Google Ads Is Not for Small Businesses Anymore
It can be incredibly difficult for small businesses to know what they can do in order to stand out amongst the crowd and have a chance against larger organisations. One of the most effective ways for businesses to make money is to grow their online presence, but what is the best way to do this? It may well surprise you to learn that if you are a small business, one of the most popular options, Google Ads, might not be the answer you were hoping for.
It seems that a lot of people are starting to see Google Ads have less and less of a positive impact every month. It is becoming harder and harder for smaller businesses to see any kind of effective return on investment coming back from the money that they spend on Google Ads.
Why Isn’t Google Ads as Effective as It Used to Be?
Google has been changing the game of advertising slowly but surely over the past couple of years and a lot of these changes have come in the name of privacy. Other changes have come in the name of trying to make the platform a lot easier to manage for marketers who are a bit less experienced. However, the fact of the matter is, where the forefront of these changes can be positive, the be all and end all is, like every business, Google has profit on its mind.
Sure, this may seem like a cynical ideology but it’s very clear when you look into it. A lot of online marketers enjoy using Google Ads because they are charged per click. Now though, it can be difficult to know what the actual price of a click is, moreover, it’s hard to understand the true factors that play a part in pricing up that click.
Advertisers simply don’t have as much control over their budget and how much they spend on Google Ads thanks to Google’s previous attempts to try and move its customers into automated bidding structures. With this lack of control over the cost per click, smaller and more local advertisers are forced to compete with some of the big-budget national brands. This, in turn, results in them being charged an unfair amount, purely because the algorithm imposed by Google Ads thinks that a click might result from the ad placement.
Does Google Think It’s Smarter Than Humans?
The fact of the matter is that Google has made it harder for smaller businesses to manage and optimise their paid search spend. It increasingly depends on advertisers to try and rely on Google as a means of optimising their accounts. Advertisers were previously given data and were then able to make their own decisions on how they would like to optimise their accounts, but this is no longer the case.
Instead, ads are now a lot more like robot marketing to consumers, as they are looking for patterns amidst data points and trying to work out an audience’s psyche based on as much. This seems almost ironic given Google is providing advice to marketers when creating SEO content. They would be better off thinking of humans rather than search engines, but they don’t seem to do the same thing in their paid searches.
Google Needs to Consume Data and Needs Money to Do It
The way that Google can serve ads in the most effective style is by absolutely gorging itself on data. Once this has been done enough, the results for your ad (and subsequently for your business) can be spectacular. That being said, in order for this to happen, a business will need to be spending over £2000 on ads a month, which is an expense a lot of new businesses simply can’t afford.
In theory, if a smaller business spends less on their advertising, they should still see some positive impacts. That being said, thanks to constantly changing user behaviour, shifting budgets and a lot of changes that Google makes themselves, small advertisers who are spending less are much more likely to give up on the process before they actually begin to see these results.
If you have just started your own small business, you know that having the money to spare on months of ads to see results is harder to come by than it is for larger organisations. It also seems that if you are a smaller business that chooses to “take a break” you also stop seeing any kind of progress.
How Much Should You Spend on Google Ads?
It’s always really difficult knowing exactly how much you should be spending on Google Ads. This is why a lot of businesses opt for the assistance of digital marketing agencies rather than going at it alone, as they rely on that experience; however, even then it can be difficult knowing exactly how much you can afford to commit to your Google Ads.
The fact of the matter is in order to see results and make money from Google Ads, you will need to spend a lot more than many small businesses have readily available. Google Ads can be a very effective means of getting the name of your business out there; however, due to the cost of getting results, if you’re a small business you might want to look elsewhere.
Do You Know How to Market Yourself?
A lot of the time it can be difficult to know exactly how you want to market yourself in order to convey the quality of your company, and show people why they should engage with your services. This is why a number of businesses decide to enlist the help of experts. They will be able to view your business, what you have to offer and the money you can spend on advertising, and utilise it all in the most effective way possible.
YouYaa are a Global Performance Marketing Agency who have worked with a plethora of different organisations to help them brand themselves and grow as a result. If you would like to learn more about how to market your business and improve your sales, don’t hesitate to get in touch.
