Why Google Ads is a Great Tool for Advertising your Business

Watch

Listen

Read

Google Ads can be a great way to reach potential customers and grow your accounting firm but getting started can feel a little overwhelming.

In this blog, we share some tips for getting started with Google Ads so you can use the power of search engine advertising to reach new potential clients and grow your accounting practice.

What Type of Google Ads Campaign do you Want to Run?

First you need to decide what type of Google ads campaign you want to run. When you open and log into Google Ads, you're going to realize that there are several types of campaigns you can run, such as search campaigns, display campaigns, shopping campaigns, and many more.

It's important to research and choose the type of campaign that best fits your business's needs and goals. For example, if you're an accounting firm with a limited budget, a search campaign might be the best choice instead of a display campaign. Additionally, you should consider the type of product or service that you're promoting within your campaign. If you're promoting a service that is highly targeted towards a specific Niche, like corporate advisory services to construction companies, then a search campaign may be the most cost-effective option.

On the other hand, if you're looking to promote your brand as a whole, and you know producing content that's a little bit more General and general services that you're highlighting, a display campaign may be your best option because it will help you reach a wider audience.

You should also take into account competition within your industry and adjust your campaign accordingly. If there is a lot of competition in the market that you're in, let's say you're in a larger City, then you may need to increase your budget and focus more on targeting a specific type of customer. This could be an industry specific ad; with careful consideration and research you will choose the right Google Ads campaign to help you and your firm be present when potential clients are searching in your area.

Something to keep in mind here is, this is not a strategy that is going to be a quick win overnight. Google Ads take time. You're not going to hit it out of the ballpark on your first campaign launch. You're going to need to take your time and adjust and refine your campaign over time. We'll get into that in the next step but, I just want to set the foundation and expectation here, you're not going to find your rocket to the moon in Google Ads when you first get started. You're going to need to see what works, see what doesn't work, and make adjustments and learn from the analytics that Google will share with you.

Create your Google Ad

Once you've made the decision of what type of campaign you would like to run, it's time to create the ad itself.

Your ad should include the basics such as, a brief introduction to your business, a call to action, and, most importantly, clear, and relevant headers. It should also include a link to where the user can learn more about your business.

It is incredibly crucial to choose the keywords that you want to target your ad to. Keywords are terms and phrases that users type into search engines. So, it is important to select the keywords that are pertinent to your business and the services that you provide. You're trying to get more clients, make sure that you use the most effective keywords for your ad.

You can use Google ads keyword research tools to help you identify the most applicable and successful keywords for your ad, for your services, and for your firm. Additionally, you can use specialized keywords analysis tools to understand the competition search volume, and cost per click, of each keyword.

You've created your ad now we need to think about the budget for your campaign.

Decide on your Campaign Budget

Google ads uses a pay-per-click system, which means that you'll only be charged when somebody clicks on your ad.

It's important to set a budget that fits your business's needs and goals. To do this you can use Google ads cost estimation tools to get an idea of how much your ad will cost and make sure your budget is realistic.

So, to give you a little bit of context, with our clients many of them invest roughly a thousand dollars every quarter and onboard between one and three new clients within that quarter.

If you charge $2,000 for a corporate year end, your return on investment is between two to six times what you paid out, simply for the first year of value those new clients bring into your firm. Not to mention the opportunity to retain that client over the long term, or even offering additional services like, personal tax returns, bookkeeping, or financial advisory services.

In an Ideal World the more effective your campaign becomes, the cost per conversion goes down, and you can begin upping your advertising budget and measuring the number of new clients that you get from your advertising campaigns.

If you end up having a very consistent cost per conversion, meaning every time somebody clicks on your phone number, or they fill out a form on your website, and you convert a certain percentage of that consistently over time, you will have a much better idea of what your expected ROI is on your Google Search Investment.

This means you can be confident with upping your budget because you are going to understand if your ad is shown more times to more people that are searching for the terms that you are investing in. Then you know that you're going to get $X amount in return. So, once you get a basic understanding of how your campaign is performing, you can up that budget with the expectation that you’re going to get x amount more clients based on the investment that you're making in your campaign already.

Monitor and Adjust your Google Ads Campaign

Finally, you need to Monitor and adjust your Google Ads campaign, as needed. You should keep an eye on how your ad is performing and make any necessary changes. This includes adjusting your budget, managing your keywords, or targeting a different audience.

One of the most important things that you can do early on in your campaign is monitor the Search terms that are being used to present your ads and ensuring that the terms that are being presented for your ads are terms that you want your ad to be presented to.

Let’s break that down a little bit.

If there are certain Search terms that you don't want your ads to be presented to, you want to move them to the negative keywords list, which pretty much just tells Google that you don't want your ad presented when somebody searches for that certain phrase. As an example, if someone is searching for a bookkeeping course or accounting job, you likely don't want your ads being presented in those situations, because someone who is searching for these phrases aren't looking for bookkeeping support or accounting services. They're looking for a course or a job. Keep an eye on those phrases and adjust on a weekly basis, moving those phrases to the negative keyword list.

Lastly keep track of the analytics. Google does a great job of having deep and knowledgeable analytic tools that give you the information you need to make the best decisions, from understanding the amount of traffic that's going to your ads, and then leading to website traffic, to who's clicking on what and what content is being viewed most.

There's an endless amount of information, and it can sometimes be daunting. But it is really powerful, and important, to understand how people are interacting with your brand as it relates to your ads and your website. So, check out Google Analytics as well.

Wrap Up

Again, this is a quick introduction to Google Ads, and it can be a powerful tool for accounting firms. When somebody is looking for a service or a solution they're most likely going to head to Google. They're going to type into a search engine “accounting firms near me”, “bookkeeping support” and that’ll be their first step in their search.

The best way to get to the top of the search results is using Google Ads. With the right strategy, and a little bit of patience, you can make the most of your ad budget and truly grow your accounting firm.

If you'd like to explore how Google Ads can help you onboard more clients for your accounting firm, feel free to book a FREE Discovery Meeting today, here, we would love to chat!

Thanks for reading, I hope you found this blog helpful and it gets you started leveraging AI to make your life simpler!

Thanks for reading and I'll see you next time!

About the Author

Bryton Udy is the Founder and CMO of atHeart Creative, and host of the Accountant Marketing Mentor YouTube Channel. Dedicated to helping accountants simplify their marketing and communications so they can grow their accounting, bookkeeping, and financial planning businesses, he is passionate about harnessing creative marketing to support the independent accountant.