Google for Advertisers

Google’s Marketing Cycle

Google has also recently tried to help kick start small business with a $75 AdWords stimulus package.  They understand that in this current economy advertising is becoming exponentially harder for marketers.  Google has also helped with a newly released portal Google for Advertisers where they help educate SME business about the benefits of online marketing.

Google has started to work to help SME business use their AdWords systems with a fun “worst case” case study pet stick.  This “worst case” case study website covers the typical marketing cycle a business would experience if using Google for their online marketing campaign.

Google for Advertisers start with helping business defining their marketing strategy, where they can define objectives, audience and message.  Google offers SME some tools to provide insight into what people are searching for, what sites visited and what they do on your site.  There are other online solutions and specialist marketing organisations who can provide more consumer details combined with demographic and other profiling data, but Google provides a good base level.

Google then moves to the next step in the cycle providing SME with the tools to create ads using their Display Ad Builder.  This tool provides some standard and basic templates for creating some interactive ads it does not take the place of a marketing agency or a creative graphic designer.  The Display Ad Builder tool makes the options for building ads to display on the content network quick and painless.

The next step in the marketing cycle is the media planning and buying options for your campaign.  Media buying is where Google uses its extensive user data to allow business to hyper-target specific media channels or networks.  This does not take the place of specialist marketing agencies or media buying agencies that provide much more detail and you can benefit from their experience.

The final step in the marketing cycle is optimising and tweaking your campaign to ensure the maximum return on investment.  Google provides some of the industries leading technology which provides marketers the ability to optimise campaigns by offering a number of tools such as Google Analytics and Website Optimiser.  These tools offer a number of advanced features that often require a web analytics specialist to setup and configure to ensure you get the most out of your data.  Many digital agencies employ staff with experience setting up complex features such as tracking flash & video, ecommerce transactions and advanced tracking, so if you are unsure speak with them.

Google for Advertisers presents the campaign information in a fun colour coded timeline that allows for simple and quick navigation.  Each part of the campaign process contains links to related Google product’s and a quick link for more detailed information.

Overall the site does a wonderful job in organising all Google’s solutions, marketing products and up to date information in one location.  It also has a great section where advertisers can stay in touch, with product news, help forums, email, webinars and blogs.

While Google for Advertisers does help to educate business and marketers more about Google products and online marketing it does not replace the added value provided by Search Marketing Companies and Digital Advertising Agencies.  Many marketing agencies have contacts and account managers within Google that assist them when they are planning, designing or launching your campaign.  So if you find that your online strategy is not performing maybe its time to speak with your marketing agency and find out how they can help your business.