If you’re anything like most people you might agree that Google Ads are a waste of time and only for those in financial services with loads of budget to blow.
Google Ads essentially allow you to pay to appear in the top of Google’s search results on a pay-per-click basis. These ads can get people looking at your website who need financial advice.
Looking at the stats, not only do people click the ads (sometimes more than the organic results), they also enquire and turn into business.
When running a Google ads campaign one of the stats that reports back how often it’s clicked is the “click through rate” (CTR %). This stat will show you out of all the times your ad appeared at what % rate did it get clicked.
In one campaign focused on mortgage advice for medical professionals the campaign received an 18% click through rate meaning the ad was clicked almost once every 5 times it appeared. In comparison the website in position one ‘organically’ (not an ad) on Google received a 9.38% click through rate during the same time period.
Another example of an ad campaign on mortgage advice for a particular type of contractor received a 15.28% click through rate whilst the website featured first organically had a 10.65% click through rate. Not only did the ads get clicked, they were clicked more often than the organic results.
You’ll find the more focussed you are on who you are targeting the higher the click through rate, whereas someone just looking for a local broker you might see a click through rate of less than 10%. For example looking at 2189 ad clicks on a local broker campaign in the midlands the click through rate was 6.8% but a targeted campaign around mortgage advice on visas nationwide got 2215 clicks at a rate of 13.05%.
Ads promoting things like no fee mortgage advice don’t necessarily improve click through rates (as other no fee brokers advertise too). We checked 1288 clicks on a no fee broker campaign which had a click through rate of 9.33%.
If you’ve wasted money on Google Ads in the past it’s probably that your website needs attention not necessarily the ad. The fact that you’ve spent money means that your ad has been clicked (it’s a pay-per-click model), maybe it just didn’t turn into leads or enquiries – because they didn’t like what they saw after clicking the ad.
Having run Google Ads for clients for over 19 years I can confirm that yes, people do click the ads. However, clicks don’t guarantee you clients and this is the real issue.
Yes, people click ads, yes they enquire, and yes they convert to written business.
It’s just not every search has a commercial intent, and even if it has, your website might not be giving the searcher enough information to feel like they trust you enough to solve their problem.
Google Ads gives you the control and flexibility to generate leads for the types of clients you want to help, manage the volume and control the quality. That’s if you spend some time in your prospective client’s shoes.
Would a stranger pick up the phone to you if they have no idea who the people are in your business, let alone get to know them? After reading only a paragraph on how you can help them, would they enquire? Would they get in touch if there’s no proof you’ve helped lots of other people?
So before you claim that nobody clicks the ads, think about what you have done to convince a stranger who does visit your website that you are friendly, approachable advisers with a deep understanding of their problem and have the reviews to show for it.
