“It’s not whether you win or lose, it’s how you play the game.” — BS I say – not when it comes to marketing! If you translate that famous quote into marketing terms, it would read like this: “It’s not whether you win or lose money, it’s how you play the game.” Somehow the marketing version doesn’t sound so warm and fuzzy, does it?
The game I’m referring to is Google Ads, previously known as Adwords. The Google pay per click advertising platform that can help you take your practice to the next level, but only if you’re on top of your game.
I like to compare Google Ads to a casino… In a casino, if you don’t know what you’re doing, you’re going to get slaughtered sooner than later because the house always wins. Google Ads is no different, with the major exception that casinos love dumb gamblers, but Google loves the smart player who knows what they’re doing. You see, the smart player keeps coming back to make more money for both Google and themselves. But if you don’t know how to play the Google Ads game, Google will take your money and leave you out to dry.
The difference between a rabid gambler in a casino, and a dumb player in the Google Ads game, is that the gambler at the casino will keep coming back to get wiped out again and again because he’s addicted to gaming. But a dumb player in the Google Ads game will lose his shirt once, and leaves the game for good saying Google Ads doesn’t work.
Google doesn’t want people saying Google Ads doesn’t work. That’s why they award the smart players who know how to play the game and make money for everybody, and penalize the dumb players with the ‘stupidity tax.’ That’s the tax Google slaps dumb players with so they either smarten up or get out of the game.
If you’re a dumb player in the Google Ads game, Google doesn’t want your money. But if you’re a smart advertiser, Google will actually help you make more money and grow your business because so will they. It’s that simple.
But you might ask, Frank is it really that simple with Google Ads? Well yes, the concept is simple, but if you’re asking if Google Ads works for everybody, then the answer is no, but let me explain why…
PPC (pay per click) advertising or Google Ads, consists of two parts: (1) The Google Ads machine itself which drives the traffic to your website, and (2) your actual website (or landing page) where that traffic lands and the ‘conversion’ takes place – or doesn’t. It doesn’t matter how much traffic you drive to a page if you can’t ‘convert’ the traffic. Converting traffic means converting a prospective patient (a website visitor) into a paying patient (a client.)
Both parts have to be done right for PPC advertising to work. You can be a PPC expert and know Google Ads inside-out, but if you send the traffic to a website or landing page with poor marketing, it will flop because you only got part of it right.
If you’re struggling with pay per click advertising and need a professional look under the hood, contact me today to see if you qualify for my Free Google Ads Audit.
Frank Prieto is a marketing strategist helping acupuncturists generate highly qualified leads from the internet and converting more of them into new patients.
