Anyone do Google Ads / Adwords?
Discussion
I'm wondering if anyone on here is a certified Google Ads / AdWords professional? or can recommend a decent company who can help me out.
I am a professional photographer working on lifestyle, sports and fashion content for consumer brands and their creative agencies.
I have a website. I have Analytics set up. I do lots of email marketing and direct marketing through the post and go to lots of face to face meetings but don't currently have anything passively set up and running. This means when I am busy actually working I can't advertise which can lead to slow periods. Plus I think there must be people searching for people that offer my services and I'm missing out on those enquiries also.
I've spoken to a few local PPC companies and enquired about how to set up some managed ads but I'm just not sure they get 'it'. I'm sure they'd be great at setting up the ads and stuff but I'm just not sure they're right for me when it comes to management and knowing the industry well enough to make the most of paid ads.
Can anyone recommend any companies or perhaps themselves? I'd like to have something live by 21st January 2019 if possible.
I am a professional photographer working on lifestyle, sports and fashion content for consumer brands and their creative agencies.
I have a website. I have Analytics set up. I do lots of email marketing and direct marketing through the post and go to lots of face to face meetings but don't currently have anything passively set up and running. This means when I am busy actually working I can't advertise which can lead to slow periods. Plus I think there must be people searching for people that offer my services and I'm missing out on those enquiries also.
I've spoken to a few local PPC companies and enquired about how to set up some managed ads but I'm just not sure they get 'it'. I'm sure they'd be great at setting up the ads and stuff but I'm just not sure they're right for me when it comes to management and knowing the industry well enough to make the most of paid ads.
Can anyone recommend any companies or perhaps themselves? I'd like to have something live by 21st January 2019 if possible.
Can you not have a go at running it yourself? I used to do ours but have since subbed it out. I'm not sure they are any better than what I achieved though and am considering doing myself again in the New Year. I think we suffer from them not getting our business too.
Whilst it looks complicated to set up and there's millions of things you can do, it's not that hard to get going. I'd suggest having exact keywords to start with rather than phrases (or the other one) as you'll show for lots of random things otherwise. You can use the keyword planner to see the approx searches per month for certain phrases/keywords. Make sure you have a list of negative keywords set up too, one of our keywords is a word for a big computer game and we're definitely nothing to do with that.
Google used to give a free £50/£100 to get started, worth looking to see if they do that.
Whilst it looks complicated to set up and there's millions of things you can do, it's not that hard to get going. I'd suggest having exact keywords to start with rather than phrases (or the other one) as you'll show for lots of random things otherwise. You can use the keyword planner to see the approx searches per month for certain phrases/keywords. Make sure you have a list of negative keywords set up too, one of our keywords is a word for a big computer game and we're definitely nothing to do with that.
Google used to give a free £50/£100 to get started, worth looking to see if they do that.
silobass said:
Can you not have a go at running it yourself? I used to do ours but have since subbed it out. I'm not sure they are any better than what I achieved though and am considering doing myself again in the New Year. I think we suffer from them not getting our business too.
Whilst it looks complicated to set up and there's millions of things you can do, it's not that hard to get going. I'd suggest having exact keywords to start with rather than phrases (or the other one) as you'll show for lots of random things otherwise. You can use the keyword planner to see the approx searches per month for certain phrases/keywords. Make sure you have a list of negative keywords set up too, one of our keywords is a word for a big computer game and we're definitely nothing to do with that.
Google used to give a free £50/£100 to get started, worth looking to see if they do that.
I probably could but I worry that I'd be wasting money as I'm not entirely sure what I am doing with it.. I worry that by setting it up myself I'll miss something that could lead to unnecessary clicks that I'm paying for. I also think having someone manage it would be better so that when I am busy actually on a shoot working things are still being monitored and looked after, sometimes my shoots can take me offline for days to weeks at a time with no time to keep track of whats happening.Whilst it looks complicated to set up and there's millions of things you can do, it's not that hard to get going. I'd suggest having exact keywords to start with rather than phrases (or the other one) as you'll show for lots of random things otherwise. You can use the keyword planner to see the approx searches per month for certain phrases/keywords. Make sure you have a list of negative keywords set up too, one of our keywords is a word for a big computer game and we're definitely nothing to do with that.
Google used to give a free £50/£100 to get started, worth looking to see if they do that.
I've thought about keywords, things like 'Sports Photographer London', 'Advertising Photographer' etc... and I know where and who I would like to target, other than that I've not really gone into any more detail.
Even if it was more a consultation on what works / doesn't work, things to remember and think of and then I go off and set it up myself. I just really don't want to waste £500 a month on Google Ads and not get a single lead from it.
Edited by ashleyman on Friday 14th December 17:59
I run thousands of Google Ad campaigns. I employ someone full-time to run them. It is hard to convert real world products like photography services through AdWords, digital products work much better. But if you focus on just getting them to make first contact with you and deliver the traffic to a simple and clear contact page you may have some success.
Paying someone else to manage it is not always cost effective. I'm not sure how much you expect to spend but unless you're spending at least £100-200 a day I would say just do it yourself.
I don't know if they still do this, but google used to allocate a 'specialist' to set up the campaigns for you and get you up and running. You have to tell them you're going to spend a decent amount...but there's no obligation to stick to it. Once they have set it up for you, you can just tweak the keywords and budget yourself.
Paying someone else to manage it is not always cost effective. I'm not sure how much you expect to spend but unless you're spending at least £100-200 a day I would say just do it yourself.
I don't know if they still do this, but google used to allocate a 'specialist' to set up the campaigns for you and get you up and running. You have to tell them you're going to spend a decent amount...but there's no obligation to stick to it. Once they have set it up for you, you can just tweak the keywords and budget yourself.
I do my own. Took a while to learn the basics. Then after I got the basic campaigns sorted and started to get some conversions I paid a company to come in and run it for me, that was a bad move and it probably cost me money. After a couple of years I saw the light and moved on and now run it myself. Total time using CPC has been around 7 years now I think. I very rarely change anything now, despite google calling me once a week with "urgent changes I need to make to get more traffic" er no thanks.
If you are in the NW feel free to PM me.
If you are in the NW feel free to PM me.
As above -
Work out the lifetime value of a customer to you - and as such allocate a target "cost per acquisition". Let's say an average project is £500 and the average customer will use you 4 times. Thats £2000 LTV. Perhaps you'd be happy to spend £200 to aquire this customer. On average, you need 10 leads to get a paid up customer. So £20 a lead. Your page might convert at 5% if very specific traffic is sent. So you need 400 visitors to your page converting at 5% to get your 20 leads. With a £200 budget you'd be looking at spending £0.50 cost per click. (all numbers made up but you get the idea)
I would personally setup a stand alone landing page, your call to action being either a contact form submission or a tracked phone number (routed to a virtual PA service if you cannot take the calls). A video of you introducing yourself and your work might work and be a bit different on the landing page (set to autoplay)
Start with very very laser specific keywords, exact match, even if low traffic, conversion will be a lot higher.
- get started on your own, learn a few basics - this is a good book to get you going:
- then when you have some experience, you can reach out and find an agency or a freelancer to manage things. You'll still need to have a decent understanding of what is going on so you can judge their performance.
Work out the lifetime value of a customer to you - and as such allocate a target "cost per acquisition". Let's say an average project is £500 and the average customer will use you 4 times. Thats £2000 LTV. Perhaps you'd be happy to spend £200 to aquire this customer. On average, you need 10 leads to get a paid up customer. So £20 a lead. Your page might convert at 5% if very specific traffic is sent. So you need 400 visitors to your page converting at 5% to get your 20 leads. With a £200 budget you'd be looking at spending £0.50 cost per click. (all numbers made up but you get the idea)
I would personally setup a stand alone landing page, your call to action being either a contact form submission or a tracked phone number (routed to a virtual PA service if you cannot take the calls). A video of you introducing yourself and your work might work and be a bit different on the landing page (set to autoplay)
Start with very very laser specific keywords, exact match, even if low traffic, conversion will be a lot higher.
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