Google AdWords is one of the trickiest aspects of online marketing to figure out. There is a reason why there are so many marketing organizations that specifically target Google ads, including Auguste Global’s Google Marketing Program that focuses on AdWords for cleaning businesses.
The problem is that unless you know what you are doing, it can take a while before your Google ads start to bring in clients. In fact, it can take up to 12 months for you to see results with AdWords. This does not mean that your campaign will be a failure until then. Rather, your campaign will slowly improve over time (as you optimize) and mature into something extremely profitable.
The best thing you can do is to let an ad run for a significant amount of time, see how it performs, and make changes accordingly. Over time, you should be able to see the results that you wanted when you initially began the campaign.
Let’s start with why you should temper your expectations at the inception of your campaign.
Remember That Ad Reporting Is Not Realtime
One mistake that novice Google marketers constantly make is refreshing their ad statistics as soon as the ad has been approved. While your ad will start displaying to potential clients as soon as you see the approval notification, the statistics will not be visible for some time.
We recommend waiting at least 24 hours before checking your ad’s analytics. Another advantage of doing this is that you have a full day’s worth of data to feast your eyes on.
Wait a While Before You Start Worrying
Ideally, you should wait for at least a week before you start drumming up explanations for why your ads are behaving the way they are. As a cleaning business, there may be more queries for your services on certain days of the week. For example, house cleaners should expect people to look them up during the weekend, whereas office cleaners may find more traffic during the week.
Of course, the actual campaign will take a lot longer to take off. However, I have seen cleaning business owners shut down campaigns after noticing abysmal results during the first couple of days. This is by far the worst thing you can do, and a bigger waste of money than pouring it down the drain!
The Initial Phase Has Subpar Results
During the first phase of the campaign, you will mostly be learning about the AdWords market and how to get the best out of it in your industry. The campaign will not do particularly well during this time and you should expect to make huge changes to the way you run your ads.
This length of this phase varies by industry. However, it lasts for three months on average. On top of that, the vast majority of the improvement in the traffic for your website will occur during the latter half of this period. During this time, you must have a cleaning business website that is built to convert the few leads that you do get.
One way you can lessen the time it takes AdWords to see results is by performing keyword research before your campaign begins. This way, you will have a better idea of what to target. Of course, you will still need to change the way you run your campaign significantly. However, the results will improve at a faster rate.
Optimization Leads to Better Results
If you know how Google Ads work for cleaning business, then this is the phase when you can make your cleaning service stand out in your target market.
After around 3 months, your campaign should have the basics perfected. Now, you need to look at long-term results and make smaller changes that will eventually have a massive impact on the clicks you receive.
The optimization period can last anywhere from 3-9 months. This means that it may take 12 months before you realize the full potential of your ad campaign. Don’t worry though, as the results during the optimization period are still decent.
The Final Phase is a Cleaning Business Owner’s Dream
Eventually, you will get to the fun part. This is when your ad campaign is good enough to not require any significant changes. Google estimates that AdWords generates $2 for every $1 spent for its users.
At this point, you should comfortably be generating new leads without a lot of effort. Whether you manage to convert these leads is down to how good you are at it.
If you have been running your campaign for a while but are not seeing improvements, you might want to consider hiring a professional marketing organization. We have already mentioned Auguste Global’s Google Marketing program. You may also want to consider our Search Engine Optimization services.
An SEO campaign is much cheaper to run. However, remember that while the ROI could be higher in an SEO campaign, a Google AdWords campaign will almost always generate more profit (in absolute terms) if done properly.
