The first question I usually ask when I meet with a client to discuss Google Ads is, “What are you looking to achieve from Google Ads?” “I want the phone to ring” is a typical response. When a business owner says they want to “get the phone to ring,” I translate that to saying they want to generate leads, more specifically, quality leads. That is what Google Ads is meant to do. 

I find that some business owners treat Google Ads like the roulette wheel at a casino. They’ll throw some money at it to see if they get lucky and win. Once they start losing, they pull their money and leave, or worse, they spend dollar after dollar to try to win their money back with no strategy on how to do it. In both cases, they didn’t decide on what they were looking to achieve and what they were willing to spend to get there. 

Before you get started with Google Ads, you need to set some goals and expectations. It makes defining what a successful campaign looks like easier. Here are some things to consider before you get started with Google Ads.

• How much time do you have to start seeing results? 
• How many leads are you looking for each month?
• How much do you want to spend on acquiring a lead?
• What does a successful campaign look like?

How Much Time Do You Have to Start Seeing Results?

The reason I bring this up first is because getting a campaign to start producing may take some time. I usually recommend a three-month commitment to start. The first month is learning, the second month is tweaking, and the third month is producing. 

The expectation is that the ads will launch and the leads will start coming in. That may be the case, but more often than not, it takes a little bit more time to tweak the campaign. This is particularly true if this is the first time you are running ads for a service. There are always stray searches that end up getting clicks. I’ll give you an example.

I started a campaign for a dumpster rental company, and we were getting a bunch of impressions but not that many clicks. I looked into the search terms that we were appearing for, and as it turned out, many of the impressions were for Australian dumpster diving. Our keywords were set for what you expected: dumpster rentals, roll-off dumpsters, and the like, but somehow, we started appearing for Australian dumpster diving. I don’t know what Australian dumpster diving is (no, I didn’t look it up), and I have no idea why our ads were showing up for that, but after some tweaks, I was able to eliminate that search term and save money on useless clicks. 

My point is that it is hard to predict human behavior. There are a ton of variables when it comes down to search. Sometimes, you get it right or at least close, and other times, it takes a bit longer to get the momentum going. You must approach Google Ads with patience as it uses artificial intelligence to predict where your ads should appear. I find that, at times, artificial intelligence is very artificial and not very intelligent. However, you need to consider Google Ads as a long-term investment. 

Also, Google Ads is not a lifeboat for a sinking ship. As I explained, it takes planning, capital, and patience to achieve the results you are looking for with a campaign. Pulling the plug after one or two months is counterproductive, and you may as well save your money if you don’t have the stomach for it. However, once it gets rolling, it can start to pay for itself. Which leads to the next question. 

How Many Leads Are You Looking for Each Month?

This number can vary from business to business. Some might be looking for one or two per month, and some may be looking for fifty. Determining how many leads you are looking for each month is really based on who and where you are targeting. Let’s do a little math here as an example.

Let’s say your business is based in New Jersey. (Why, New Jersey? Because I live here. You gotta problem with that?!) The largest county in New Jersey is Bergen County, which has, at last count, 952,979 people, not houses, people. The average household size is 2.68 people (not sure how you get .68 of a person, so I will round up to three). If you divide 952,979 by three, you get 317,670 households. Let’s say 2% of those are looking for your type of work at any given moment in time; that comes out to 6,353 houses that you and your competitors will share. That is not per year; that is the entire market for Bergen County. 

In this example, let’s say that you start running ads just in Bergen County. Typically, there are two or three ads at the top of the page. The average click-through rate is around 6%. That means that six percent of the people who see your ad when they do a search will click on it. Six percent of 6,353 (the number of households that are searching for your business) is 318. This means that 318 visited your website, and about 5% of that traffic converts to leads, which leaves you a grand total of 20. If you close 30% of your leads, that number is 6. That is six new customers out of 317,670 households.  

To be fair, this is a simple example of a single campaign for one service. Households come in and out of the market, and you wouldn’t limit your campaign to one county. The point of this exercise is to start setting expectations for the campaign’s success.

How Much Do You Want to Spend on Acquiring a Lead?

We have to do some more math here. (I know you hate math, but stay with me.) The next thing to figure out is how much your cost per acquisition (CPA) or lead needs to be. 

For example, if you have a $10,000 project, there are costs involved with that service. It may include materials, employees, overhead like rent, marketing services, and, of course, everyone’s favorite, profit. For a $10,000 service, the amount you might be willing to spend per lead may be around $200 to $300. That is the number you will spend for them to “get the phone to ring” or fill out a lead form on your website. 

The other thing to consider is your lead closing rate. Do you close 10%, 30%, or 60%? That will also come into play because if you get 3 or 4 leads per month from Google Ads, is closing 1 or 2 monthly enough to make it worthwhile?

Not to belabor on the point, but if you are convinced to start a Google Ads campaign, looking at the numbers before you start will make the highs and lows of running a campaign easier to manage. Ultimately, you must decide what a successful ad campaign looks like.

What Does Success Look Like?

I can tell you from experience that there are plenty of learning experiences that lie along the road to success. You will need a bit of patience because, in the industry, we call success on the first try a miracle. (Thank you to Frank Kern for giving me that line.) Sometimes, there are things like competitors coming into the market, economic downturns, seasons, and various other instances that are out of your control that will affect your campaign. Google Ad campaigns are far from set-it-and-forget-it vehicles. So, what does success look like, and how do you determine it?

When I talk with my clients, I focus on the cost per lead or acquisition. Why? Because that number will be the same if you spend $10 per day or $100 per day. For example, if you spend $10 per day at $2.50 per click, that is four clicks per day. Once your ad is clicked on four times, you’re done for the day. If we use the numbers above, that is 0.2 leads per day. Most likely, at that pace, you get about one or two leads per week and about six to ten per month. If you close at 30%, that is three monthly jobs from ads at $10 per day. If you divide three jobs into $300 (the total for the month), it comes out to $100 per lead. If you can spend up to $200 to acquire a new job, you’re ahead of the game, and you could say the campaign is successful. However, if your cost per lead needs to be less than $100, you’re losing money on the campaign even though you generate leads. 

I am not trying to discourage you from starting a Google Ads campaign; I am pointing out the need to set your expectations at a reasonable level and know what the reality of the numbers will be. I go through this exercise with every client that starts a campaign. It sets expectations, generates buy-in, and avoids awkward meetings when they see they are spending $100 per lead.