“We’re spending a lot of money on Google Ads. Why are we getting so few enquiries or sales?”
If your Google Ads campaign is not set up properly, you can unknowingly waste a significant amount of money. It may seem like things are going well, but in reality your budget may be spent on keywords that are not relevant enough to your business, or on keywords that are relevant but do not generate sales or enquiries. Muntaner Marketing can help you analyse your existing campaign and implement improvements to make it run more efficiently, ensuring your budget is spent more effectively.
“How much budget do we need to see results?”
This depends entirely on the type of business, the industry you operate in and, of course, the available budget. A larger budget does not always mean greater success, but it can increase your visibility in search engines. With a larger budget, you can target more relevant keywords and therefore appear more frequently in search results. Start-ups often begin with a smaller budget, which is expanded once the campaign starts delivering results. A good approach is to manage the Google Ads budget based on ROI or ROAS, allowing you to scale your budget according to the conversions and revenue generated.
“How quickly will we see results from a Google Ads campaign?”
With Google Ads, you can often become visible in search results within a few days and start receiving clicks or even conversions shortly afterwards. Achieving stable and profitable results usually takes more time. During the first few weeks, campaigns are continuously optimised based on data, search behaviour and conversions. How quickly you see meaningful results depends on factors such as competition, budget, industry and the quality of the website or landing page.
“How can we compete with larger companies that have bigger budgets?”
Especially in highly competitive markets, smaller or start-up businesses can struggle with this challenge. If you have a limited budget for Google Ads campaigns, it is wise to focus on a niche within your industry. For example, target more specific keywords or long-tail keywords in your advertising. Although the search volume may be lower, the competition is often lower as well, meaning you pay less per click. This increases your chances of ranking at the top of search results and can also improve the likelihood of conversions from those keywords.
“Which keywords should we use for our industry?”
The answer to this question depends entirely on the business and the industry. When launching a Google Ads campaign, you can start by creating an overview of terms that are relevant to your business or sector. Consider the markets you serve, the products or services you offer and what makes your business unique compared to others. A tool such as the Keyword Planner within Google Ads can help refine your keyword list further. It can also be useful to enter certain keywords into Google yourself to see what competitors are targeting or which suggestions Google provides based on your search term. Depending on your budget, you can choose to advertise on broader search terms (which generally means more competition, higher cost-per-clicks and therefore higher costs overall) or focus on more specific long-tail keywords (less competition, lower cost-per-clicks and generally lower overall costs).
“Why are our cost-per-clicks (CPC) continuously increasing?”
Increasing cost-per-clicks in Google Ads can have several causes. It may be due to a combination of market developments, competition and the way your campaign or account is structured.
For example, there may be increased competition for certain keywords during a particular period, meaning advertisers have to bid more aggressively for the top positions in search engines. Competitors may also have started bidding more aggressively because of larger available budgets or because they are using automated bidding strategies.
Another possibility is that the Quality Score of your keywords has decreased, meaning you need to pay more for the same position. If your adverts have become less relevant, your website has become slower, search behaviour has changed or your landing page no longer aligns properly with your keywords, this can result in a lower Quality Score and higher CPCs.
Keyword CPCs can also rise when demand for those keywords increases, for example due to seasonal trends, economic developments, the use of automated bidding strategies or tools that frequently recommend certain popular keywords.
If a campaign relies heavily on broad match keywords or poorly targeted keywords, you may end up bidding on irrelevant terms or highly competitive search terms. This can also drive up CPCs.
A poorly structured Google Ads campaign can also lead to higher CPCs. An improperly configured campaign can result in lower relevance, poorer performance and therefore higher click costs.
In addition, competitors may simply have better adverts and landing pages than you, allowing them to win auctions more often at lower costs. In that case, you will need to bid more to remain visible.
And last but not least, advertising costs are increasing year after year across many industries. Businesses are shifting budgets from offline to online marketing, making advertising auctions structurally more expensive. This naturally affects your CPCs as well.
Higher CPCs are not always a bad thing. If your CPCs increase but your conversion value rises even more, your campaign may actually become more profitable. That is why it is important not to focus solely on CPCs, but on the overall performance of the campaign.
“How do we measure whether Google Ads is actually profitable?”
One of the advantages of Google Ads is that campaign performance can be measured very accurately, provided the campaign is set up correctly. You can track whether keywords generate conversions, such as product purchases, service enquiries or leads submitted through a contact form. By assigning a value to these conversions, campaign costs can be compared against revenue generated.Within Google Ads, people often refer to ROAS and ROI.
ROAS stands for Return On Ad Spend and shows how much revenue is generated from advertising costs (revenue from adverts divided by advertising spend). For example, if you spend €1,000 on Google Ads and the campaign generates €5,000 in revenue, your ROAS is 5 or 500%. In other words, every euro spent on advertising generates €5 in revenue.
ROI stands for Return On Investment and looks at the actual profit generated by your investment (profit divided by total investment, or revenue minus costs divided by costs). If you spend €1,000 on Google Ads, your product and other operational costs are €3,000 (resulting in total costs of €4,000) and the campaign generates €5,000 in revenue, then your profit is €1,000. In this case, the ROI would be (€5,000 – €4,000) ÷ €4,000 = 25%.
ROI therefore provides a broader view of campaign profitability than ROAS.
“Why are we getting clicks but no conversions?”
Receiving clicks in a Google Ads campaign without any conversions usually indicates a mismatch between search intent, the advert and the landing page. This assumes that conversion tracking has been configured correctly, as this should always be the first thing checked when no conversions are being recorded. Other possible causes include targeting the wrong keywords, using overly broad or incorrect targeting, having a landing page that does not align properly with the keyword and advert, offering something that is not competitive enough, or technical issues on the website itself. If you are experiencing problems with your current Google Ads campaign and are unsure how to proceed, Muntaner Marketing would be happy to review it with you.
“Can we manage Google Ads ourselves or do we need a specialist?”
Many businesses wonder whether they can manage their Google Ads campaigns themselves or whether it is better to hire a specialist. In principle, anyone can set up a campaign, but successful campaigns require far more than simply launching adverts. Google Ads is constantly evolving. Keywords, bidding strategies, ad copy and targeting all need to be optimised regularly to maintain strong results. Without experience, it is often difficult to identify why costs are increasing or conversions are underperforming. In addition, Google frequently recommends automated settings that do not always deliver the best return on investment. A specialist looks beyond clicks and traffic, focusing instead on profitability, conversions and the efficient use of advertising budgets. For smaller accounts or businesses with sufficient marketing knowledge, self-management can work perfectly well. In many other cases, however, a specialist provides greater peace of mind, improved performance and a higher return from campaigns.
“Help, the person who normally manages my Google Ads campaigns is temporarily or long-term unavailable. How can I keep my campaigns running?”
This can happen to any business owner. An employee may be on long-term sick leave, maternity leave or a sabbatical. Or perhaps your employee suddenly resigned, or you previously managed the campaigns yourself but no longer have the time. What should you do with the Google Ads campaigns that person was managing? It is certainly not advisable to simply leave campaigns unattended. To get the best results from a campaign, it needs to be monitored and adjusted regularly. You may not want to hire an expensive agency to manage the campaigns for you. Furthermore, agencies often have multiple people working on the same campaigns, with varying levels of success. Ideally, you want someone who can respond quickly, work directly within your existing accounts, is reliable and gives you peace of mind that everything is being handled properly. That is why Muntaner Marketing is available for interim SEA support, second opinions, campaign monitoring and temporary campaign management.