Have you thought about trying Google Ads for your business? Do you think your marketing budget is too small to compete with the big brands? Well good news, you can compete with the big brands!
Your business can compete on a low budget google ads campaign by implementing a few strategies to get your business clicks, calls, leads and ultimately… more customers!
To make competing with the big companies easy, we decided to put together The Step-By-Step Guide To Creating A Successful Low Budget Google Ads Campaign
1. Create A Google Ads Account
The first step to creating a Google Successful Google Ads Campaign is creating a Google Ads account.
You can do this by visiting https://www.google.com/gmail/ and selecting “Create An Account”.
Follow all the steps and fill out your information in order to set up your Gmail account.
Once your Gmail account has been created, you can create your Google Ads Account.
To create your Google Ads Account you will need visit: https://ads.google.com/home/ and click the blue button labeled “Start Now”
2. Create A Google Ads Campaign
After creating your Google Ads Account has been created, you will be directed to a new page.
Since we want to set up the campaign specifically for a low budget campaign, we will want to select “Experienced with Google Ads?”.
On the next page, select “Create an account without a campaign”.
You will be asked to confirm your business information, make sure the information is correct and select “Submit”.
Now that you have confirmed your business information, you will be taken to the Google Ads Overview page.
Select “Campaigns” on the left side of the page.
Then click on the blue circle with a white “+”.
Select “New Campaign”
There are several campaign options you can choose from, for this tutorial we will be using the “Search” campaign type.
The next page will ask for your campaign goals, select “Create a campaign without a goal”.
Now we have reached the general settings for our low budget Google Ads Campaign.
Uncheck the boxes and give your campaign a name (Do not worry you can always rename the campaign).
3. Set A Maximum Budget
In order to set or daily maximum budget, scroll down the page and find the “Budget and bidding” section, in this section click on the “Budget” tab.
This tab will allow you to set a max daily spend budget.
The daily budget is not exact due to every click and keyword not being of the same price. But, Google will try to say as close as possible to the budget.
To ensure that you stay within your budget, we recommend setting your daily budget 5%-10% less than your true limit.
4. Geotargeting
Scroll down the page until you find the “Locations” tab. This tab is located in the “Targeting and Audiences” Section.
Within this tab you will see several location options, select the option that says “Custom”. The custom location section will allow you to specifically target certain areas. This is very important for all low budget campaigns because we need to make the most out of all of our clicks from the campaign.
We suggest that you choose a couple key areas that your business get most of their business from. Do not be to broad we want to find buying customers.
For example, If you own a pizza shop in Tucson, AZ, you will want to target the zipcodes in your area that your pizza shop will deliver to.
5. Choose Bidding Type
In the same section as the budget and bidding, look for the tab that reads “Bidding”. Here, we are able to choose our desired bidding type for our campaign.
Click the sentence labeled “Or, Select bid strategy directly”.
A new set of options will appear, select “Maximize Clicks” in the dropdown menu labeled “Select your bid strategy”
6. Ad Scheduling
One of the most important parts of running an ad is making sure that you can make the most of each lead. In order to do so, you need to make sure that you are ready to make the sale on your end.
In order to do this, click on the dropdown labeled “Ad Schedule”. In that drop down you will be able to set your ad schedule.
We suggest that your ads only run during your business’ hours. If you sell products online, do some testing to see what works best for your customers.
For Example, if you own a home remodeling company, you need to make sure that you are ready to pick up the phone when a lead contacts you. That is why you should set your ad schedule during the times that you are able to answer the leads.
7. Use Ad Extensions
Ad extensions are a way of adding more useful information to your ads, such as; site links, business information or phone number.
We suggest that you add as many relative ad extensions as you can.
To do this, click on each of the selected tabs and fill out the information.
Since we have yet to write the ad copy, you may need to rewrite these ad extensions at a later time.
When finished, scroll to the very bottom of the page and save your settings.
8. Create A Ad Group
After selecting all of our campaign settings, we need to move on to the next step in optimizing our ad campaign, creating an ad group.
The first step in creating a Google Ad Group is naming your ad group. Ad groups are usually named for a specific product or services that you want to offer.
Now that you have named your ad group, you need to choose your keywords.
When doing so, select a couple good keywords to ensure that you get the most out of your low budget.
9. Do Keyword Research
Choosing keywords is a tricky task that takes time and tinkering. That is why we suggest that you do a little bit of keyword research before running your new ad group. We want to do this to ensure that you make the most out of your budget.
When doing this, there are thousands of different keyword research tools that you can use, but we suggest that you use the Google Ads Keyword Planner and Ubersuggest for your keyword research.
Google Ads Keyword Planner is a free tool that is built into Google Ads that allows users to search for keywords and find out information about the competition and Cost Per Click.
Ubersuggest is also a keyword research tool that is from the brilliant marketer Neil Patel. This tool like the Keyword Planner will give you keyword ideas and will show you the necessary information to make an informed decision on which keywords to use.
Because both of these tools are great, choose whichever you like more.
9a. What makes a good keyword?
A good keyword would be a phrase or word that has high search volume, low competition and a low average bid.
Because we are working with a small budget, we are going to be staying away from very broad keywords, this is due to the big companies dominating those keywords which will drive up the price and competition.
For Example, “custom women’s running shoes” is a better choice than “running shoes”.
9b. What are match types?
Keyword match types come in four different variations, Broad Match, Broad Match Modifier, Phrase Match, and Exact match. Each of these variations have different uses and can be used for different goals.
Broad Match
A broad match modifier is used on any keyword by simply entering a keyword into the Google Ads keyword section. This match type will show the ad in anywhere that has a misspelled version of the keyword, different variations of the keyword, or related searches.
This type of match is not the best choice for small budgets due to it being very broad. But this match type can be very useful for larger budgets and for finding undiscovered segments of your customers.
Broad Match Modifier
This match type allows the ad to be found for keywords that contain the keywords in your keyword phrase but in any order.
For Example, if your keyword is “women’s shoes”, you could be found from the search “shoes for women”.
Phrase Match
This match type is very straight forward, your keyword will show for that keyword and close variations.
For Example, if your keyword is “women’s shoes”, you could be found from the search “buy women’s shoes”.
Exact Match
Just as it sounds, an exact match keyword match type is when a user will find your ad for your exact keyword only that keyword.
For Example, if your keyword is “women’s shoes”, you could be found from the search “women’s shoes”.
The best type of keyword match for a low budget campaign will be exact match and phrase match.
This is because we want to be in front of our specific customer segment and we do not want to show up for keywords that are not relevant to us.
10. Write A Great Ad
Now that you have your campaign all set up to launch, you need to do the most important part of this process, write a great ad.
This is not an easy task and it doesn’t always come on the first try, that is why you are going to need to do some testing.
We suggest that you spend your first month testing your ads to find out what works your business. This is because all types of customers are different and are engage with different ad copy.
Once you have found the Ads that preform the best, invest more money in those ads and remove the lower preforming ads.
11. Use Negative Keywords
After a few weeks of running your ads, you will notice that your ads are showing up in searches that are not related to you, that is why you add negative keywords to make your ads more targeted.
Negative Keywords are an easy way to stop your ads from being shown for on irrelevant search terms.
You can do this by going into “Keywords” and selecting “Negative Keywords” at the top of the window.
Add all keywords that you do not want your ad to be shown for in this section.
This simple tip will allow you to save money each month because you will not be wasting money on irrelevant clicks.
12. Create A Great Landing Page
Whether you like it or not, landing pages are a game changer when it comes to making your low budget campaign work.
If you are still running all of your ads to your websites homepage, STOP DOING THIS!
You are wasting tons of money!
This is because people are clicking your ads for a product or service and are getting set to a general website which usually doesn’t specifically show the user what they are looking for.
That doesn’t make sense, right!
That is why you need to create a landing page for each specific service that you are running ads for.
These pages should be mobile friendly, responsive and fast. People are impatient, so make it as easy for them as possible.
Your landing pages should also have specific information about what you are selling or promoting with your ads.
This will give the users the information that they are looking for by clicking your ad, which will in turn clicks into leads or sales.
Lastly, you need to have a way for these potential customers to convert. Whether that be a click to call phone number on the site, contact form or a product page.