So you would think Google AdWords is pretty simple right? You can run ads to generate more leads and revenue. You can sell more products online. You can bring more traffic to your website. But, unfortunately, it’s not that straight forward. There are other things to take care of. We’ll discuss that in another chapter, however for now, let’s discuss the benefits of Google Adwords as an advertising platform.

While the prospect of investing money on Adwords might seem like a daunting task, the results that come in are almost instantaneous and transparent. Which is why it is worth every penny that you spend on it.

Adwords works faster than SEO

The topmost benefit of Google AdWords is that it works faster than SEO. Both SEO and Google AdWords are search engine marketing strategies to generate more traffic and leads. But, a well optimized AdWords campaign can work much faster for a business to get the much coveted first spot in search.

Here are some reasons why it’s faster and more effective

• You can focus on multiple keywords at a time.
• You can turn the campaign on or off whenever you want to.
• Ads which appears on the top of the page get immediate visibility.

Of course, this does not mean that you should ignore organic sources, as they have more long-term benefits. But with AdWords, there is a better chance of driving more traffic and leads instantly. Additionally, the platform is more transparent, and you know exactly what is happening with the ads.

On the other hand, search engine optimization, though very beneficial, is a long-term process. To rank for any keyword, it requires a lot of perseverance and a lot of well-written articles, and backlinks. And even then, it takes a while for them to gain the necessary authority.

Simply put. ads give you instant visibility at an instant cost, whereas SEO would give you long term success, depending on the effort you put on the quality of your content.

But, I am not here to debate one strategy’s benefits over the other. You need to use both simultaneously, but be realistic about the success time frame, and the effort/money that would be needed for both.

 Increase brand awareness

Google AdWords, in addition to boosting traffic, clicks, and conversions, is also an efficient way to tell people about your brand. To verify this, Google partnered with IPSOS  to run a study across 12 verticals, right from automobiles to retail. It was discovered that search ads lift top-of-mind awareness by an average of 6.6%

Measure your performance consistently

It is very difficult to measure the outcome of traditional advertisements like newspapers, radio, broadcast television, cable television, outdoor billboards, brochures etc. Also, they are much more expensive than Google AdWords. You can’t control your own budget and spend. Additionally, you wouldn’t know the source of the leads coming from these media, unless your customer chooses to divulge it. As a result, it would be very difficult to calculate ROI from traditional media.

But, AdWords, on the other hand, would tell you exactly what happened with the campaign. You would know:

• Who clicked on your ad.
• How many leads have been generated.
• How much traffic you have got from AdWords to your website.
• Which keyword generated the most traffic and leads.
• How much does it cost you per lead.

This would help marketers understand what worked and what didn’t. Using this information, you can then tweak your campaigns until you achieve optimal results.

Explore more using your ads

Confused with the title?  As I said, there is a lot more to explore when you link your Google AdWords account with your Google Analytics account. AdWords is a great platform but it won’t let you know what people do after clicking the ads. But, Google analytics would help you understand,

• How long a visitor stayed on a page
• How many pages have been visited
• Bounce rate of your landing page
• Details about new visitors and returning visitors and much more.

By linking them together, you will have a lot more data in your hand.  An advertiser can measure the complete performance of the Google ads. He/she can pause the non-performing keywords/campaigns/ads and try different variations to boost your results. This data would also help in writing more articles/posts using keywords that performed best for your business. Using those keywords you can rank better for organic search as well.