Investing in Pay Per Click (PPC) platforms such as Google Advertising can work wonders for your business. It is one of the most effective ways to reach new customers and grow your business. But, before you get started with Google Advertising in South Africa, you will need to know what it will cost you, from beginning to end.Â
You need to look into the Google Advertising cost before making any decisions about your campaign. There are certain aspects to consider when you are calculating the cost of your Google Advertising, but these can be confusing to those who might not understand the world of digital marketing and what it encompasses. Below we look at what you will need to consider when calculating the costs of your Google Advertising campaign.Â
What Are Your Account Goals?
The very first step in calculating your Google advertising costs is to look at what your goals are. This will usually help you to ascertain how much you will need to spend on ay given campaign. For example, you might want to generate more leads with your campaign or you might want to build brand awareness for your business.Â
The manner in which you structure your account and the features that you use will be directly dependent on your response. For lead generation, you will likely use different tools to those you would use for brand awareness. You will make use of both the display and search network for lead generation advertisements, which means that you will pay each time somebody clicks on an advertisement on these networks.Â
Who Is Your Audience?
Once you have thought about the goals for your Google Advertising campaign, you will need to think about who your audience is. It is important to develop personas for your audience, and this can be done using data and information collected by Google Analytics and by looking at the performance of your various campaigns.Â
You will need to think about what your ideal customers do (careers and interests), where they live (geographical location data), what time they are searching, as well as what device they are using t search on. All of this data will help you to decide what keywords you should use and what advertising networks you should display your ads on, contributing to the total cost of your campaign.Â
Keep Keywords In Mind
One of the most important aspects of any Google Advertising campaign is your keyword selection. In order to have your ad shown on Google during a search that is relevant to your business, you will need to use relevant keywords. You can perform keyword research by using tools such as Google Keyword Planner to find keywords with a high search volume.Â
Once you have selected a few keywords including their volumes and cost-per-click data, you will be able to calculate your costs. Depending on your industry, you can take the average click-through-rate (CTR) and calculate how many clicks per month you will receive based on the keywords that you chose. You will be able to add up your monthly costs for each keyword to ascertain your monthly budget.Â
All About Ad Placement
Now that you have your keywords and audience set, it is time to think about where you would like to place your ads. Ad placement includes which network you choose to display your ad on, what device types you target, as well as any location targeting. These options will influence the cost of your clicks.Â
The network is the place in which your ads are eligible to show. There are different options to choose from, namely Google Search Network only or Google Search Network with search partners. The Google Network means that ads will display in Google searches, and the search partners option means that your advertisement will be displayed on partner platforms outside of Google. Choosing one or the other will have an impact on your overall costs.Â
Set Those Keyword Bids
Having decided on where you would like your ad to be shown, you will need to look at your keyword bids. Keyword bidding is the process of assigning bid amounts to specific keywords that will be used in an advertisement. When criteria are met, the bid amounts are reviewed and the highest bid is selected.Â
Ads are displayed according to the highest bid, so it is important that you have higher bids on keywords that are important to your campaign and business. How aggressively you bid will have a direct effect on where your ad is placed. For example, your advertisement will be shown at the top of the first page results if you have been bidding strategically. You will need to factor these bids into your budget.Â
If you are interested in leveraging the power of a Google Advertising campaign, contact NetMechanic today to find out how we can help you reach the first page of Google.Â
