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As a digital marketing agency, we are frequently asked what are the pros and cons of an AdWords campaign versus any other marketing strategy.

There isn’t a single article out there about marketing tips that won’t tell you to have to be on Facebook, Twitter, and an array of other social media sites. Then there’s SEO with its “free” traffic. But wait, you could also try interacting with your audience through blogging, releasing an email marketing campaign, or perhaps some good old-fashioned PR.

With all these options, what makes AdWords better?

We’re glad you asked.

The following are the advantages of AdWords over other channels of advertising:

1) Almost Everyone is On Google

Everyone and their mother perform searches on Google. It’s even become a coined verb: “Just Google it”, which is used for web searching in general. Specifically, the platform has a potential reach of 90% of all internet users.

However, depending on the nature of your business, most of that huge potential reach may not be relevant. If your business specializes in a niche product or service or if your business is restricted to serving customers in a particular geographic area, the only people you need to be getting in front of are the potential customers you can serve.

As a result of this huge potential reach, business owners need to pay extra attention to their targeting strategies. Lucky for you, AdWords has been equipped with this in mind. The platform offers an array of features, which are meant to zero in on users’ most relevant and targeted audience.

2) Aims for Maximum Relevance

The platform works by incentivizing advertisers to produce high-quality ads. Just like a business, if your ads are relevant to Google’s users, you are rewarded with a high-quality score which results in cheaper web traffic. It’s a win situation for Google, its users, and the advertisers.

However, what matters most is the ROI you’re driving and how you’re monetizing your marketing spend. AdWords aims to target those who already have an interest and, therefore, are more likely to convert into sales.

The following features allow you to further narrow down your most relevant audience:

Match Types

Keyword Match Types control which search terms or words lead users to your ad.

• Broad match
• Broad Match Modifier
• Phrase Match
• Exact Match

Keywords

Target by relevant words prospects is using to search for your business. Don’t know where to start with your keywords list?  With AdWords’ powerful keyword planner, you can gain insight and help with your keyword research.

Negative Keywords

Negative keywords are those you exclude to even further sharpen your audience targeting. If your ads are only showing to people interested specifically in the products/services you offer (relevant audience), then your ads will more likely be clicked on. As a result, your overall CTR will increase from the lack of presence on irrelevant searches.

Bid Adjustments

A bid adjustment can be applied to either an entire campaign or individual ad groups. Types of Bid Adjustments:

1) Location-Based
2) Hourly and Day-of-the-Week (AKA  Ad Scheduling)
3) Mobile (Device)
4) Top Content (Advanced)
5) Targeting Methods (Advanced)
6) Remarketing Lists for Search Ads (Advanced)

3) Highly Targeted to Pinpoint Your Target Audience

The point is to be at the right place when your potential customer is looking for you.

AdWords Offers a Variety of Targeting Options to Make This Possible:

Geo-targeting

Just because you ship to the entire US does not mean you should advertise everywhere. AdWords allows you to target by country, region, city so you can reach a feasible market. This feature allows you to focus on potential buyers based on the area they live in, the area they search for in their browser, and the area in which they have expressed an interest.

For example, you can segment your campaign by state, cross off underperforming ones, and focus your budget on those bringing in results.

Behavioral targeting

Connect with your audience more thoroughly by entering Google Trends. This platform allows you to observe browsing and shopping trends on Google. See what users are searching for and how you can compliment that.

For example, by observing your consumer purchasing trends, you can decide how often during the day and which days of the week to advertise on efficiently.

Demographics

Narrow down your target audience by age, gender, and parental status.

Language

Target your multicultural audience by dividing your campaign by language and ethnicity to pinpoint thoroughly.

Customer Match

This feature allows you to show specific ads to searchers who are logged in with their email address in Google, YouTube, or Gmail. The platform will record them on your email database and even though the cost for the specific keyword will not be lower, the interest of searchers is likely to be higher.

Device

Target your prospects depending whether they’re searching on a desktop, mobile, or tablet.

4) Psychologically Soothing Tracking Capabilities

AdWords has a way of tracking almost any customer behavior. This is possibly one of the most psychologically rewarding aspects of digital marketing over traditional marketing methods because you can see where your money is going. The platform makes it easy to measure almost every parameter, so you can also see what is working and what isn’t.

Track When Someone Lands on a Particular Page

This is the most common type of conversion tracking and the most basic. Set it up by selecting “Create New Conversion”. Google will automatically create a small HTML/JavaScript snippet for you to paste into your website.

Track When Someone Calls You After Seeing Your Ad or Visiting Your Site

You can use third-party apps or AdWords’ integrated features for call tracking.

Track When a Person Downloads Your Software Application

Here at White Shark Media, we had a client that created an app to increase their social media exposure. Our strategist used Google AdWords to track app downloads, which worked well for this particular client. To set this up, find the URL for the download page of the app store you want to use, and make that the destination URL of your ad.

Track Conversions That Happen Offline

This lets you connect sales back to your AdWords accounts. With this kind of conversion tracking, you can know in advance which leads are most likely to become customers.

4) Catapult Your SEO Strategy

SEO is important for brand awareness. However, a drawback with relying solely upon SEO for high ranking search engine results is that it can take months to reach a high position.

Once your AdWords campaign goes live, your ads will immediately appear in search engine results and partner sites which will start driving your traffic and results, in most cases – much quicker than you could have imagined. This means you can test and discover how effective your current keyword selections are much quicker. You can use this as a catalyst for an effective SEO strategy. This helps you increase brand awareness and if done right, it will reduce your PPC costs.

Here at White Shark Media, our PPC and SEO departments implement this symbiotic benefit. SEO has full access to where PPC keeps top-performing keywords. That way SEO can use those to increase a client’s position in SERPs.

5) Modify Your Campaign in Real-Time

AdWords allows you to make modifications to your campaign (daily budget and maximum cost per click) in near real-time by tracking performance on your website.

Another advantage is that you can pause and enable your campaigns anytime. Let’s say you need multiple campaigns with many services and promotions being advertised simultaneously, but only need them to run for a certain period.

No need to panic, automated rules in AdWords are here to give you control. Set up rules that will automatically pause or enable campaigns, ad groups, keywords, or Ads on any given date or time.

Another similar solution is Google AdWords scripts, which provide a way of controlling your AdWords account using JavaScript code. Scripts can be used to automate tasks or interact with external data. The function is available to assist with running day to day activities in your account and enhance performance. Scripts can work particularly well for you if you have some knowledge of coding or if you manage large AdWords accounts.

6) Optimized Mobile Advertising Capabilities

How many people do you see on the daily with their eyes glued to their phones? Optimizing platforms to appeal to mobile users is a must. According to Google, Mobile searches have surpassed desktop searches and 46.8% of Google ad revenue comes from mobile. With bidding options and Ad options for showing on mobile devices, you can be doubling your sales in no time, for example:

• Choose budgeting ratio for mobile and for tablets
• Optimize web text ads for WAP-enabled phones
• Optimize text ads for iOS and Android devices

7) Bang For Your Buck

This advantage is only valid if you produce quality ads. You can spend a lot of money and get nothing out of your ads if you don’t optimize your campaign properly.

Luckily, AdWords offers multiple bid strategies to help you achieve your performance objectives. These strategies aren’t constrained by campaign structure and can be applied at more granular levels to ad groups or keywords as needed. These are divided into conversion and revenue-based or awareness-based bid strategies, depending on your needs.

Regular CPC Bidding

Pros: Control over your CPCs on each of your specific keywords.
Cons: Requires constant checking to make sure bids are in line with fluctuating conversion rates.

Auto-Bidding

Pros: Aims to bring you the most number of clicks from your campaign daily budgets.
Cons: Will buy in lower quality cheap clicks, removing a highly motivated part of your audience that was coming in from the higher CPC keywords.

Enhanced CPC

Pros: Good alternative for owners with not enough time to optimize regularly.
Cons: Although it allows more control than the Conversion Optimizer, it is ultimately an automated system, which can quickly backfire.

Google Conversion Optimizer

Pros: Aims to generate as many conversions as possible.
Cons: It can run your bids into the ground if you have a few days of bad performance because it tends to lag making changes.

Like I mentioned above, there is no one way to run an AdWords campaign. Each business requires time and testing to figure out what works best for it. Start with small tests and scale up as you get more comfortable. If your schedule doesn’t allow this, hire an agency that specializes in these campaigns.

We recommend you use budgets to regulate your spending. Don’t use budgets as a measurement of efficiency. If your paid channel advertising efforts are truly efficient, you won’t need a budget.

8) Different Advertising Options

Another of the most distinguishing Google AdWords feature is that you can show your ads and reach your customers through a multitude of different platforms. This is because Google has a wide partnership program with these highly converting platforms.

For example, Google has discovered, that listing product ads and videos on YouTube and in-video paid advertisements statistically get a higher conversion CTR. To name a few platforms:

Search Network

Call-Only, DSA and RLSA Campaigns

• Show for content on your website
• Ads are shown for particular searches relevant to your business

Display Network

The Display Network is a collection of websites — including specific Google websites like Google Finance, Gmail, Blogger, and YouTube — that show AdWords ads. This network also includes mobile sites and apps.

Remarketing, Display, and Video Campaigns:

• Promote brand awareness and get a lot more traffic at a lower CPC
• Remarket to those who have at some point shown interest in your business
• Come in the form of Text Ads, Video Ads, Image Ads and mobile Ads on websites (respectively)

Shopping Network

• Get listed with your product image on the Shopping Network
• Opt into the Search Partners Network; show Ads in Youtube, Gmail, and much more

Find What Works Best for You

AdWords is all about testing and tinkering to figure out what works. Unfortunately, most business owners don’t have the luxury of time, which is why agencies like White Shark Media exist.

Ideally, as a business owner, you’ll want to implement as many ways of capturing your audience as possible at every stage of the buying process, whether that’s through Google AdWords, Facebook Advertising, PR, or SEO. To strategically select your online advertising plan, we recommend considering which fits best your business goals and audience behavior. Once you narrow them down test, test, test.