With the ever-growing online market slowly spreading into every aspect of our lives, online advertising has become a pretty hot topic among marketers worldwide.
Naturally, as with anything that gains such a rise in popularity, certain myths have popped up around it.
More specifically, Google’s very own AdWords has been enveloped in a plethora of myths that have turned a great many marketers from adopting an AdWords campaign.
This is primarily due to misinformed articles and blog posts pumping out information that is just plain wrong and inaccurate. In an attempt to clear things up, here are a couple of common myths circling around online.
6 Google AdWords Myths
1. They don’t work.
This is pretty much self-explanatory. People have a tendency to think that no one simply clicks on internet ads and that the whole endeavor is a waste of time. This cannot be farther from the truth.
Google is a multimillion-dollar company that generates well over $100 million per day just from people clicking on their ads.
With the typical ad generating anywhere from $1 to $2, it amounts to over 50 million clicks in just 24 hours.
The ads do work, and Google makes sure they present themselves to your specified audience. The shocking thing is that all of these financial records are public, yet the myth still endures.
Read also: How to Make $1000 per Month Blogging with Ads
2. Using the same keyword again hinders your chances of being seen.
Pardon my Vulcan, but this one is simply illogical.
The idea behind this myth is that by using the same keyword for multiple ads, like, for example “shoes” directly puts you in competition with yourself.
The idea doesn’t make sense because it is the equivalent of saying that buying two lottery tickets hinders your chances of winning.
If anything, using the same keyword helps your marketing campaign.
It solidifies the connection between your company and the keyword, upping your chances of being seen. You just won’t get two ads displayed for the same search.
3. It’s expensive for small businesses.
Again, clear, unadulterated misinformation.
Anyone that has ever even remotely considered the possibility of looking into, not doing business with, just looking into Google AdWords knows that every user sets their own budget and bids.
This means that every company is free to set their own limitations and alter them if need be in real time.
You really can get clicks by spending both $50 and $5. It only becomes expensive when newcomers start going for the highest bids without truly understanding what they’re doing and how to get your expected ROI (Return on Investment).
4. Spending more money on AdWords will influence search ranking.
Unbeknownst to, well, apparently more people than previously thought, Google’s search engine and AdWords are two separate entities.
Signing up for AdWords won’t skyrocket a site to the front page. Similarly, cancelling AdWords won’t banish a site to Google’s dreaded double digit page search results.
There are several factors that will impact search ranking. They’re all available on Google’s very own site, none of which mention anything about hosted ads. Ads appear as sponsored content on top of everything else and are a separate entity from the search results found below.
5. Conversion rates impact quality score.
Simply put – not the case. The idea is to nudge site visitors to complete the desired action (convert) by filling out a form or signing up for a mailing list.
The misconception is that landing pages should be supplied with an easy conversion event to “boost” their conversion rates.
Interestingly enough, it won’t affect your quality score in any meaningful way, in fact, it might even do the opposite.
By artificially creating a boom in conversion rates, it can actually make it more difficult to gauge the returns of the AdWords investment. Quality score is only directly affected by your CTR or click-through rate.
6. Click fraud.
A common fear of many possible users is the threat of click fraud. Imagine a competitor stumbles upon your ad, and just starts clicking like crazy. This would up your AdWord costs and put an unplanned dent in your finances.
Team from the Adwords management in Sydney has taken steps to make clients aware of Google’s very own click fraud detection program which essentially filters out invalid clicks on the spot.
It tracks the IP address of each click, mapping out activity and sifting through any unwanted activity. So, at the end of the day, if someone does attempt this, at least we have the treat of knowing that they’re wasting their time.
There’s a long road ahead, but we’ve already made miraculous progress. Online marketing is on the rise, with everything a click away, advertisers need to step their game up.
One of the ways of doing so is getting informed. These myths were all relatively logical and yet this was just a select few of the dozens of myths circulating out there.
Lucky for us, Google is a very transparent company with the truth floating out there somewhere in the sea of cat gifs and uninformed blog posts. All we need to do is to take a look.
About The Author
This article was written by Helen Bradford.
