A Google Ads Lead-Gen Project

[Andy Black]

A Quick Review of Week 1 Metrics

I reckon the biggest benefit of Google Ads is the data you can buy on a whiff of spend.

This new project is running with a $20/day budget to buy data a bit quicker than with a $10/day budget.

We've generated leads which I consider icing on the cake when in the data gathering stage.

The metrics look promising for this project so far, and I explain why in this video:

View: https://youtu.be/svxkKfn0Z5k

 

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[Genius01]

Good one Andy Black. Learnt a number of things I didn't know. Thanks.

 

[Andy Black]

Good one Andy Black. Learnt a number of things I didn't know. Thanks.

Now you have me curious. What are your takeaways?

 

[alexkuzmov]

Thought I'd do a short video. Hope it helps.

View: https://youtu.be/svxkKfn0Z5k

Most of it I couldnt understand.
I mean I could, but I'm not sure what it means since I've no experience with running ads.
What is the coversion rate?
Is it a product sale? A service subscription? An email collected? Or something else?

 

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[Andy Black]

Most of it I couldnt understand.
I mean I could, but I'm not sure what it means since I've no experience with running ads.
What is the coversion rate?
Is it a product sale? A service subscription? An email collected? Or something else?

Thanks for replying @alexkuzmov, in particular I really appreciate you saying you couldn't understand most of it. (Many wouldn’t say and I’d never know it was going over their heads.)

A conversion is whatever we define it to be. It could be someone just visiting a specific page on a website, someone ringing a phone number on the website, someone purchasing something from the website, someone signing up, etc.

In this case a conversion is a lead - where the visitor has filled in a short survey and added their contact details requesting a quote.

Does this video help you understand the metrics better:

• Online Direct Response Metrics

Let me know. I'm happy to create more videos to elaborate or answer specific questions.

 

[alexkuzmov]

Thanks for replying @alexkuzmov, in particular I really appreciate you saying you couldn't understand most of it.

A conversion is whatever we define it to be. It could be someone just visiting a specific page on a website, someone ringing a phone number on the website, someone purchasing something from the website, someone signing up, etc.

In this case a conversion is a lead - where the visitor has filled in a short survey and added their contact details requesting a quote.

Does this video help you understand the metrics better:

• Online Direct Response Metrics

Let me know. I'm happy to create more videos to elaborate or answer specific questions.

I think I get what the conversion rate is now.
So basically its an abstract metric depending on what I consider a conversion to be.

What does a high/low conversion rate tell us though?
In the video you said that we can be getting quote requests, but the customers might be buying from someone else?
Can we end up in a situation with high CPC, high conversion rate, but low or no profits?

 

[Andy Black]

I think I get what the conversion rate is now.
So basically its an abstract metric depending on what I consider a conversion to be.

Conversion rate is:

• conversions / clicks

We define what a conversion is.

What does a high/low conversion rate tell us though?

It just tells us that more or less visitors are taking the action we'd like them to take.

There can be many reasons why it's higher or low:

1. We could be sending the wrong people to the offer.
2. The offer might not be competitive/attractive compared to other offers.
3. The offer might be confusing.
4. The user experience might be poor so people can't even see your call-to-action (CTA).
5. Your web page might be broke or loading slowly.
6. etc.

In the video you said that we can be getting quote requests, but the customers might be buying from someone else?

Yes. Visitors could get quotes but not purchase. We could generate a lot of quotes or phone calls for a business and the business might be mad at us if they're all poor quality enquiries and their sales staff are busy dealing with all those tire-kickers instead of a few really good quality leads.

Can we end up in a situation with high CPC, high conversion rate, but low or no profits?

Yep. Our return-on-ad-spend (ROAS) depends on our cost-per-click (CPC) being lower than our earning-per-click (EPC). We can get "upside down" and have the CPC higher than our EPC. Even if our CPC is lower than our EPC the campaign could be unprofitable to the business because they have other costs not just the advertising costs.

 

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[Andy Black]

A More In-Depth Review of Week 1

View: https://youtu.be/s8qLKMzmP5U

 

[JustWalkinAround]

Hi Andy, thanks for the vids.

In the first one it showed <10% exact matches and you said you’re currently using broad match modified.

Is the strategy to start wide and capture lots of search terms and then group similar ones into an ad group and serve specific ads/copy?

What’s your general % budget allocated to discovering these new search terms and how often do you like to review this data?

Thanks

 

[Andy Black]

Is the strategy to start wide and capture lots of search terms and then group similar ones into an ad group and serve specific ads/copy?

We start narrow and long tail and get wider if we can't get volume.
Our default setup is one *actual* keyword per ad group (not SKAGs which are three keywords per ad group).

What’s your general % budget allocated to discovering these new search terms

We normally suggest a $300 budget for these tests and we'd try to spread it out over two weeks or a month (so $10/day or $20/day).

In this case we decided to start with a $20/day test for a couple of weeks and see how it went. It's not usual to be generating so many leads straight away, so that's a good sign for this particular project. The feedback so far is that the lead quality is decent. We need that feedback to dial things in. We don't necessarily want to increase the number of leads if they're not good enough.

how often do you like to review this data?

This is a new project so I can't help but check the data every morning, partly out of curiosity, and partly because I'm tweaking things each day and want to see if the change had the desired effect.

Things usually get to the point where we "fail fast" (give the project a bullet), or the campaigns need less tweaking. In which case we're gathering data over a longer time period from which we can make better decisions.

I've an account that has been running for over 10 years and where we only log in every Monday to update the Weekly Trading sheet. Here's an example of a Weekly Trading Sheet:

• Creating a Simple Dashboard Using Google Sheets

Here's more threads describing our process:

• How to get profitable or fail fast with AdWords
• The Need For Speed

 

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[Kid]

Well explained Andy (I know basics of ad stats so i could follow).

Maybe you could add to name your video "intermediate level".
Or even make two versions of videos "basic" and "intermediate", where in basic there would be inline explanations of words like conversion etc., and intermediate would go straight to content of video.

Basic would be longer of course.

This way you would get two videos out of one topic.
Just a food for thought.

 

[Andy Black]

Well explained Andy (I know basics of ad stats so i could follow).

Maybe you could add to name your video "intermediate level".
Or even make two versions of videos "basic" and "intermediate", where in basic there would be inline explanations of words like conversion etc., and intermediate would go straight to content of video.

Basic would be longer of course.

This way you would get two videos out of one topic.
Just a food for thought.

Thanks @Kid.

For the two videos added so far I'm reviewing a real life project that's underway. The videos were originally intended for my own team so they can follow what's happening in the project, and to improve their Google Ads knowledge and understanding of our processes.

Given the current climate for small and medium businesses I figured I'd also drop the videos into TFLF and my course to help people optimising their own campaigns.

If people have questions then ask away. I may record additional videos to explain further, or more likely I'll link to other articles and videos already in TFLF in this list:

• Andy's AdWords Posts

 

[Kid]

Given the current climate for small and medium businesses I figured I'd also drop the videos into TFLF and my course to help people optimising their own campaigns.

Optimization might help people go from "It doesn't work" to "There's a profit", so thank you for posting those.
If more people would look into it they would get better experience with online advertising overall.

 

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[Andy Black]

Optimization might help people go from "It doesn't work" to "There's a profit", so thank you for posting those.
If more people would look into it they would get better experience with online advertising overall.

Yep, and it’s more than just optimisation. It’s also a way of finding out quickly and cheaply if an idea has legs or not.

 

[alexkuzmov]

Yep, and it’s more than just optimisation. It’s also a way of finding out quickly and cheaply if an idea has legs or not.

Lets say that I want to produce and sell cosmetic items.
Lip balm, body lotion, anti aging cream etc.
Lets say that I have both the means and the knowledge to do it (I do but thats a topic for another time)

Here is what I`m imagining this ad aproach looks like:

1. I create a landing page with information about the products.
2. Optimize the SEO.
3. Run ads for cosmetics (I know how to do it but no idea how to advertise, yet!)
4. Gather info from the ad campaign and analyze.

In this case, what would I convert?
If I`m just testing the waters for my idea, what kind of response would I be looking for?
This is where I cant wrap my head around advertising.
If I show something to people, I dont yet understand how to interpret their response.

 

[Andy Black]

Lets say that I want to produce and sell cosmetic items.
Lip balm, body lotion, anti aging cream etc.
Lets say that I have both the means and the knowledge to do it (I do but thats a topic for another time)

Here is what I`m imagining this ad aproach looks like:

1. I create a landing page with information about the products.
2. Optimize the SEO.
3. Run ads for cosmetics (I know how to do it but no idea how to advertise, yet!)
4. Gather info from the ad campaign and analyze.

In this case, what would I convert?
If I`m just testing the waters for my idea, what kind of response would I be looking for?
This is where I cant wrap my head around advertising.
If I show something to people, I dont yet understand how to interpret their response.

1) Do keyword research.

What are people looking for that indicates they want to buy? What indicates they’re looking for information? The Google Keyword Planner is good enough for this.


2) Do competitor research.

Do the searches yourself and study the ads and landing pages. How well do they give you want you’re searching for? What are they doing well? What could you do better? (Ads, landing pages, and offers.)

Looks promising? Goto 3)


3) Consider running ads to get some real data not just the data from the Google Keyword Planner.

You don’t need to optimise anything for SEO. Heck, you don’t even need a website.

Maybe run ads to listings on Amazon, eBay, Groupon, or someone else’s website.

Count impressions.

Look at the metrics from my first video.

Don’t incur much ad spend.

Looks promising? Goto 4.


4) Start focusing on clicks.

Ideally to some website property you own and can track activity. How much are you paying per click? How many clicks are you getting a day or for your limited data-buying budget?

Still looks promising? Goto 5)


5) See if you can get conversions, or “pseudo-conversions”.

Maybe people can fill in a contact form to have a free consultation to find out what product suits them best?

Maybe you have a buy-now button that sends people to a another page where you link to where they can buy the product online? (Beware of being a “bridge page”, but this could be doable.). Consider people getting to the second page as a conversion?

Getting people “converting”? Goto 6)


6) Consider selling the product from your page now.



More details here:

• How to get profitable or fail fast with AdWords

 

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[Andy Black]

We've paused the campaigns for this particular project while we find a buyer who's still buying leads while this Coronavirus is impacting things.

Here's me reviewing the daily stats after dropping the bids from $2.00 to $1.50:

View: https://youtu.be/2Fee812pySg

 

[johnp]

Hey Andy! Thanks for sharing. I'm reading through this a bit. Very interesting!

I have a few of questions.

1) Are you selling leads exclusively on a pay per laid basis? Or, are you sharing leads with 2-3 buyers?

2) If you get a buyer, how would you deal with billing? If you're doing pay-per-lead then do you bill each time you send them the lead? Or something like at the end of the week?

3) Do you let them see the leads first, but with contact details hidden? Or, do they pay for the leads regardless?

The reason why I ask is becuase I just built a lead gen site in the pest control industry. I really did it to create a case study/example for my lead form tool, but I figured that I might as well drive some leads to it and see if I can get a buyer.

 

[Andy Black]

Hey Andy! Thanks for sharing. I'm reading through this a bit. Very interesting!

I have a few of questions.

1) Are you selling leads exclusively on a pay per laid basis? Or, are you sharing leads with 2-3 buyers?

2) If you get a buyer, how would you deal with billing? If you're doing pay-per-lead then do you bill each time you send them the lead? Or something like at the end of the week?

3) Do you let them see the leads first, but with contact details hidden? Or, do they pay for the leads regardless?

The reason why I ask is becuase I just built a lead gen site in the pest control industry. I really did it to create a case study/example for my lead form tool, but I figured that I might as well drive some leads to it and see if I can get a buyer.

I’ll come back and answer these great questions. (Remind me if I haven’t!)

Funny you mention pest control, I signed up to a pay-per-call network as an affiliate and got approved for their pest control campaigns but never got round to creating a lead gen site and the campaigns. It’s on my parked to-do list.

 

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[manth0ny]

I’ll come back and answer these great questions. (Remind me if I haven’t!)

Funny you mention pest control, I signed up to a pay-per-call network as an affiliate and got approved for their pest control campaigns but never got round to creating a lead gen site and the campaigns. It’s on my parked to-do list.

Is there an ebook, book, course etc you could recommend for someone that is at a very basic level of lead generation comprehension and wants to learn more about the whats, whys, hows and where etc?

 

[Andy Black]

Is there an ebook, book, course etc you could recommend for someone that is at a very basic level of lead generation comprehension and wants to learn more about the whats, whys, hows and where etc?

Check out my signature, in particular this one:
> HOT TOPIC - Lead Gen for Local Service Businesses

 

[manth0ny]

Check out my signature, in particular this one:
> HOT TOPIC - Lead Gen for Local Service Businesses

Thanks! Looks like a sensible place to start...much appreciated.

 

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[johnp]

I’ll come back and answer these great questions. (Remind me if I haven’t!)

Funny you mention pest control, I signed up to a pay-per-call network as an affiliate and got approved for their pest control campaigns but never got round to creating a lead gen site and the campaigns. It’s on my parked to-do list.

Awesome thanks! I tried this model a few years ago but got stuck at the whole finding a lead buyer thing. Then got distracted by something and forgot.

Was that with leadsmart? I came across them the other day. Might be worth checking out if you haven't. They are the same sort of setup. I think they you can sign up as an affiliate and they'll buy your leads until you find a buyer.

Yeah not sure why I went with pest control... it was really just because I wanted challenge myself to learn a bit about local SEO in my free time. Then I realized that I could just drive PPC traffic and probably sell the leads to someone now.

I position the whole thing as Industry + City name. So, like PestControl(cityname).com.. So buying a long tail highly target keyword in a pretty big region, then building a lead gen site around it using my product. And the site is more positioned as a homeadvisor type of setup where I'm not claiming to be the contractor, instead I'm saying that I'll connect you with the best pro. So I figure, once I start approaching buyers it's probably better to approach them as pestcontrol(cityname).com than leadboost marketing. But who knows. I'm just winging it for fun

 

[Andy Black]

That original lead-gen project is on hold due to not being able to find lead buyers in the current market.

A new one started this month though.

Here's the stats up to today (04-Sep, 2020) so far:

• Conversion tracking isn't implemented yet, but I believe there were 3 enquiries yesterday and 2 today so far.
• The budget is $15/day so we're constrained by budget. I've dropped bids from $5.00 to $4.00 yesterday, and just dropped them from $4.00 to $3.00 now.