2/19/2016 10 Questions: How to Plan a Successful Google AdWords Campaign

http://blog.wishpond.com/post/78117946136/10­questions­how­to­plan­a­successful­google­adwords 1/14

10 Questions: How to Plan a SuccessfulGoogle AdWords Campaign

]Google AdWords](http://blog.wishpond.com/post/77711920097/why-does-

my-small-business-need-google-adwords) are a powerful tool in online

marketing. You can run incredibly complex highly-targeted, low cost, high

conversion campaigns.

As a small business marketer, though, they may seem like a daunting venture.

Before you break out into a sweat, start with a bit of planning. Here’s 10 simple

questions that will make your PPC advertising a success.

Wishpond's platform makes it easy to get the most from your

advertising buck with mobile-optimized landing pages and lead

nurturing tools. Check us out for free today!

2/19/2016 10 Questions: How to Plan a Successful Google AdWords Campaign

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1. Who’s my target market?

It kind of goes without saying, but if you’re running highly targeted ad campaigns

you need to know the customers you’re trying to reach.

List out a few demographics of your customers such as:

Are they a local market?

Are they businesses, individuals or families?

Would they be searching for you on mobile, or from a laptop?

What level of knowledge do they have about your products?

What do they want right now, when they are searching for you?

For example, let’s say you’re a family-run Italian restaurant:

Target customer:

Customer is local

For this ad campaign - reach the business lunch crowd

They are searching on their work computer

They've likely seen our restaurant, but never been a customer

They want to find a great new place for lunch

2. What’s my offer?

2/19/2016 10 Questions: How to Plan a Successful Google AdWords Campaign

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2. What’s my offer?

Like any good marketing campaign, you need to create or solve a problem. You

also need to show why your business is the best at getting the desired results for

your customer.

Answer these questions about your campaign:

What makes your business unique, and different than your competitors?

What are your key unique selling points (USP)?

What are you offering right now to get your customer to click your ad?

For example, for the family-run Italian restaurant:

My irresistible offer:

We're local (on your block) with great authentic home-made Italian food

We get your food fast (for the business lunch crowd), we cater, and we

deliver

We're offering free delivery on catered lunches in the area, and a one-time

25% off deal on purchases over 50%

Of course, you can run multiple campaigns to market different offers and selling

features.

3. What are my customers searching for?

Google AdWords (http://blog.wishpond.com/post/77711920097/why-does-my-small-business-need-google-adwords) is intent marketing. You are

getting seen by potential customers exactly when they are searching for your

2/19/2016 10 Questions: How to Plan a Successful Google AdWords Campaign

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offer, product or service.

Think like your customer. List out what you think they would be typing into

Google when they want what you’ve got.

For the Italian restaurant, a few of your keyword phrases might be:

pizza deals

lunch catering in [location]

pizza near me

Your keywords are one of the most important parts of your AdWords

campaigns. They’re what gets your ads sorted through Google’s algorithms. Use

the AdWord Keyword Planner(https://adwords.google.com/ko/KeywordPlanner/Home) to get keyword

statistics, or if you’re stuck for ideas.

There’s a number of AdWords Tools (http://corp.wishpond.com/google-adwords-tool/), like Wishpond, that can optimize your keyword selections for

you.

4. What do I want out of my ad campaigns?

Think about the results you need to achieve from your campaigns.  List out your

campaign objectives.

Do you want:

Increased foot traffic

Increased website traffic

Online sales conversions

2/19/2016 10 Questions: How to Plan a Successful Google AdWords Campaign

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Lead generation

More coupon (http://corp.wishpond.com/coupon-app/) participants

The better you know what you want you need from your paid ads, the better

results you’re going to get. You can fine tune your targeting, ad copy, and ad

groups.

5. What do I want my customer to do?

Determine what it is you want your potential buyer to do when they see your ad.

This will be based on what your business objectives are for your campaigns, but

specifically what actions you want your customer to take when they see your ad.

Do you want interested consumers to:

Click through to your coupon landing page

Phone you

Make a reservation online

Like your Facebook Page

Buy a specific product

6. How will I get my customer to take action?

So, how are your going to motivate your customer to take the action that you

want? Before you write your ad copy, list out a number of results-oriented Call-

to-Actions (CTA’s).

64Shares

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2/19/2016 10 Questions: How to Plan a Successful Google AdWords Campaign

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A good CTA is short, actionable, and simple. The clearer your ask, the higher

your conversions will be.

In this example, Panago uses two CTA’s: “Order Online” and “Give Us A Call”

You can also motivate action by making time limited offers, exclusive discounts

or other key USP’s with a sense of scarcity.

7. What are my competitors doing?

It’s always wise to keep attuned to the choices your customers have. Check out

what your competition is doing with Google ads, or other advertising strategies

too.

Research your competition by searching for the keywords you’ve chosen, or

search for your competitors names directly in Google.

Put together a simple competitive analysis. Then list out the strengths and

weaknesses of their campaigns.  Determine how you can outsmart them, to win

more customers.

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2/19/2016 10 Questions: How to Plan a Successful Google AdWords Campaign

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Do you offer better service? Are you more value oriented? If they are on Google

Places, are you? Are there different keywords you could be using? Can you make

a clearer CTA? Do you have a phone number for increased mobile optimization?

By checking out your rivals, you gain a better understanding of what your

business is up against - and you can act to optimize your campaigns.

8. What’s my budget?

Money, money, money. You need your PPC ads to give your business profits.

Plan out your Google Ad budget, before you dive right in.

Google AdWords (http://blog.wishpond.com/post/77711920097/why-does-my-small-business-need-google-adwords) are priced on a per day basis. If

you’ve never run online advertising, this could be something new to you, so

make sure you understand how the pricing system works.

Google has a number of costing structures. The main one you need to know as a

newbie (or busy person) is the standard PPC (also known as CPC).

Pay-Per-Click (PPC) allows you to set your ad spend based on the number of

clicks your ad. It’s the default costing you see when you make an ad campaign.

Calculate a daily budget that works for your business needs. If you’re new, I’d

suggest starting in the $20 - $50/ day range. You can monitor your ads, and

adjust your budget as you go. So, if you’re getting great results - increase your ad

spend!

2/19/2016 10 Questions: How to Plan a Successful Google AdWords Campaign

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There is also a Maximum Cost-Per-Click (Max. CPC bid). This is the maximum

amount you are willing to pay for one click. Here’s where a bit of strategy comes

in. The more you’re willing to pay for a click, the more likely you’ll get traffic. The

less you’re willing to pay, the more likely you’ll get less traffic. You are bidding

against your competitors for your keyword phrases, and other factors. Basically,

the highest Max. CPC generally gets the higher ranking in where your ad shows

in Google Search. But always be aware of your own optimal ROI.

The bottom line is: you need to know your budget limits. Base your ad spend on

the returns you need.

9. What’s my time frame?

How long are your ads going to run? The answer to this question may vary from

one of your campaigns to the next. But you need to plan this out before your

start your ads.

For example, you might be hosting a short term sweepstakes on your site(http://corp.wishpond.com/social-sweepstakes/). You need to get the word

out, so you promote it through AdWords. Your ad campaign should stop when

your sweepstakes ends.

You might be running a longer ad campaign for brand awareness, or ongoing

traffic to your site.

2/19/2016 10 Questions: How to Plan a Successful Google AdWords Campaign

http://blog.wishpond.com/post/78117946136/10­questions­how­to­plan­a­successful­google­adwords 9/14

Be sure to plan out your ad campaign duration, so that you’re not accidentally

paying for ads for eternity!

10. How am I going to measure my results?

With Google AdWords (http://blog.wishpond.com/post/77711920097/why-does-my-small-business-need-google-adwords), there’s almost a limitless

number of ways to track and measure your campaign metrics.

What you measure will depend largely on what you want out of your campaigns.

List out the metrics you need to watch such as:

Number of clicks to your contest landing page

Number of email leads

Number of sales

Value of sales

Return on Investment (ROI)

2/19/2016 10 Questions: How to Plan a Successful Google AdWords Campaign

http://blog.wishpond.com/post/78117946136/10­questions­how­to­plan­a­successful­google­adwords 10/14

Then set up your results tracking system before your campaign starts. You

might link up your Google AdWords account to your Google Analytics.

By measuring your results, you can test variations of your ad and optimize them

in real time. You also get to track (in detail) the most important business metric:

your bottom line.

Conclusion

Once you’ve gone through the questions, you’re ready to make a better Google

AdWords campaign. Draft out your ads. Make a few of them. Start small, and

test as you go.

Want to learn more about Google AdWords for your small business? Check out

these helpful articles:

Why Does My Small Business Need Google AdWords? [UltimateGuide] (http://blog.wishpond.com/post/77711920097/why-does-my-small-business-need-google-adwords)

2/19/2016 10 Questions: How to Plan a Successful Google AdWords Campaign

http://blog.wishpond.com/post/78117946136/10­questions­how­to­plan­a­successful­google­adwords 11/14

10 Google AdWords Mistakes You Need to Avoid: Beginners Guide(http://blog.wishpond.com/post/77184465467/10-google-adwords-mistakes-you-need-to-avoid-beginners)

Google AdWords: 25 Glossary Terms You Need to Know(http://blog.wishpond.com/post/77287406414/google-adwords-25-glossary-terms-you-need-to-know)

What do you think? Have you run a Google AdWords campaign? What were

your results? Share your tips, below.

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2/19/2016 10 Questions: How to Plan a Successful Google AdWords Campaign

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5 Comments Wishpond  Login1

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• Reply •

Nishant Munjal  •  11 hours agoIt's a wonderful article for every advertiser. Great help to everyone whostruggles while planning for a campaign. Thanks a lot :)

 △ ▽  

• Reply •

Janette Wilson  •  3 months agoVery comprehensive and useful observation. Really helpful to beginner tostart fist campaign.

 △ ▽  

• Reply •

patrick bickham  •  7 months ago

Great questions. Appreciate the list. △ ▽  

• Reply •

Oğuz Özen  •  a year agoHey Krista, that's a really great article. I have been working as a SearchEngine Executive and always asking this kind of question to myself andmy customers. It is great to see them organised here, I will use yourpoints from now on. Thanks!

 △ ▽  

Claire Grayston      •  a year agoAdmin > Oğuz Özen

Hi Oguz, so glad to hear you found this article helpful!

Google Adwords can sometimes come across as overwhelming tomarketers at first. But, with the right knowledge and planing, aneffective Adwords campaign can truly boost your business. If youwant some more information, check out our free ebookhttp://corp.wishpond.com/googl...

I would love to hear back from you about your success in thefuture!

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2/19/2016 10 Questions: How to Plan a Successful Google AdWords Campaign

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