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In this Shark Bite, we bring you the first AdWords truth small business owners don’t want to hear as mentioned in Andrew’s latest blog post. This truth has to do with competitors who have advertised with AdWords before, thus have an advantage over you.

How is this possible? You may ask yourself. Google has preached fairness for all its advertisers and as a matter of fact, its platform is built on it. However, Andrew argues that just like anything in life, if you come in first and learn the rope before everyone else does, you will probably do better.

There are several reasons why your long-standing PPC competitors have advantages over you. The biggest reasons are:

1. They have tested their way to better ad copy, keyword selection, and bid management

2. They have discovered the value of PPC, done the numbers and improved their website

3. They have a better Quality Score than you

We hope you enjoyed this Shark Bite if you have any questions or comments feel free to leave them below, see you next time!

Video Transcription

Hi, I’m Andrew Lolk. And today I will introduce to a video series about the biggest Google AdWords truths that you as a business owner don’t want to hear. The first big truth about Google AdWords is that if you’re just starting out then your competitors will have an advantage over you if they’ve done it for a longer time.

Interviewer: Wait, wait, wait. Isn’t Google AdWords the super nice playground where everyone can play on even terms?

Andrew: That’s a great theory, but the facts are different and they should be.

Even if the foundation of Google AdWords is built on fairness then, like in anything, the people who start earlier and put more time into it will do better than the ones that are still practicing and getting the hang of it. So why or how do your competitors actually have an advantage over you? First, they’ve tested their ad copy. They’ve tested their keywords and they’ve tried out all these different bids to find out what is their best profit. Any good AdWords manager will be able to tell you that the first setup you make of a campaign will not be the final result.

Usually what you see is that you need to run several tests for a campaign to be profitable. It takes about three to six months and even then, you need to continue testing to ensure that it continues to be profitable. One of the other reasons why your competitors have an advantage is that they see the values of PPC. They saw it two years ago. They improved their website and today they’re converting better than you do with a basic website.

All right. So you’re at a disadvantage. What can you actually do about it?

Know your Google AdWords ABCs.

One of the best ways to do that is to visit the PPC University by WordStream. You can download my free e-book about AdWords, or you can join any of the many webinars or seminars that are hosted by known industry experts. But if AdWords is too time-consuming for you, or you just don’t find it interesting, you know what, then just hire somebody to do it for you. Just find somebody with a proven track record and demand excellence. And that’s it for today’s SharkBite. I promise you the next one will be even better. To subscribe to our channel, follow our blog, and you’ll get notified the second it goes live. Like we say in Denmark.