Google Ads has a reputation for being expensive and it is, and become even more so. But that does not mean you can't get a good return for your buck on Google Ads. The key is to test and test quickly.
This is one of Google Ads' main strengths - the ability to test the tool in a matter of 5-10 days to see if it is likely to deliver the return for you with minimal risk and outlay.
While you can test on Google Ads quickly, you'll need a quick low-cost way to build a test website or landing page at least.
Take our GoReusable.Org venture, which we launched in 2018. Before ordering a container of cups from China (around 18,000 cups), I wanted to make sure there was demand. I had researched the cups market and found that no one was selling 'branded bamboo reusable cups'.
I built a quick basic microsite on how to spend on Google Ads & set up Google ads. This took around 3 days. I let the campaign run for a few days keeping a reasonably close eye on it to check there were no technical issues.
The results were phenomenal. We were paying 20p a click, and one in every five clicks was generating a lead (so £1.20 a lead) and one in 5 leads generated a sale (£6 a sale). The average gross margin per sale was expected to be around £400. So, to get £400 gross profit we were looking at paying just £6. That's insane, as usually you'd expect to pay around £100 (10% of the sale value).
I went ahead and ordered a full container of cups and the rest is history. Over the period, Jan 2018 to Jan 2022, we paid £0.49p a lead, spent less than £5k, and this generated 750+ leads (£5.80 a lead). The amount of sales generated was just over £250k and with gross margins of 40% we made a gross profit of £100k. That was a remarkable return and campaign!
The salient points are that Google Ads can work, and work very well. But you should test quickly first before investing a lot of money to check if the demand for the product or service is there and the numbers stack up.
About YourTechnologyDirector
We've got years of experience working with web technologies, and are specifically geared towards helping small and medium-sized businesses grow and flourish.
We are that confident in the solutions, we've even put our money where our mouth is and built websites and web tools.
Testing Google Ads and building a quick test site is something we can help with. The 'Rapid Market Testing' service we offer draws on all our experience. It may be that the results come back that your concept won't fly, but at least you will find out before investing huge sums of money.