Don’t Waste your Money on Google AdWords for Online Lead Generation – True or False?

Photo Credit: svilen001

The guy on the end of the phone rang.
He tried to sell me SEO.
And told me not to waste my money on Google AdWords.
True or False?

 

There’s no doubt that Pay Per Click advertising such as Google AdWords is loved by some online marketers and hated by others. Some people in the industry will tell you that only SEO and content marketing should be used, while others view PPC as the greatest thing since sliced bread. But what’s the reality for online lead generation?

It’s true that you can lose a lot of money running a Google AdWords campaign if you don’t know what you are doing. A poorly managed AdWords campaign can waste money in a number of ways, such as paying too much for each click, bidding on the wrong keywords, attracting the wrong type of visitors, or having landing pages that don’t convert visitors into sales.

AdWords for Lead Generation – Bring in Leads Fast

On the other hand, an effective Google AdWords campaign can be very profitable. With a bit of planning, proper research, and a well set up campaign with ongoing management, you can find and convert leads into customers at prices that will give you a very good return on investment.

Use AdWords to Intelligently Build a SEO Campaign

AdWords can also be used to provide the foundation for a SEO campaign. The results from your initial AdWords campaign should be analysed to determine what search terms have the best potential to be useful for your SEO campaign. AdWords and SEO go hand in hand and can work effectively together to provide the best overall marketing results.

Another common question that business owners often ask is:

“If I am already ranking in Google for some of my search terms, then why should I spend money on AdWords as well?”

Keep in mind that although your site may rank high in organic Google search results, those companies that use Google AdWords to bid on your search terms will appear above your site in the top three positions on the page, since this is the main advertising block used by Google. So despite you having the best SEO campaign, a competitor can still have their site appear above yours in the search results just by using AdWords and bidding on your keywords.

Also remember that while getting to the top of the Google organic search results can be a long and difficult process with no guarantee of success, with AdWords it is much easier to have your ads show at the top of the search results page, and the process of how it all works is much easier to understand and adjust as desired.

Kick Start the Leads for Your Business

Running an AdWords campaign can also provide a kick start for your business’ lead generation, giving the company a steady stream of targeted leads during the early days, while the mid to long term SEO campaign is rolled out.  If you are a new business that needs targeted leads now, there’s no better way to achieve that than via AdWords.

Achieve a ROI from your Online Marketing Spend

The end goals for AdWords and SEO should be the same – get an optimal return on investment. Both are strategies that if well implemented will provide the business owner with a profitable return on investment (ROI) from their online marketing spend. Just as in other forms of advertising, the long term strategy for PPC advertising is to find the sweet spot where your return on investment is maximised, and then continue to look for ways to improve this return by adjusting your AdWords campaign.