Do this BEFORE you start your First Google Ads Campaign

Unfortunately, most Google Ads accounts are doomed to fail before they even start, and it actually has nothing to do with their campaigns or what keywords they're targeting or what ads copy they've got. And the reason is, is because before you even start thinking about what campaigns to use, what ad copies you need to write, what keywords you need to target, you need to actually take a further step back and really get down to why you're running these Google Ads campaigns in the first place. And you need to align your business strategy with your Google Ads strategy. Unfortunately, many businesses or many agencies do it the other way around. They bring in their Google Ads knowledge and try to make it fit into the business, whereas you need to do it in reverse, where you first need to be very, very clear as a business what you want to achieve with your Google Ads campaigns, and then you layer that over the top of how you structure your Google Ads account, which campaigns you use, what ad copy you're using, what keywords you're targeting, and then you can get into all those different optimization options. And this is the biggest key and unlock that we help businesses with every single day at Define Digital Academy. Because yes, the settings that you have inside of Google Ads are important, the keywords that you target are important, and the ad copies that you use are important. But what's even more important with that is that you first need to have 100% clarity on what it is you want to achieve with Google Ads, what different levers you need inside of Google Ads, and how you are going to judge success. And what I want to do in this video is I want to take you through the exact onboarding process that we use when a business comes into one of our programs, which is called Define Digital Academy On Demand. And the reason for why businesses reach out and apply for this program is because they've got to that level where they just can't scale their Google Ads spend anymore. And this happens at different points for different businesses. It generally starts somewhere around the $5,000 mark. But some businesses are able to get up to that $30,000 or $40,000 before they've hit, hit this wall. And what the wall is, is that they can no longer profitably scale. And when you get to that level, is that you're not going to change results just by changing some ad copy or adding in a couple of extra negative keywords. Because what the problem is, is it comes down to the structure or the foundation of their Google Ads account. So if you are currently spending that $5,000 or more, you definitely need to watch this video. And if you'd like to find out how we can help you in a more personal way, if you follow that link in the description below, you can get in. You'll see how you can apply for our Define Digital Academy on-demand program, which includes not only weekly live one-on-one coaching calls, but also you get private Slack channels so that you can answer any questions at any time. And we also do a full audit of your account. But if you're just starting your Google Ads journey, this is also a very valuable video to watch, because if you can get these things set right now, you're able— you're going to be able to scale much faster inside of your Google Ads account. And if you would like us to help you a little bit along the way as well, when you're in the link in the description below. You can also find out more about our Google Ads Mastery Program, which is specifically designed for businesses like you who are just setting up and getting started with Google Ads. So what I want to do, I want to make this video as practical as possible. So let's jump into a screen share so I can walk you through the full onboarding process and give you a bit of a behind-the-scenes look of how we go through onboarding businesses to, to really pinpoint and give them exact clarity on how they can see success with their Google Ads campaigns. Let's go. All right, so what I'm going to walk you through here is what we call our onboarding interview. And what the whole goal of this is— what we really want to find out is that we can see your Google Ads account already, we can see all the settings, the campaigns, and everything that you've got. But what we really want to find out is what is success for your business, what are the metrics that are most important, and also what levers do you need to be able to control inside of your business. Because then what we want to see from there is that once we get all this information, we can then look at your Google Ads account and really go through, well, this is what you're saying that you want or what you deem as success for your business. And then we can look at whether your account is set up the right way, because quite often when we go through this process, we see that, you know, when we look at the business goals and then when we look at the actual account structure, there's actually a disconnect there. And what we firmly believe inside of Define Digital Academy is that for success with Google Ads, you need to understand two core things. You need to understand how the business works, but you also need to understand how Google Ads works. And that's why with this process, what it's all about is it's finding how does the business work, and then we layer over the top their Google Ads account and our strategy and go through our audit process. So obviously, couple of little things that we do, you know, we obviously get their name and location. If it's your business, you won't need to get that. Then obviously we do make sure that we've got, um, all of their access. So to, you know, obviously Google Ads, uh, also, um, Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, Google Merchant Center if they're an e-commerce brand, and then any other offline CRMs or tracking that they have. So anything from Triple Whale or Salesforce or HubSpot. So obviously we want to make sure that their conversion tracking is set right and all of those things are set right. But then we want to go down to these core questions. There's obviously— we want to find out their core products or services, but this is probably the core first question you want to ask, and this is We want to find out what is your business model? And probably another way to word that is how does your business make money? And the reason why this question is so important is because it's really, really easy inside of a Google Ads account to get really caught up on things like your cost per conversion or your cost per customer or even your ROAS goals. Now, your metrics like your cost per acquisition or your actual ROAS goals are really, really important. But you need to understand that inside of Google Ads, we don't— I never ever take the reported cost per conversion or the reported ROAS as what's happening inside the business. So I can show you exact examples of a business where we saw half the amount of conversions in any given month, but they were actually getting double the amount of real customers inside their business. And that's what I'm saying, the Google Ads dashboard can really give you the wrong data. And what you want to find out here is, as I said, What is the business model? And let me give you some examples I've seen over the years. We've had worked with some businesses where the profit is not in the sale, the profit is in an ongoing management or an ongoing maintenance plan. And if that's the case, it makes a lot of sense to lower your ROAS goals or to increase your cost per acquisition goals or your cost per conversion goals because you know that every new client may give you a guaranteed 12 months or 3 months of, or even 2 years or 3 years of revenue down the line. So that's why it's important to understand the business model first. Really understand what is the long-term driver of profit and revenue for your business so that you can then make the best decisions for how you set your conversion tracking. This next question is, what is the core objectives of your Google Ads campaigns? And this is a more of a 10,000-foot question that we ask businesses. And what we're really looking at is— and we sometimes will ask this in a different way, so these two questions are pretty much the same. The next one is, what would you like to achieve over the next 6 months? Every business generally wants to increase revenue and also wants to increase their efficiency. So get more money coming in and also lower that— the expenses or lower the cost of goods sold. But there is also seasonality inside of businesses, and there are definitely some businesses where, where that, you know, for this year, for the next 1 to 2 years, its total revenue is more important. And then there's other seasons where it may be efficiency is more important. And what we really want to find out is What stage is your business in right now? Are you in a growth stage where you are happy to have a higher cost per conversion because you know further down the track you're then going to increase the efficiency? Or right now you're going, yeah, we do want to increase the revenue, but what's even more important to us, we need to increase the efficiency or lower our acquisition costs because we don't have the right staff or mechanisms in place in order to grow to the next level. And that's why it's really important to, to understand the season that the business is in, because this makes a lot of difference. And, you know, some of these follow-up questions that it really starts going— perfect example of being if you're on a business that's purely just wanting to drive efficiency, um, it makes sense then add in some extra campaigns like Demand Gen or add in some extra top-of-funnel campaigns like YouTube. Whereas if you're dealing with a business that it's all about just lowering their acquisition costs, you you may not wanna be going down that path. So this process is all about really understanding where the business is at and how they make money. Second thing, what are your breakeven numbers? Now, these are questions that, you know, your average order value, your lifetime value, your cost per acquisition or cost per customer. But what we do really wanna ask, and this is the clear question, is how did you get to that number? And what we really wanna ask there and really wanna drill down on is yes, you've given us your average order value, we know your lifetime value, we know your goal CAC number, but what we really want to find out is how did you get to that number? And that opens up the conversation of, you know, what are your profit margins, what are your cost of goods sold, what is your highest profit margin products? Once again, this allows us to then really come back and have a really clear idea of how we need to structure your account. And a perfect example might be is that you may have a product or a service that has a low volume of sales but a massive high, a really, really super high product margin. If that's the case, we may want to make sure that that is pulled out into another campaign so that we can make sure that Google is spending area— spending money in those areas. Then we also go to, you know, what did your marketing team look like? That's more just so that we know what speed we can make these changes. But then you want to start going into what geographical areas do you target? Are there any seasonal factors, or are there any industry regulations you need to be aware of? And this then becomes important because it really starts to let you know, especially when you're talking about geographic areas and seasonal factors, it lets you start knowing about how many campaigns you need to be running. Say for example, you may have, you may be targeting Northern Hemisphere and Southern Hemisphere countries with both summer and winter clothes. So obviously because of the different seasonality, you may, it may make sense to separate, say for example, your Australian and New Zealand campaigns versus your US-based campaigns. Not only for geographical areas, but also for population and volume areas. So this is starting to really give you a picture of what are the different— and this is what we talk about— what are the different levers. And when I say what are the different levers, what I mean by that is, as a business owner, how do you want to be able to control your spending? It's important to note inside of Google Ads that your, your budget levels are set at the campaign level. So if you do want to be able to control spending across different states or countries, make sure you've got them in different campaigns. Once again, if you need to be able to control those products or services by different seasons, or even by different product categories or service categories, Once again, that's why you need to have different campaigns, because that campaign— because that budget is set at the campaign level. And then you can go through and ask questions about branding spending and also how they want to target their competitors. So the main thing that I really, really want you to take from this video is that before you even think about going through and doing a review of your Google Ads account, if you're unhappy with the current results you're seeing inside of Google Ads, really take it as a chance to take a step back and really think about these core questions of why are you running Google Ads, what does success look like, and what control— what, what levers of control do you need in order to be able to run the most successful Google Ads campaigns for your business? Hey, I know this one was a bit of a different video, but it is really, really an important video because success with Google Ads only starts once you understand what success truly looks like for each individual business. Hey, thanks for joining me. My name is Aaron Young from Define Digital Academy. And remember, if you do need some extra help with your business and its Google Ads, why don't you follow that link in the description below and you can find out more information. If you're just starting and spending up to that $5,000 or $10,000 amount per month in Google Ads, why don't you find out more about our Google Ads Mastery Program? Or if you're already spending over $5,000 a month and you do need some extra help to scale your business to the next level, why don't you go through and apply for our On Demand Program? Hey, thank you so much for joining me. My name is Aaron Young from Define Digital Academy, and if you are just starting in Google Ads and you'd like to find out more more about how to get started with the exact step-by-step process of how to start your very first campaign inside of Google Ads, why don't you go through and watch this video right here? Or if you've already got your campaigns running and you really need to start scaling profitably, go through and watch this video right here. Thanks for joining me. See you next time.