Phil Risher says Google Ad lead costs have jumped 16-20% in recent years, making paid search as risky as relying on Yellow Pages. He recommends building four systems instead: organic traffic, brand-building, B2B partnerships, and direct outreach.
Approximately 16–20% over recent years.
Companies that five years ago got all of their leads through Google Ads are not getting the same amount of leads by spending the same amount of money. The cost per Google Ad leads has gone up 16%, 20% over the years, jacking up the lead cost. And we have a company right now that we work with that's saying, I'm not getting the same amount of lead volume through ads. What should I do? And our message to them is that you're basically at the point of Yellow Pages. 20 years ago you had the heyday of yellow pages, spending all this money on ads and getting a bunch of leads coming in and the tides are turning. People are not doing the same thing that they're doing five years ago. What you need to do is build different systems in your business and there's four of them. You need an organic traffic game plan and that's on site SEO, off site SEO and social content to drive leads to your business for free. But we know this, in the next three to five years, search is shifting, so ad costs are only going to get more and more expensive, but brand is going to be living through. The other thing is you need to build B2B partnerships. What if you could get to people before they went to Google search and they found an ad, but you got a warm lead from someone that they asked, like another vendor or another complimentary service. And then the fourth thing is good old fashioned cold calling, door knocking, cold outreach. If you're at the mercy of Google Ads and you're frustrated by the rise in Google Ad spend, one, you're not alone. Two, you need to diversify how you're getting leads coming in the door and build out a complete marketing system. Ad spend is only going to get more expensive and leads are only going to get more expensive that way.
