In home ownership, you always run into situations or small problems, that may be a simple fix but you are too scared to do it yourself.
For many homeowners, this is electrical work.
Having an old house, I had a lot of electrical work to take care of.
Although the thought of paying an electrician scared me more than electrocuting myself.
So instead of opening up the pocketbook, I removed outlet plates, switched off the circuit breakers, cracked open a beer, and got my hands dirty.
Yes, I may have shocked myself once or twice, but to this day all my outlets and lights work better than ever before!
The point I am making is that on the surface some projects look like they need a professional.
Although undoubtedly an electrician will do a slightly better job, make fewer sparks (but they are pretty), and doesn’t drink beer while on the job, their improvement to the project is incremental and not worth the cost for simple projects.
The same goes for businesses that are looking to grow through Search Engine Marketing or specifically Ads.
I will tell you why you should take on this project internally, and how to plug this marketing channel into your toolkit.
Why Small Businesses Should Not Outsource Search Engine Marketing
1. The ease of implementation
If you talk to any consultant in SEM, they will tell you how complex Adwords is.
The truth is, it is in their best interest to tell you how tough and tedious it is to make sure that you do not try to implement it yourself, and instead pay them.
But is this really the truth?
What if everything you knew about Adwords is wrong? And Adwords was actually quite a simple channel to learn?
If you took the red pill keep reading – If you took the blue pill, keep reading too but I am disappointed.
Let’s leave this consulting world and look at this scenario from Google’s point of view.
It is in Google’s best interest to make SEM as easy as possible, because the more people use it, the more money they make. Also, the more conversions you get, the more you will spend your budget on it.
To make this dream a reality for Google and their shareholders, they structured their Search with a simple user interface and streamlined the campaign creation process.
Just to help you get started – I included a little crash course at the end of this blog.
2. Who knows your customers best?
In the past whenever I have hired an agency, it always kicks off with a “getting to know your company”
These meetings are usually super creative and fun, but it makes something very evident.
Rarely does an agency or consultant have an in-depth knowledge of your customers, prospects, or buying behaviors.
Just recently, I trained marketing personnel on how to run an effective SEM campaign. The first time looking into their campaign was shocking.
I knew what was wrong structurally, but because I did not have knowledge about their business I was unable to create appropriate ad groups, figure out which search terms were negative, or which terms should be added.
The people that know this information best are the people in your company.
Your sales and marketing teams deal with customers every day and are the most qualified to create an outstanding campaign.
3. Who knows your business best – Promotions, new products, etc
At work, how often do things change? If you say never… I am so sorry, that sounds incredibly boring.
If you said all the time, then let me hit you with a little scenario.
You are an electrical wholesaler (sticking with the electrical vibe) and you sell a wide variety of parts. Each part you sell is being actively bid for through Google Search.
Sadly, your inventory manager, Larry, messes up and there are a couple of parts that go out of stock.
While you are yelling at Larry:
“YOU HAD ONE JOB!”
You are still paying for clicks to these product pages that say out of stock, wasting your marketing budget and giving potential customers a bad user experience.
How do you fix this?
When you keep the program in-house you have more control for quick changes to turn campaigns off, or to quickly adjust campaigns to meet the needs of temporary promotions.
4. How do you know if it is working efficiently?
Typically, when companies decide to outsource their SEM they say they know it is working because it brings in leads or revenue.
But if you yourself don’t know how to correctly use Adwords, how do you know if their campaigns are structured appropriately? And since you are not running an AB test, how do you know you are not capable of performing better internally?
If you work for a digital agency or are a consultant in the area, my apologies.
I have had multiple occasions where I had to inspect or fix a consultant’s work in Google Search.
On every occasion, I have been stunned to see the absolute slop that went into structuring their campaigns and maintaining their keywords.
I am not implying that all SEM consultants lack the training or the ambition to produce great work.
But I am saying, how can you hold them to great work if you have nothing to compare it to nor have an idea what good campaigns should look like.
Therefore, even if you wish to outsource, please review the actionable items below, because of course:
Actionable Google Ads Takeaway & Strategy
I created a nice short presentation to get you started!
https://www.slideshare.net/MatthewOsborn13/google-ads-for-beginners
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