Setting an appropriate Google AdWords budget for a small business can seem daunting, especially if you are just starting out and don’t have a lot of spare cash to play with.
When you don’t have the budget of a large enterprise, every dollar you spend on advertising matters.
Here’s how you can set a realistic yet effective Google AdWords budget for your small business!
Why Do Small Businesses Need Google AdWords?
Driving traffic and leads to a new website, or a website without a lot of traffic-generating content, can be a challenging task.
That’s why many small businesses choose to use advertising to attract new customers to their business.
If you know how to use the right keywords and write good ad copy, Google AdWords can be a fairly cost-effective way to get started with advertising.
It can help you reach your customers when they are most likely to buy from you–because they are already searching for something related to your products and services.
If your business depends on local customers, Google AdWords allows you to reach them more reliably than other advertising platforms.
You can also target highly specific search terms and get into the nitty-gritty details of target audience optimization.
In addition to that, Google Adwords gives you the option to follow your potential customer with ad retargeting, increasing the chances of them making a purchase.
Finally, this platform is excellent for measuring your results. With Google AdWords, you will always know where you stand in terms of your return on investment.
However, advertising will always require you to keep spending money in order to keep seeing results.
Keep that in mind as you set your Google AdWords budget (and consider investing in more long-term strategies like content marketing going forward).
5 Tips to Set a Google Adwords Budget for Small Businesses
Let’s get something out of the way first: for most small business, using Google AdWords is a fairly expensive endeavor.
You don’t have the budget of a large enterprise–and you may not have the resources and knowledge to know if you’re spending your money where it counts.
The exact cost for Google AdWords depends on your industry, your competition, and how advertising-savvy you and your team are.
However, there are a few things you can do to set a realistic budget for your Google AdWord spending.
1. Don’t start too small.
While it may be tempting to dip your toes in with a $10 budget, don’t do it.
Google AdWords is not well suited to a “let’s try this and see if something sticks” strategy.
You will end up wasting both your money and time.
Plus, these tiny budgetary decisions will eventually start to add up. Therefore, you are better off starting with a larger amount (at least a couple hundred dollars).
2. Consider the adjustment period.
Your Google AdWords budget has to be large enough to buy your business ads for at least two months.
Why? Because you need time to figure out what actually works for your business in terms of ad copy, landing pages, and all other factors involved in advertising success.
Which keywords convert the best? Which landing page Call To Actions (CTAs) work for you? Do your visitors prefer to view your page on desktop or mobile devices?
There are a million questions you have to answer in order to create a high-converting ad.
While you can anticipate some of these factors, you won’t get every single aspect right the first time–there is a learning curve.
3. Scrap the monthly budget.
Let’s say you’d be willing to spend $500 per month, or $6,000 per year, on Google AdWords.
What would happen if you spent it in 4 months, instead of 12?
For one, it would allow you to save 8 months of time and effort–and, if you are successful, you’d earn enough money to consider giving your overall Google AdWords budget a bump.
Plus, a $1,500/month budget would allow you to be much more competitive in the advertising marketplace and get the results you want sooner.
With only $500/month to spend, you wouldn’t be able to effectively target the best, most profitable keywords for your niche.
If you triple that amount, you have a great shot at beating your competition for those keywords and landing in front of your best customers.
Plus, in the worst-case scenario, rather than spending a year on a strategy that does not work, you will have wasted only 4 months–and the same amount of money.
4. Know which keywords will be the most profitable for you.
If you want to figure out the best place to put your money (and how much of it you’ll need), keyword choice is incredibly important.
For example, if you own a pet store, don’t plan to compete for the highly-searched general keyword “pets.”
It will immediately skyrocket your budget predictions.
More specific, long-tail keywords such as “pet store Portland Oregon” will give you better results (and a more appropriate budget estimate) because this search query indicates the user is looking to buy something.
5. Switch your mindset from spending to investing.
It’s a simple switch, but one that can make the agonizing process of spending money on advertising a little less daunting.
You will waste some money getting started. It’s inevitable.
But once you figure out the right formula, the sky’s the limit–especially if you combine Google AdWords with other powerful strategies that drive traffic and leads to your website.
How Handmade SEO Can Help
Google AdWords can be a fairly effective way to drive traffic to your website–as long as you set clear budgetary expectations from the get-go.
However, it should not be the only strategy you depend on to attract new customers to your business.
Our FREE Digital Marketing Assessment will show you how to choose the right combination of marketing tactics and strategies for your business needs–and what you can do today to get customers to come to YOU.
Want to make sure your marketing dollars are well-spent?
