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Google Finally Getting Serious about Local Marketing

Google Finally Getting Serious about Local Marketing

Google recently launched new changes to their Ad technology to better serve small and local businesses. For more details you can read the article here - https://blog.google/outreach-initiatives/small-business/google-ads-helping-businesses/.

Here we look at how much of that is fact and how much is really a fiction still.

Google's Claim - Ads in minutes. Fact or fiction?

Yes, it is a fact that you can create Ads in minutes. You can also eat a burger in minutes or chug a few glasses of beer! Will it make your phone ring? At a price point that makes sense for your business? Those are the real questions that Google fails to answer. So yes, you can create Ads in minutes. Actually, to give some credit, you can create some really cool stuff within minutes using Google. But "cool" at the surface may not look "so cool" at the end of the month when you have lost $1000 on Ads with no return. So be careful with the claims. Stick with a solid marketing strategy. Your brand, your messaging, is still your problem. Google is trying hard to solve it and make life simpler for us. But the fact is that real life isn't that simple.

Google's Claim - Stand out from the crowd. Fact or fiction?

The fact is that if you know your game, you know what offers to give, what images work best, what messaging resonates with your customers. More importantly, you know your competition really well. Also, the fact is that most local businesses are extremely unique, and have some great history behind them. Google can't possibly know about them because for one they don't have all that mentioned on their website. So the whole philosophy of creating awesome ad copy based on the text you have on your website, leads to "garbage in garbage out" kind of situation. At this point, if you are a local business owner, chances are this whole claim of "standing out from the crowd" is not going to work for you.

Google's Claim - Reach in the moment. Fact of fiction?

Honestly, this is probably the worst features of Google. Rephrased a million times, it's basically nothing but "re targeting". Who is more annoyed to see the same Ad over and over again just because they went to a website once. Yes, Google is improving upon it, but they are way too far to really know my intent through my searches, and more importantly, they seem way too aggressive in pushing me Ads related to what they think my intention is. Hey Google, if you are that smart about my intention, how about showing me better search results instead of sprinkling Ads all over my screen?

If you are a small, local business, chances are that you cater to people living within 5-10 miles of your business location. That may constitute to potentially a few thousand prospective leads, people who may be truly interested in your product or service.

So all this is super great. It's better than the old fashioned "media kits" we used to deal with... isn't it? It's definitely the right direction. But a whole lot needs to be done before you can put your online ads to auto pilot and start getting your phone ringing.

If you have read so far, I owe you something special - and that's on this page on our website:

[Ellipsis Online Paid Ads - a stress free and affordable way to run local online Ads]

Tags: google adwords,small business

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Gautam Tandon
Jun/28/2018

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