One of the things about Google AdWords advertising is that it takes a lot of your time, which is why so many people subcontract it. However, many of the companies you get phone calls from offering to do this are, quite frankly, rubbish. Ask them just one question: what do you know about my technology?
The answer will almost invariably be “nothing”, although they’ll weasel around the question and try to pretend this doesn’t matter. But it’s critical. Anyone setting up an AdWords campaign has to develop a long list of search terms to advertise against, and if they don’t know their blue widgets from their red widgets, your campaign will perform badly and cost you much more than it should.
In the past year, we’ve taken over the running of several companies’ AdWords campaigns from conventional advertising agencies. In almost every case, what we’ve found ranges from a campaign whose creator clearly can’t be bothered, to those which are breathtakingly incompetent. This is not because the agency doesn’t understand Google AdWords advertising, but because they don’t understand the client’s area of technology. We get the job – eventually – because we know industrial and scientific marketing.
For example, supposing you sold carbon dioxide canisters. What search terms would you advertise against? The Google AdWords bucket shop would advertise against the search term “carbon dioxide canisters”. You and I would advertise against “carbon dioxide canisters” …and “co2 canisters”. Pretty obvious to anyone with any technical sense, but not to the sort of people whose main skill is in phoning round lots of businesses and selling advertising. Or suppose you sold industrial AC and DC motors? (I’ve seen this one, by the way). An agency who didn’t know the subject might just advertise against “motors”. The result? Your advert shows millions of times against queries like “General Motors dealers”. And you get the bill for any clickthroughs.
Google AdWords isn’t really that difficult to master, if you know your subject …and nobody knows it better than you. The sensible reason for subcontracting it out is because you don’t have the time to manage it properly. If that’s the case, then give the task to someone who talks your language, not a call-centre full of people who neither know or care about what you do.
If you’re interested in Google AdWords advertising (especially if you might consider asking us to do it!), we have a free seminar coming upon 21 October. More details here.
Spot on!