Some clients have a solid line of sight on how they measure the success of their Google Ads program.
They have one well-defined goal in mind and measure everything against that goal.
Most often, that one goal is to get more leads.
But that’s not always the case. Sometimes, the C-suite is squarely focused on leads, but the marketing team also wants to grow brand awareness and engagement. It’s common for different teams to have different goals.
In some cases, clients come to us with only one goal in mind (usually to grow leads). But when we review their account, we realize that this solitary goal ignores many of their business goals at different stages of the customer journey.
Why acquiring new leads shouldn’t be the only goal
Last year, we started working with a client in the biosciences space. They had developed a new approach to laboratory testing that eliminated the need to test on animals. This cutting-edge product had a potentially huge demand.
This client’s challenge was that they were relatively new to the industry. Implementing their solution required laboratories to incur some setup costs. However, laboratories could eventually recover those upfront costs through cost savings.
When we took over the account, the client had a long list of keyword-targeted campaigns, many of which hadn’t converted in over a year. Their lead form collected only a handful of leads per month, and some of those leads weren’t qualified.
My team and I weren’t surprised that performance was low. It’s a tall order to ask a potential new lead to fill out a contact form when they’re unfamiliar with the business or its products.
When we asked our clients if they were open to expanding their approach to include other goals, such as brand awareness and engagement as measured by webinar registrations and downloads, they said yes.
In fact, they were puzzled as to why the past agency was only reporting on lead forms, which was music to our ears.
Fortunately, this client had a goldmine of assets, such as explanatory videos, webinar recordings, and research papers, that we could use to support these new goals.
We used these assets in the campaigns we created to drive to the following goals:
Goal #1 – Awareness: Videos are the absolute best asset for driving brand awareness. They can showcase the power of your product or solution in a way that text or images simply cannot.
Goal #2 – Consideration and Engagement: Google’s Demand Gen campaigns are a great way to drive engagement metrics, especially when combined with lookalike segments. If you have your own customer lists, you can upload them to the platform, and Google will look for prospective customers who are similar to those on your list.
Goal #3 – Lead Gen: Branded campaigns and highly specific keyword targeting work best here, and they work even better when combined with audiences.
With this multi-pronged approach, this client’s Google Ads program is performing much better. We’ve even lowered the budget for the client’s lead gen non-branded keyword campaigns while leads continue to climb month over month.
Generating leads is only part of it
Your Google Ads program can support multiple goals and probably should!
You can take a holistic approach and ensure that campaigns aren’t just about driving leads but also supporting brand awareness, engagement, and long-term growth.
Because if your sole focus is acquiring leads, you’re overlooking everything else that Google Ads can do to support your goals across the sales funnel.