Google Ads South Africa - The Ultimate Guide
Hi, ( do check out our Google Ads guide further down below). Our agency, The Blue Cabin SEO Company, is committed to propelling your businesses to new heights of success by driving revenue through Google Ads and SEO with intuitively-honed digital marketing services and technology.
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Google Ads South Africa - The Ultimate Guide
Google Ads South Africa – One of the best methods of getting direct clicks to your website. The power of Google Ad’s targeting options gives us the opportunity to tailor your campaign according to your business needs, allowing us to target customers in a specific location so that your ads only show up for potential customers. The flexibility and precise targeting make Google AdWords in South Africa one of the most economical ways of marketing.
The Blue Cabin SEO Company offer professionally created and managed Google Ads Campaigns by taking your product or service and communicating it to the right audience in the most effective way using the powerful audience target options Google Ads has to offer. We select keywords for search campaigns and automated bid strategies that utilise machine learning to achieve the campaign’s objective. Whether that is to achieve the most conversions for your marketing budget, or getting them at the lowest cost possible. We know the importance of traffic to your company’s website. We also know that a good-looking website, is just a good-looking website – and the only way to make money from it is through traffic.
Our Google Ads team has over 10 Years combined Google Ads experience and keep up to date with all the changes Google makes to its algorithm ensuring we stay on top of the game, especially since marketing tools have changed dramatically in the last decade. Although some of the older, more conventional methods of advertising still work and bring in leads, having something a bit more personalized would be far more beneficial. That’s where Google Ads come in. With Google Ads we can target your specific audience and track the advert’s exact results. Finally, an advertising method that shows you exactly what you’re getting for your money.
To give you an idea, (depending on the website) the incoming traffic to a website is more or less 15% direct, meaning the user typed your web address directly into their browser, 5% of traffic comes from others linking to your site and the remaining 80% comes from search engines such as Google. Here at Blue Cabin, our focus is to get your business at the top of page 1, whether that is through making the most of Google Ads or Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).
What exactly are Google Ads South Africa?
Google Ads, previously known as Google AdWords, is an advertising service rendered by Google for businesses wanting to publish ads on Google and its advertising network. Google Ads (or AdWords) is a very powerful search engine marketing platform that allows companies to bid for a position in Google’s paid advertising network. The power is in the client’s hands when it comes to how much money needs to be spent on the Google Ads.
Pay Per Click(PPC) Google Ads Explained
Using Pay-Per-Click(PPC) ads means that you only pay when someone clicks on your advert. PPC is known as one of the most effective methods of driving traffic to your website. We can adjust your ads to target different pages of your website, depending on your requirements. We customize your PPC campaigns according to your needs. Our Google Ads team will firstly assess which keywords are the most relevant and economical for your business. Once this step is complete, we will then create the perfect campaign for your company. We know all the tricks and tips when it comes to a great PPC campaign, and will tailor one for your business to get the best return on investment possible. Our team are qualified professionals, experienced in the Google Ads realm.
A Quick Example of Google AdWords in South Africa:
For instance, if someone searches in Google for ‘Chinese restaurant’ and it is included for that specific ad, the ad would show either at the top or the right-hand side of the search results. If a consumer then sees the ad and wants to know more, they will click on it. From there the visitor will be taken to the “landing page” of your website. So, if the keyword ‘Chinese restaurant’ currently costs R9 (prices differ depending on keyword), then R9 will be deducted from the budget you paid to Google. Let’s say you decided on a Google Ads budget of R5000, and the average cost per click is R9, then you should roughly get R5000 / 9 = 555 targeted visitors to your website in that month. Your monthly Google Ads budget will be split into a daily budget. If you want to run your ad campaign for 30 days per month then the daily budget would end up being R5000 / 30 = R166 per day. Your ad will appear on Google until your daily budget runs out.
Blue Cabin’s monthly Google Ads service will maintain your keywords, add alternative ad terms, filter out keywords that aren’t performing, adjust keyword bids and maintain the overall health of your AdWords campaign. The Google Ads Management fee you pay The Blue Cabin SEO Company per month for your Google Ads, will most likely save you thousands of Rands per month in Google Ads budget due to a more professional and streamlined ad campaign. With the co-operation from you and a combination of all of the above, our Google Ads team can create and implement the perfect campaign strategy for your brand, service or product. Before we can design your ad campaign, we need to determine which type of ad would suit your business.
There are a few varieties of Google AdWords campaigns, which could get a little confusing, so here follows a Google Ads campaign breakdown:
The Various Types of Google Ads Campaigns:
Google Search Ads
The Google Search Campaign is a section on the search results page where search-related website’s and application’s adverts can appear. When we place an ad on the Google Search Network, the ad can show near search results when someone searches with terms that are related to one of your keywords.
Google Display Ads
The Google Display Campaign is designed to reach users while they’re browsing through websites, watching YouTube videos, checking their Gmail account and even while using mobile devices and apps.
Google Shopping Ads
If you are a retail outlet, we can make use of shopping campaigns to promote your online and local inventory, boosting in-store and online traffic, getting you the best leads possible. Shopping ads rather use your product data than your keywords to determine how and where to show your ads. The product data we submit through the Merchant Center contains certain details about the products you sell. Google will then use these details when they match a user’s search to your ad, making sure to show the most relevant products.
Google Ads YouTube Campaigns
YouTube Google Adwords Campaigns show video ads by themselves or within other streaming video content on YouTube and the rest of the Google Display Network. Video ad formats include video discovery ads, in-stream ads, non-skippable in-stream ads, bumper ads and outstream ads. Video discovery ads can only appear on YouTube.
Google Ads App Campaigns
App Campaigns make it easy to promote your apps across Google’s largest properties such as Search, YouTube, Discover, Google Play and Google Display Network. Putting your app into the hands of more paying users.
Google Ads Remarketing Campaigns
Remarketing allows us to connect you with people who previously interacted with your website or mobile app. Remarketing allows us to strategically place your ads in front of these audiences as they browse through Google. Not only does this increase brand awareness but it also reminds these audiences to return and make a purchase.
Google Ads Dynamic Remarketing Campaigns
This is the further step of Remarketing, Dynamic Remarketing – Which lets us show previous visitor ads that contain products and services they viewed on your site (or app). With messages tailored to your specific audience, helping you build good leads and sales by bringing previous users back to your site to finish what they started.
Making the Most of Your Google Ads South Africa
Once we have decided on the perfect campaign, our team then continues to monitor and analyse the performance of your ad campaigns by implementing sophisticated tracking to retrieve data that we can use to make the necessary changes to optimise and streamline your business objectives. Some of these include;
Conversion Tracking Setup
Setting up your conversion tracking allows you to see what happens AFTER a customer interacts with your ads. Whether they purchased a product, called your business, signed up for your newsletter or downloaded your app. A conversion is when a customer completes an action that you’ve defined as valuable.
Automated Bidding Strategies
Automated bidding takes all the stress and guesswork out of setting bids to meet your specific performance goals. Every type of automated bid strategy is designed to help us achieve your specific goal. Deciding how much money you should invest in online marketing for your business is a crucial decision. Google Ads gives you the ‘remote’ – you have the ability to control the budget while we monitor your results to ensure performance.
What’s the difference between Google Ads and SEO?
Organic listings are results from Google’s secret algorithms. The goal of these algorithms is to display the most relevant search results. Using search engine optimization, we can prove to Google that your website is the most relevant for the specific keyword, and to have it show up on the 1st page.
The search results labelled ‘Pay Per Click Ads’ are paid for advertising listings, also known as sponsored results. With the right Ad campaign strategy and optimization, your website will show up here in as quick as 15 minutes. The difference being with Pay-per-click, you will be paying a fee for every visitor that comes to your website. As where with SEO, you do not pay for each individual visitor but rather a monthly agreement with an SEO Agency, such as Blue Cabin. Check out our SEO Packages Guide for more information on SEO pricing.
Google Ads Pay Per Click (PPC) Pro's and Con's
Pro's
- PPC is a very affordable way to quickly get targeted audiences to your website. We can easily start, stop, pause or adjust your campaign at any time.
- The budget control is in the client’s hands – Spend as much or as little as you want.(Do note we have a minimum adspend policy of R3000)
- PPC guarantees traffic from very specific key terms. You are guaranteed to get exactly what you paid for, clicks from certain keywords
- Utilizing the Geotargeting feature Google Ads has to offer, you can market to a very specific location, as specific as marketing to those in a 16km radius from your business.
Con's
- It could be an expensive marketing method. Depending on your competition, you could be paying as little as R1.50 for every visitor or R150 per visitor, sometimes even more.
- Only 20% of people click on the Sponsored results, the rest use the organic ranking results as they know it produces more relevant results.
- Catching a large amount of traffic for a single competitive keyword can cost thousands of Rands per day.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Pro's And Con's
Pro's
- SEO is usually by far the best return of investment compared to any online or offline marketing campaign.
- You don’t have to pay for each individual visitor or top positions for competitive keywords. The power of SEO can bring in thousands of people to your website.
- Many more people search through the organic listings rather than paid adverts (80% Organic 20% Paid)
High rankings on Google gives your website/business credibility. If you are ranking higher than your opposition on Google, consumers tend to think your service or products are superior, as people intuitively trust Google.
Con's
- SEO takes time, it takes roughly 3 months minimum to see results.
20 Reasons Why You should Run Google AdWords in South Africa
1. Being Seen Online is a MUST
A massive section of the population does research online before purchasing any product. It is always important to have your products visible online, otherwise you give the opposition the upper hand. People spend around 2/3rds of their entire day online, making it the perfect place to reach customers.
2. Use your words, your keywords.
Keywords are one of the biggest factors when it comes to marketing online because of search engines. Making keywords one of the most important aspects of your marketing. This makes it easier for your company or products to be found by potential clients. Changing keywords in your Google Ads campaign is also a possibility if needed.
3. Reach Your Target Audience
In the early stages of marketing(print etc) you were unable to say if you reached your target audience, but with Google ads, the control is in your hands. We have the opportunity to choose your demographic and geographic audience for your services and products. Reaching your target audience results in a higher chance of conversion, as you know they would be interested in the ad. Using text-based search ads, display ads, YouTube video ads or in-app mobile ads. We have multiple ways of reaching your target customers with Google Ads.
4. Bang For Your Buck
Controlling the Budget – You only have to pay when someone clicks on your ad to visit your website. Not all of us can spend thousands on Google ads, but that doesn’t have to stop you. With Google ads, you have the ability to set a budget for your ad, ensuring that you don’t overspend. You don’t need to spend hundreds of thousands of Rands, although some major companies do, some smaller companies only spend three thousand Rand on their Google Ads Campaigns per month.
5. Getting your Ad Displayed Everywhere
Your ads will be displayed on all relevant networks, some of which include shopping networks, search networks. Applicable to your product or service.
6. More than one Ad Campaign
Instead of running only one ad, you can run multiple adverts displaying all the various products that you have to offer.
7. Organic Ranking Boost
Running a Google Ads campaign can assist with your website’s current Google ranking, driving more potential clients to your website.
8. Improve Your Customer and Leads Count
The exact purpose of a Google Ad campaign is to improve your customer count, which then in-directly improves your leads count. We all know how important it is for a business to generate leads as this is what brings revenue for the business. With Google Ads you can build up more specific clientele.
9. A Flexible Marketing Platform
Google Ads is suitable for all types of businesses, no matter the size. Your Google ads can be customized and personalized to suit your company needs. Targeting your exact clientele at an affordable price.
10. Guaranteed Return on Investment
The best part about Google Ads(and SEO) is that you can track the ROI. Unlike many other conventional advertising methods. This gives you the opportunity to track how many of your targeted audiences have been reached. You always pay per click (PPC), ensuring every click you pay for is a potential client.
11. Quick Results
Shortly after we go live with your new Google ads(do note we take on average 4 working days to professionally construct your Google Ads campaigns sets), we start building your report. Your report gives us the insight we require to ensure your Google ads are bringing in leads and we continuously optimize the campaign with the data we gather in successful conversions.
12. Display Your Ads Immediately
When advertising in a newspaper or on television, you have to wait for your ads to appear. Google Ads has no waiting time for ads to appear, which is super beneficial as most of the population is online for 2/3rds of the day. Your Ad campaign will show us immediate results or feedback. This helps us filter out what is working and what is not within a few hours or days, depending on the budget or search volume.
13. Using The High Source Of Traffic
Using Google ads as a traffic source is a great way to attract the desired clientele for your company.
14. Right Place, Right Time
Running Google ads during peak hours is highly recommended. All depending on your product or service, we have the ability to control at which time during the day your ad displays.
15. Get Rid of Irrelevant Keywords
We monitor how your keywords are performing, if we see one of your keywords are struggling, we rather replace these with new ones that will perform better.
16. Top of Google
Google ads are located at the top of the 1st page of Google. This gives you the upper hand on your competition as sometimes it can take up to 6 months to get to the top of the page organically(with the aid of a professional SEO Company in South Africa. Depending on the keyword, sometimes the 1st page of Google is un-reachable organically, but with Google Ads you can always be at the top.
17. Using Google Ads to Reach Mobile Consumers
With the number of searches from mobile devices climbing rapidly, we can ensure your Google Ads reach mobile consumers on the go.
18. Top Quality
As we all know – Quality over quantity. The quality of your keywords, landing pages and Google Ad campaigns play a major role in the performance of your ad campaign. Blue Cabin provides a boutique services based on expertise and quality.
19. More Customers
If your company is looking to bring in new website visitors, generate more online sales, get the phones ringing and keep the customers coming back for more. Google Ads is the way to go.
20. Advertise Locally Or Globally
Google Ads has the power to target your ads to audiences in certain countries, regions or cities. We can even target the surrounding area from your business or shop.
Top 3 Tips When Running Google Ads South Africa (Infographic)
The Most Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) About Google Ads South Africa
Are Google AdWords free?
Google Adwords is a paid advertising service rendered by Google. Advertisers only have to pay whenever someone clicks on their ad. This is known as Pay-Per-Click advertising (PPC). Making the most out of this opportunity given to you by Google will most certainly aid in business growth.
Are Google ads worth the money?
Most definitely, Google Ads allows businesses of any size to advertise to millions of people but without the hefty marketing budget. Your Google Adwords is only worth it if your ads are receiving genuine clicks from customers.
What is Google Ad promotional code?
Promotional codes (also known as coupons or vouchers) offer a credit to an advertiser’s account. There’s no way to ask for a promotional code, but Google and partners will occasionally give out promotional codes as part of specific offers.
What is the minimum budget for Google AdWords?
With Google AdWords, there is no maximum or minimum. We have seen campaign set to as low as R10, but keep in mind that you won’t be seeing any tangible results with such a low daily budget. Google Ads works on a monthly budget formula of 30.4 days X daily budget.
Are Google AdWords worth it?
Most definitely, Google Ads allows businesses of any size to advertise to millions of people but without the hefty marketing budget. Your Adwords is only worth it if your ads are receiving genuine clicks from customers.
What is the difference between Google ads and Google AdWords?
AdSense is for Website Publishers, AdWords Is for Businesses. The fundamental difference between AdWords and AdSense is who they’re designed for. AdWords is for advertisers and AdSense is for publishers, or website owners. AdWords enables businesses and marketers to advertise on Google’s network (search, display, etc). There is no difference between Google Ads and Google AdWords, the term “AdWords” is slowly fading and being replaced by ‘Google Ads’.
Why are Google ads so expensive?
One main reason why your Google Ads have gotten so expensive is probably because of wrong timing. Head over to the time report tab and see which times each day are not performing well and are costing more money than you are prepared to spend. Some ads may appear when your target audience is sleeping, based on your time zone.
Which is better Facebook ads or Google AdWords?
Both of these platforms are great for advertising, depending on what your needs are. We would suggest Facebook ads if you want to build brand awareness or a social following and Google AdWords when trying to sell products directly or generate more leads to your business.
Are Google Ads expensive?
The average cost per click in Google Ads is between R20 and R30 on the search network and the most expensive keywords in Google Ads cost R1000 or more per click.
How long does it take for Google ads to go live?
The average time it takes for a Google ad to go live is roughly one business day, although it could be take half the time or double the time, depending on various factors. At Blue Cabin, because of our unique clients, we take four workdays to build brilliant Google Ads campaigns for our clients before we make the campaigns live.
How long does it take for Google ads to get approved?
Usually Google reviews your ad within one business day. However, some reviews might take longer if the ad requires a more in-depth review. If your ad has been under review for more than two full business days, we will contact AdWords support to sort it out.
How long does it take for Google to approve ads?
Usually Google reviews your ad within one business day. However, some reviews might take longer if the ad requires a more in-depth review. If your ad has been under review for more than two full business days, we will contact AdWords support to sort it out.
How do I know if my Google ad is working?
To view the status of an Ad: Sign in to your Google AdWords account, click ads & extensions from the page menu to see a list of your ads, then check in the “Status” column to see the status of your ads. If you hover over each status, you’ll see a more detailed explanation of what it means.
Why are Google ads disapproved?
Usually ads will be disapproved because they don’t comply with one or more of the Authorized Buyers Polices for advertising on the Google Ad network. Authorized Buyers reserve the right to disapprove any Google Ads that breach any of the policies mentioned. Breaching these policies could end up in your entire account being suspended.
Why my Google ads are not running?
Sometimes double checking the structure of your ad groups could be an easy fix. If you find that you’ve built your ad groups with keywords that aren’t really closely related to one another, that could most likely be the reason why your ads aren’t performing as they should.
How much is Google ads cost?
The average cost per click in Google Ads in South Africa is usually between R20 and R30 on the search network, although the average cost per click on the Display Network is under R20.
Is Google ads worth the money?
Most definitely, Google Ads allows businesses of any size to advertise to millions of people but without the hefty marketing budget. Your Adwords is only worth it if your ads are receiving genuine clicks from customers.
Are Google ads worth it for small business?
Pay-Per-Click ads can be very effective for small businesses when set up correctly. Google Ads can help you precisely target your specific audience and drive traffic and conversions to your business. With a strong value proposition, keyword and landing page, Google Ads will definitely help you grow your business.
What are Google ad services?
Google Ad services is a pay-per-click advertising service rendered by Google, where advertisers bid to display brief advertisements, services, product listings or videos to web users.
Google Ads Johannesburg
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Google Ads Sandton
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Google Ads Pretoria
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Google Ads Durban
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Google Ads Cape Town
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