28 November 2014 Business Planning Guide www.greenmediaonline.com
Online Marketing
Imagine you and 100 other dealers are all sitting in a room when
a customer comes in and says, "I want to buy a lawn mower. Who
can help?" Naturally, everyone in the room raises a hand — there
will be some tall guys (dealers with websites with a long history), so
their hands raise up just a little higher, and there will be the wavers
(dealers that regularly post relevant content to their websites, blogs
and social channels). And then, there are the tall wavers — wave as
you might, it can be pretty difficult to be seen with these guys in the
room…unless you get a giant foam finger.
Paid search is your giant foam finger. And with a staggering
67.6 percent1 of all web searches conducted on Google, the
search engine behemoth's AdWords should be your go-to
vendor for paid search.
How it works
The AdWords marketplace is an auction where keyword ad
placement is offered up to the highest bidder every time a
customer conducts a Google search. The following link to an
infographic, courtesy of the team at WordStream, will give you
a good picture of how the AdWords campaign bidding process
works: http://bit.ly/JVtACH.
Get started witH GooGle
It all starts with a single Google account controlled by one
master username and password. Google's
AdWords connects all of your dealership's
Google accounts, including Analytics, Google+
and YouTube. If you currently have multiple
Google accounts to be merged or need to
change account ownership, Google has you
covered with easy-to-follow instructions that
can be accessed at http://bit.ly/SedUPA.
Note: If your Google accounts are tied to
an employee's personal Gmail account, this
needs to be rectified immediately — allowing
an employee to own these accounts is like
giving that person the only set of keys to the
dealership!
Your first camPaiGn
Ready to get your foam finger pointing in the
right direction? When you log in to AdWords
for the first time, you'll see the screen shown in
Figure 1, which walks you through your options
to set up your first campaign.
Your BudGet
First and foremost, you are always in control of
your spending on any campaign. AdWords uses
cost-per-click (CPC) based auctions, which
allow you to start small and ramp up your
budget as you see results. We've seen dealers net
great results starting with a budget as small as
$500 a month or about $16 a day. In addition
Best practices and proven
strategies to get you started on the
right foot
Google AdWords
Quick-start Guide
Figure 1
