Setting up a Google Ads campaign with a 300% return

This article was written when the platform was still called AdWords. The names have changed, the phasing has not.

So you are setting up a search campaign.

The goal is always a positive return. That is what lets you scale your business with paid search.

As an agency we aim for a positive return for our clients, on average around 300%. For every euro a client spends on advertising, we want them to earn three back.

Three steps to the highest possible return

To deliver results like that, our team worked out a fixed process we apply every time we build a campaign. We call it phasing, and it has three steps. Each step aims at more conversions on a lower budget, which is what raises the return.

Step 1: the data phase

The first step is collecting as much information as possible about who is actually searching for your company or product.

For that we focus mainly on gathering clicks. We still track conversions, but we only analyze them in the next phase.

By focusing on clicks we learn which demographics your audience sits in, and we can exclude keywords and locations that do not speak to them.

Step 2: the connection phase

In the second step the focus moves to conversions. By that we do not only mean visitors going on to buy or book.

Here we analyze how your audience behaves on your website. Some visitors stay longer, read more, visit several pages, while others do not.

A pattern emerges. Within our original audience we can now mark out a core of highly qualified prospects, and they become our new audience.

We then address those prospects again through remarketing campaigns, guiding the interested ones closer to their first purchase.

Step 3: the conversion phase

Now that we have narrowed your audience from clickers to qualified prospects, we narrow it again to buyers.

For that we analyze the conversions from step two, asking which share of those interested prospects actually goes on to buy.

Once we know that, we focus all our advertising and remarketing on that very specific audience. On people we are almost certain will buy.

Investing in the right people

Where most agencies try to get as many clicks as possible for the client, we try to do the opposite.

Instead of getting as many clicks as possible on your ad, the phasing process makes sure you only get the right clicks. Because clicks cost you money.

Which would you rather have?

• a hundred clicks at fifty cents that produce one new customer
• or five clicks at fifty cents that produce the same new customer

That is what phasing does. It eliminates the ninety-five clicks that were never going anywhere.

Every company selling through paid search should do this

Every time we build a campaign for a client we apply this process, and it is how we consistently reach a 300% return for them.

Or you can have it done for you. Get in touch.