In launching your product, is Google AdWords that useful or reliable?

Question

I've worked with different software companies and I can say that most of them use it, but is it that effective to hit your target audience and get them as actual conversions? Am not specialized in marketing after all.

Marketing people often say that there's different major types of marketing your brand, either by paid ads service or having to get influencers to back you up, the other is manual marketing through community and social media.

What do you prefer other than Google AdWords in this sense?

Saurabh Chauhan · Accepted Answer

We're working with multiple SaaS products and spending good amount of cash in advertisement. So, I think I'll be able to help you better way.

We're spending most of the Ads budget on Facebook & Google Ads. Here is how we setup things, and how I think where Google Adwords can be helpful, and where it can't be.

About Facebook, we never drive direct traffic for normal sales. We push traffic to our blog or offer page, and then try to convert them to client. So, for our product, we mostly use Facebook when we've some offer going on, or when we want to go for long funnel of collecting emails for future conversion.

About Google, we use it for direct sales. We simply target our keywords or competitors and convert it to sales. Here the funnel is too much shorter - they come to site, signup, pay - simple. So, here I can say conversion ratio per click is too much higher than Facebook. And that's why it's costly, when we compare it to other mediums. Costly with more chances of conversion. And Facebook is cheaper, but very poor conversion or long funnel to convert client, which results in lower conversion per click.

Hope you got my point about why to use Google Adwords and why to use Competitor - and specially when to use which one. :)

Jack Cooper · Answer

Google have infinitely simplified their Ads UX, so while I can’t comment on the effectiveness of a campaign without knowing more details about the product, messaging, and creative, I can say with certainty, that using the platform is one helluva lot easier than it used to be.

Answer

It’s no secret that Google AdWords is by far the largest PPC network out there. Not only is it used by large enterprises to drive traffic to their websites, but lots of local businesses use it as well. We as a compnay dont use it because our work is not very related to it. If you’ve never used PPC before, then you’re probably wondering “is Google AdWords worth it?”. To put it simply: YES IT IS. However, you probably need some more convincing than that right?

Jack Cooper · Answer

@rigogonzalez I think it all depends on your product or service and your creative strategy. What are you selling and what’s your messaging?

Breffni Potter · Answer

In TV and movies, you often see someone digging a big hole with a shovel in about 20 minutes, which happens to be next to a tree.

What others will tell you is that you need a pick-axe and many hours to make a hole that big by hand, the shovel is to lift the loose dirt out, the pick axe is for breaking it up.

Google AdWords is just a tool, much like the humble shovel, it cannot give you magic results.
You need to learn how to use it properly to get results.

Marketing is wide and broad. Ask 10 different chefs to cook a burger, they will each have variations and style changes. Some will season with X, others will cook it entirely differently.

Marketing, Cooking, Music, Product design, Sales, Leadership, they all have lots of tools and different ways of doing things.

Yes, AdWords can work.
Will it work? At least 50% of the time it won't - Normally down to the choices people make in how to use it. With bad advice, bad marketers or lying agencies who promise the moon and don't deliver results, all the way through to people just throwing money into the Google slot machine and hoping they hit a jack pot with no research or prep.

I'll be incredibly blunt.

If it looks expensive and too much money, don't bother, look at other channels and other means of promoting.

Avoid reading guides from 2008 or 2012 about hot new channels or methods, those hot methods are filled up with big and small brands all fighting for attention and space.

Rigo Gonzalez · Answer

@jack_cooper Since adwords basically focuses on the google search engine, what other google services would you pair it up with to effectively improve and see the outcome of your campaign (not mentioning GA of course)? As some starters wouldn't or couldn't spend that much for paid ads.

In launching your product, is Google AdWords that useful or reliable?

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