Google AdWords (now called just Google Ads) is a great way to reach new customers and grow your doggie daycare and kennel boarding business. There are more than enough
success stories out there, where small businesses uses Google Ads correctly and saw a huge increase in sales or leads. That's not the reality for all businesses that use online advertising, but who knows, maybe your dog daycare or boarding kennel is the next one. Creating successful AdWords ads was
already covered in another blog post; today we're going to talk about some of the main benefits of using Google Ads at your dog daycare.
Let's not beat around the bush too much. Here are a few benefits of using Google AdWords (Ads):
1. Increased Visibility
Google AdWords allows you to reach a large audience and get your business in front of people who are searching for products and services related to your doggie daycare. This is especially true for new dog daycares that are entering the market and don't have a lot of word of mouth traction. If you just opened up for dog daycare and boarding kennel, there's a good chance that a lot of pet owners in your city (these are potential clients) don't even know that you're in business. By putting up some simple advertisements, you can start to get your business name out there in front of new sets of eyes. Given the ability to do some
really granular targeting, you could even consider using a
display ad campaign with your logo to just increase brand awareness. Display ads are the little banners that you see throughout the internet. Search ads are the ads you see in the search results page of Google when you do a search.
2. Cost-Effective Advertising
You only pay for the clicks your ad receives, which makes Google AdWords a cost-effective solution for small businesses. Google Ads can be very cost-effective if you know what you're doing or if you're working with an agency that knows what they're doing. There are
numerous stories of businesses wasting a lot of money on AdWords because they aren't targeting the correct keywords, or they're not using negative keywords, for example. If you're using tightly-focused keyword groups and you have a good set of negative keywords in place, you can really see some
great ROI on your ads.
3. Measurable Results
Google AdWords provides detailed reporting and analytics, so you can see exactly how your campaign is performing. This helps you make informed decisions about your advertising strategy. Once you get a feel for how AdWords works, you can start
looking into conversion tracking. This normally requires you to post a small snippet of code on the "success" page of your contact form. When someone clicks on your Google ads, they'll be taken to your landing page. On the landing page, the goal is for them to submit a form asking about price, scheduling an appointment, etc. Once they submit that form, Google is able to see that their traffic created a new form submission. You can then use this to track your cost per acquisition. If you spend $50 getting 100 clicks and one of them becomes a new paying client, you've spent $50 and you've now got a client that could potentially increase your revenue by thousands of dollars a year. Success!
4. Targeted Advertising
With Google AdWords, you can reach your target audience and show them ads that are relevant to their interests and needs. We talked about this in #1 above, but with Google, you can get really granular with how deep you want to target your ads. Obviously, the goal of online advertising is making sure the
correct people (pet owners) see your ads. If someone doesn't have a dog, you don't want them to see your ad, since it's just a waste if they click on it. With Google (and even Facebook), you can target people by their potential interests, age, location, etc. Google has a profile for most people that use their search program. While they might not know my exact information, based on my internet searches, they can assume at a high level of accuracy that I'm a 30 year old male, interested in programming, travel, hiking, and gardening. So, if there is a company trying to advertise their gardening hikes in foreign countries, they'd want me to see those ads. Your goal would be to focus your ads on pet owners with disposable income that are looking for kennel boarding or dog daycare services. Simple!
5. Quick Results
Google AdWords can deliver quick results, making it a great way to see a return on your investment in a short amount of time. With print advertising, it can take a while between the time you pay for the service and the time you start seeing any results come in. You might pay for an ad in next month's newspaper and then you have to wait. Even if you pay for an ad in next week's paper, there's still the wait. People need to get their paper, find your ad, take action on that ad, and then you can see if it was successful. With Google Ads, you can literally
create an ad campaign in the morning and already start seeing leads by the afternoon. It's amazingly quick!
Get out there and create your first campaign. Set a low budget so you don't spend too much and start driving new traffic to your dog daycare!