I distinctly remember the first Google AdWords campaign I ever created. The year was 2007. I was working in a full time marketing role for a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) company. I had just read Perry Marshall’s Ultimate Guide to Google AdWords, when went to my boss…
“We should advertise on Google,” I told him.
“Why would we pay for clicks,” he responded curtly, “when we can rank organically for free?”
“Because,” I would have said, with the benefit of hindsight” in eleven years the clicks will be ten times as expensive!”
I can’t remember what I really said, but I did manage to solicit a small monthly AdWords budget. We were bidding on terms like ‘CRM system’, ‘CRM solution’. Which at the time cost around £2 per click. Today, you’re looking at between £22 and £36 per click, according to Google Keyword Planner.
Looking back, I didn’t know how to structure or organise the campaign. I had too many loosely-related keywords in each ad group. I didn’t write enough different ads.
You could get away with this then, because keyword bids generally were less expensive. There was wiggle room for error. These days there is none, especially if you’re bidding on magically expensive words like ‘insurance’ or ‘cloud’.
One of the ways to give yourself an advantage is to write ads that:
1. Sound like you, rather than sound like an ad.
2. Say something relevant that nobody else is saying.
3. Pull on emotions in a way nobody else is doing. Often the emotion that works best on Google is guilt.
I’ll be talking more about ad writing on a webinar tomorrow evening. It’s only open to Story Selling Insider subscribers – read more here. The cost could be the same as two or three clicks, depending on your keywords.
