong

Have you ever heard about Guerrilla Marketing?

It’s a pretty cool concept!

Guerrilla marketing is a great alternative to traditional marketing. It thrives on original thinking and creativity, where imagination and ingenuity beat out big budgets.

Guerrilla marketing tends to be cheaper than traditional marketing, relying on smaller, more localized brick and mortar strategies like:
Stencil graffiti
Postering
Flyer posting
Street giveaways of products (like free samples) or other incentives, such as discount coupons

It can also use unconventional media like:
Mobile billboards (like trucks)
Human billboards (people wearing clothing with your brand message on it)

Let’s take a closer look at some of the more popular guerrilla marketing strategies

Graffiti

If you’ve ever driven past a brick wall and thought, “That needs some color,” then you’re ready for graffiti marketing.

Graffiti marketing, broadly defined, is when a company makes a mark on the world by painting public property with their brand name or product. It’s been around for many years now, but it has recently seen an increase in popularity.

There are several reasons why graffiti marketing might be right for your business.

First: it’s cost-effective. While it might cost more to get your brand on a billboard along a freeway than on the side of a building downtown, the impact in both cases is pretty much the same. Graffiti marketing also gives you an opportunity to tap into the energy and creativity that comes from working with local artists to design colorful murals that will catch people’s eyes and get them talking about your brand. This can help you reach younger audiences who might not respond to traditional forms of advertising.

Second: it gets people talking and sharing pictures on social media. The more eye-catching your graffiti art is, the more likely it is that people will stop and take photos of it, which they’ll post online where their followers can see them too.

Stencil graffiti

Here’s a fun, cheap way to get your brand noticed..

It uses stencils to create repeated works of street art. The advantage of stencils is that you can create multiple instances of your art across many different spaces in a short period of time. Stencils tend to be small in size (as opposed to a full-wall mural) and consist of simple designs.

So for example, if you’re about to launch a new product or service and you have a cool logo with bold colors and interesting shapes, make some stencils out of it and go around town putting them up! Or if you just want the community to know that [company name] is here and ready to do business, make some stencils out of your company name and logo, hit the streets, and give people something fun to look at!

Reverse Graffiti

When you think about graffiti, you probably imagine some punk in a hoodie spraying a message on a wall or sidewalk with spray paint.

Reverse graffiti is when, instead of adding to a surface, marketers remove dirt and grime from a street or wall to create an all-natural marking message. Just put a stencil on a sidewalk and then wash the uncovered spaces!

This creative tactic has been used by many large brands and even non-profits to get their message out. For example, you could use reverse graffiti to promote your company’s new eco-friendly product by creating the image of the product on a dirty sidewalk and then washing it away.

Stickers

Creative use of stickers is another great guerrilla marketing tactic that can be very successful when implemented well.

This method allows you to engage with your audience in a number of ways, and it can be a cheaper option than other forms of marketing.

Stickers are often used to leave a message in a hidden spot, or to create an element of surprise when they are found by the customer. They can also be applied directly to surfaces such as walls, vehicles, or sidewalks.

One way to use this tactic is to place stickers on things that already exist in your customers’ environment. This could include putting stickers on items like trash cans, stop signs, or cars. You can also create new stickers for your campaign and give them away at events or your retail location.

Undercover Marketing

One of the most interesting guerrilla marketing tactics we’ve come across is undercover marketing, also known as “stealth marketing.”

In this approach to guerilla marketing, marketers disguise themselves as peers amongst their target audience. One example is Sony’s campaign in 2002, in which actors were hired to wander about cities, asking strangers to take a photo of them. During the interaction, actors would rave of their cool new phone, boasting of its features and capabilities.

Flash Mobs

One of our favorite guerrilla marketing tactics is flash mobs!

Flash mobs involve organizing a group of individuals to perform a specific action or task at a pre-determined location and time. In some cases participants are hired actors, other times they are simply members of the community who enjoy the randomness of flash mobs!

We like flash mobs because they can be performed anywhere, by anyone—and they’re fun!

Publicity Stunts

Crocodile Dundee once famously said, “That’s not a knife. That’s a knife.” Why? Because he was in Australia. There’s no place like it.

But what if you aren’t Crocodile Dundee? How do you make people talk about you and your brand in a way that makes them stop in their tracks and say, “Now THAT’S a publicity stunt!”

Australia is the birthplace of many amazing feats that are now known simply as “stunts,” but which were actually incredible pieces of creative marketing that captivated the public and made them sit up and take notice.

Publicity stunts involve specific feats of awe and amazement, usually sponsored or in partnership with a brand. The most successful publicity stunts are augmented by other well-executed marketing tactics like social media campaigns, public service announcements, and more—but they all have one thing in common: they get people talking and thinking about the brand associated with them.

Treasure Hunts

Treasure hunts are a fun way to get your customers excited about a new product. Try customizing a series of clues based on the game your customer base is most likely to be interested in. You can hide prize boxes at various locations in your city and let players know where to look by posting clues on social media.

Winners can then receive digital codes, prizes, or hints for the next level of the treasure hunt.

Urban Environment

Guerrilla marketing allows you to take advantage of spaces that are already there, instead of having to create them. There are plenty of opportunities for guerrilla marketing strategies in urban environments, but the ones that work best are those that make great use of the space around them.

Whenever you’re creating a new product or service, think about how you can use the urban environment as part of your strategy. Look for places where people will see your message and get excited about it, such as on buildings, sidewalks, parks and other public spaces. If you’re going to be doing this type of marketing in an urban area, keep all the important rules in mind: keep it legal (don’t put up posters without permission), don’t deface property, and always be respectful to everyone around you—otherwise your guerrilla marketing efforts could backfire.

Online Guerrilla Marketing

Online guerrilla marketing campaigns are small and inexpensive, but highly creative in nature. They often appear in the form of viral videos or user-generated content competitions that focus on building an audience for a product or service.

A good example of this is the “Share a Coke With…” campaign by Coca-Cola, which was first run in Australia starting in 2011 and then later globalized. The campaign invited consumers to share a Coke with someone close to them. It did so by printing the most common names on bottles of Coke and inviting consumers to buy one that was labeled with their name. The goal was to drive brand awareness, increase sales, and create a feeling of personalization between consumers and the Coca-Cola brand.

Pros and Cons

Pros

If you’re just getting started with your business, chances are you don’t have a lot of capital to throw around. Guerrilla marketing can be a great way to make a big impact without breaking the bank.

While traditional advertising relies heavily on expensive media buys and ad space, guerrilla marketing campaigns take advantage of spaces that are already in the public eye. It can be as simple as using chalk on paving stones or as complex as painting an entire building—either way, it’s going to be cheaper than buying TV time.

With guerrilla marketing, your creativity is more important than your financial resources. Instead of wondering how much you can spend, you should wonder how cleverly you can get your message across. You might use a popular landmark to tell people about your product or create an interactive experience related to your brand theme: the possibilities are truly endless.

Guerrilla marketing relies heavily on word-of-mouth marketing, considered by many one of the most powerful weapons in a marketer’s arsenal. There’s nothing better than getting people to talk about your campaign on their own accord.

When done right, guerrilla marketing campaigns can snowball into PR goldmines. Some especially noteworthy or unique guerrilla campaigns will get picked up

Cons

Guerrilla marketing can be an exciting and effective way to reach new customers, but you have to be ready for the risks.

Guerrilla marketing campaigns often have a mysterious element to them, which is part of what makes them so engaging and powerful. But mystery can be a double-edged sword: while it can grab attention and make people curious, it can also lead to misinterpretation or confusion. A guerrilla campaign that’s too vague, or that doesn’t have enough clarity around its purpose or product, could result in an audience that just doesn’t understand—and that won’t take the time to figure out what your company does or how it helps people.

Guerrilla marketing carries another risk as well: if your campaign is done wrong (or done in a way that doesn’t align with your business), you could end up in trouble with city laws or the public. It’s important to make sure any guerrilla marketing campaign your company holds is legal and acceptable by local standards before you get started.

Many guerrilla marketing tactics are susceptible to bad weather, thrown timing, and other small instances that could easily threaten to undermine an entire campaign.

Savvy audiences may call out businesses who are implementing guerrilla marketing campaigns they don’t approve of. This is especially true of undercover marketing campaigns – if you’re caught, prepare to face the wrath.

Real-world examples of guerrilla marketing

Discovery Channel reminds beachgoers about Shark Week by placing novelty shark-bite boards along beaches.

You can find stairs almost anywhere in the world, and many ingenious guerrilla marketing tactics use stairs in their advertisements. IKEA uses its staircases to help consumers visualize how its furniture works at home.

The Copenhagen Zoo covers a bus in a custom design which catches the eye of many residents.

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Whether you choose to follow just one of these examples, or all of them, guerrilla marketing can be a fun tactic to include in your overall marketing strategy. And the best part is that it doesn’t have to be an especially expensive, time-consuming endeavor. It’s not a complicated technique, and it doesn’t require much in terms of manpower. In other words, you’re free to get creative with your guerrilla marketing efforts.

To Your Success

John