Google Ads Video Transcript
Hello, and welcome to talking with the experts. My name is Rose Davidson from Rose Davidson.com and you can find me on LinkedIn, on YouTube and on SoundCloud. And today, my guest is Thomas Green from Ethical Marketing Service. And today we’re going to be talking about marketing as sales multiplied, and sales drives revenue. And Thomas is a husband and parent to three children, an advocate of peaceful parenting and entrepreneur, a certified Google Ads professional, and has recently published his first book, The No-Nonsense Google Ads Book, which is available now on Amazon. Welcome, Thomas. Hello. Hi, Rose. How are you? I’m very well. So what’s it like in England at the moment?
We’re dealing with everything locked down related. So I’m not sure what it’s like for you at the moment, but it’s it’s a challenge at the moment. I think it is for everybody. We’ve just coming out of lockdown here. So it’s thankfully, I think we’ll all be together for Christmas. It’s been a while been very, very nice. So firstly, tell me a little bit about your book.
The specific title or the topic. Google ads. So anything related to Google ads, you may be interested in that. But it also has a specific chapter on marketing psychology. So I wanted to include that just specifically because I feel like with Google ads, people focus a lot on the tech. And although that’s very important, there’s also an aspect to what happens after someone comes from a Google ad and goes to the site. And my opinion is that it’s just as important to focus on the marketing that happens after someone gets to your site as it is, before they do. So. I kind of I wanted to include that just because of those principles that I feel like I can share within the book. Yep. So can you just explain a little bit more about how you know how the marketing after an ad is, you know, just as important as the ad itself?
Yeah, the analogy I use is, if you take it away from a computer for a moment, a Google Ads person would be if you imagine, like a town centre or something, you imagine someone going out and prospecting and finding individuals, that would be a good fit for a local shop or something. So I would be the person who goes out and finds a good prospect for your local shop. And what I would do is I’d take that person, and then I’d sort of introduce them at the entrance of the shop.
Then anything they do after that is kind of down to the business itself. And that would be, you know, going to the website. And all sorts of things can happen when someone goes into a shop, you know, maybe they don’t have a good experience, maybe they don’t, they can’t find the product that they’re interested in, you know, the scenarios are, there’s multiple scenarios that can happen. And everything you know, Google Ads related would be, to come back to the analogy for a moment, if I don’t find you the right person who’s not perhaps interested in that product, then it doesn’t matter how good you are, when someone enters your shop, you’re not going to make a sale from that. So it’s down to, it will be down to myself to make sure that the prospect is good. And then anything that happens after the click is then kind of the website’s responsibility.
So I would say is half the battle is how I look at it. And that’s the reason I included it in the book, is because it’s a big part of it too, to not focus on the the marketing, that happens once that prospect is on the site itself. Yep. So how does I guess, um, people complain about Google ads? A lot, and how much they cost?
So maybe you could explain in simple terms, what are the benefits of having Google ads, over other, you know, like, Facebook ads, or whatever.
I would say that the, the main kind of metric that I would focus on there is not necessarily the cost per click, which I feel like most people would be thinking about, in relation to expense of a particular marketing medium. But what’s important is the client acquisition costs, so and what you what you would do there is you focus on the lifetime value of a particular client.
So what is a client worth to your business. And then once you figure that out, you are aware of what you can afford to pay for them. And so maybe it’s the case that Google Ads is expensive for your particular industry. But the only way that you figure that out is by testing it. And you’d once you have that number, you can figure out whether Google Ads is a sustainable medium for your business.
So if you take a, to give you an example, the mortgage industry is a great example for being particularly expensive, because you’re competing with, you know, High Street banks. And you can get cost per clicks of just very, very large amounts that perhaps you don’t want to go into if you’re a smaller company. But because most people are not a high street bank, they’re, you know, local businesses. I think that, you know, the majority of businesses can do quite well from Google ads, because it’s the way I like to explain it’s push versus pull marketing. Push is an example of Facebook because when people go on Facebook, they don’t necessarily go
On there to be sold to, so they’re going on Facebook and they’re looking at their feed and in a way you’re pushing your marketing out to them. Whereas Google ads, what you’re doing is searching for a specific thing, and you’re, if someone searches for a particular service, all you’re saying is “we do that service”, and if you’re interested, then, you know, go to this site.
That would be an example of pull marketing. And so you’re, there’s an advantage to getting in front of people who are actually searching for a specific thing. Now, as I said, I don’t I don’t think Google Ads is right for every industry, but from what I have, no, I think, from the perspective of is it worth testing, you know, being on the most popular search engine?
is well worth testing for any business. And in a lot of industries, it’s, it’s beneficial for that particular client. So could you explain what a cost per click? What does that actually mean?
So for, there’s a difference in the search engine between the natural results and the the ads that are placed on Google ads, on Google rather. And every time someone decides to click on an ad, an advertiser is charged for that. So for easy maths, every, let’s say, take a local example. Let’s say you have a local plumber, and they want to put their, put an ad on Google.
Every time someone comes from a search time, let’s say “local plumber”, they click on that ad, and let’s say it cost them a pound. So every time someone clicks, let’s say they got 100 clicks, or 100 people that come to their website, that would cost them 100 pounds, because the cost per click would be one pound. Okay, that makes sense. Yeah. Okay. So I guess, the lifetime I guess, of a client with versus the cost per click, how does that, you know, benefit the business.
If you’re in a business, where, let’s say there isn’t any repeat custom, so you get a one time sale, and that’s it, the lifetime value would be just that one sale that you get. Whereas if we take our example of a local plumber, there might be many repeat purchases that you get from, you know, opening up that relationship. And there’s a principle in marketing, which says that the more that you can pay for a client, the more difficult it is for your competitors to compete with you.
So if we, I tend to like to get a return on investment for any client. But if we just take the lifetime value principle for a moment, if you were to calculate that, on average, a plumber might get three jobs from a particular new client of theirs. And it might be well worth, you know, not making any money from that initial customer purchase in order to acquire that client for the profit of the two future jobs.
So what you are what you can afford to pay for acquiring that client might be, let’s say, 100 pounds, for example. And then you know, what you can afford to pay. And that metric is within Google ads, because you can track all everything that happens within the platform. Yeah, I like Google Analytics. I really like that a lot. Because it is easy to track. You know, so much, and they’ve done a great job in in in how they’ve organised what they do, you know, so that people can track they can track even, you know, Facebook ads, they can still track those on their website. So through through Google Analytics, it’s really amazing
Do you have experience with any, you know, advertising online? I don’t tend to advertise online and I usually just sort of advertise in groups. I haven’t been I’ve been approached by AdSense to to use their services, but I, I was a bit hesitant to go ahead with it. I think it was the initial outlay that scared me a little bit so there.
And do you intend on monetizing the YouTube channel that you have? Eventually, yeah, eventually. I think it will be well worth it. I think there’s a lot of value in all of these videos and the podcast itself. So yeah, I do intend to do that down the track.
Once it gets a bit more well known, I don’t want to start doing it just yet, because it’s, it’s still new. I’ve only been going since July. So, yeah, it’s a new, it’s new for me, it’s not new for other people. But I think what I’m offering is, is, is different from other podcasters. So most people just get on there and you know, talk to themselves. I’m actually interviewing people, and other business owners and entrepreneurs, you know, authors, whatever from their perspective of, you know, what value they can bring to other business owners. Yeah, well, I feel, I don’t think that’s happening too much in this sort of podcast space.
Because I had a look at some of the episodes that you’ve done on the YouTube channel, and I feel like I know you a lot more than I actually do. Because of the fact that I’ve watched some episodes. And, you know, although we’ve only met today, I feel like you know, we’ve got that relationship, because I’ve been watching you on your episodes.
Isn’t that Lovely, thank you. At least someone’s watching! I wanted to ask you about your book, because you said that you, you co authored a book, and it’s done really well. So it’s not a business book. It’s not a business book. It’s a women, I guess, who have through trauma, and come out the other side as sharing their experience. So yeah. Okay. But thank you for asking. Yeah, I was really, I was really excited about that.
I’m happy to go into that conversation. But I feel like it could take a turn for not what this is about.
So tell me what, you are a certified Google Ads professional. What does it take to become a Google Ads professional, certified through Google?
The I mean, the, the short answer to that is the exams. So you can become certified just through doing the exams that Google have created. There’s about five or six different ones and I have passed every single one of them, you have to take them every one or two years. And so if you’ve been in it for a while, the exams get fairly monotonous to do.
But yeah, me and my team are all certified, certified Google Ads professionals. Right. And so your base, obviously, in the UK, as I said earlier, do you have clients overseas? Or are they just based in the UK?
Yeah, we do. I have done some work for people in Australia, and we have current clients in the US. So the fact that it’s all done by the internet, kind of removed any boundaries, especially with stuff like zoom and Skype regarding, you know, physical location. So you’re competing with the whole world, if you’re in that particular industry.
Absolutely. I think COVID had its pluses in as far as, you know, more people getting on the internet to do business. It’s forced them to, to innovate, you know, businesses that, you know, were normally a face to face business and have now had to just shift and, and yeah, become more innovative, and go online and, you know, do their thing. And it’s been a great thing. And I do believe that this will be the new normal, I don’t care what anyone says, I think more internet business will be done in the future. Because it costs less. It costs less, I mean, what does it cost you to, to have a Skype or, or a YouTube or, or a zoom call really nothing. You don’t have to drive anywhere, you don’t have to fly anywhere. You know, you can email people the documents if need be, or you can even message them. So you know, it’s cheap. It’s a cheap way of doing business.
Have you had any guests that have had to innovate their business in some way? Sorry? Have you had any guests that have had to completely change their business? Um, yeah, I think I’ve had a couple of them.
And they were, well, perhaps maybe not in my guests. But I know people that either in my business circle or friends of mine that have had to actually pivot their business because. I hate that word. But it just seems to have like flow off the tongue, doesn’t it? Pivot.
You go ahead, you go ahead you’re the guest, you speak.
I was going to say it’s like a a political term, a pivot. It is isn’t it? Um, I find it really icky. But it’s, it’s the word of the of the decade, I think word of the word of the year, pivot, pivot.
Tell me a little bit about your background, you you were in a finance position before you decided that, you know, you hated it so much that you’d start your own business. So what exactly were you doing? And and, you know, why did you hate it so much?
Well, initially, this is going back away, now. I did start a little while ago, a video production company. And it’s what some people would refer to as a quote unquote, side hustle. But in order to, you know, it wasn’t a full time, we didn’t have the ability at the time to be a full time business.
So I did have to, you know, support myself with a job, which was supposed to be a, you know, stopgap type job. So a year, you know, I thought I’d be in it for that long, because I was also studying at the same time. And it turned out that I had, you know, I had been there for five years. And I changed from being part time to full time, and I could see myself in this job for, you know, far too long.
Yeah. There were people that have been there for decades. And although you know, I don’t, I don’t see anything wrong with being in that industry, if that’s what you like to do. But I just felt like enough was enough. And I didn’t have any clients in, you know, starting my marketing agency, I just had done the exams that I told you about. And I knew that it was a potentially a valid business at the time. And so because I’d hit five years, and because it come to the end of, it was going to be the end of the year, so I would have been going into my sixth year of being in that company, I decided that whatever was going to happen, I was going to leave that job at the end of the year.
So my last day was on New Year’s Eve, and I was going to start a new venture on first of January, start scratch from a new year. And whatever it took, you know, whatever it takes to make it in the business. I was going to do it. So it took some sacrifice. And you know, I worked on, I worked ridiculous hours, and I worked. I didn’t really take any holidays. And you know, I got married at some stage, and I worked on my honeymoon. But eventually things have changed for me a little bit now. Because it gets into the topic of systemising a business and replacing yourself in that business. So you’re not doing absolutely everything.
So it has the ability to, quote unquote, scale. But yeah, that’s kind of the summary of that story, if you if you like. Yeah, I think people need to take a leap of faith and really just go out there and back themselves, you know, if they’ve got a great idea, and they’ve got great skills and a great skill set. You know, sometimes if you just want to leave the job that doesn’t fulfil you, and you can go and start out on your own. I think, you know, the leap of faith and backing yourself is really important. Even if it takes time, and not everything, you know, happens overnight. Rome wasn’t built in a day as they say so, yeah, I take my hat off to people who, back themselves, and don’t shy away from challenge. I think challenges are great.
Yeah, I do have another thing which may help if someone’s considering doing that, is I had a little bit of savings. And I thought that if I made absolutely no revenue in that time, how long could actually survive attempting to make that revenue? So I had about three months worth, so I can sustain myself for three months. So after three months, I have to have, you know, done something. And I didn’t have to use it all so
Oh, that’s good stuff. Yay. And got married in the meantime. Oh, my God. Yeah. Big ask.
Yeah, and I’ve got three little ones in that time as well. And one of them is six weeks. So if I look a bit tired it’s because of that.
I know. Yeah. I understand that. totally understand that. Totally. All right, Thomas. Where can people find you if they’re trying to look for you?
The easiest way I would say is if you go to ethicalmarketingservice.com, then all the social links are at the bottom. And you can choose whatever way that you want to follow my content. As I said, I upload regularly on social. So if you’re looking for free content, that’s what I do. I don’t do a lot of pitching or anything. But yes, just valuable content as much as I can do anyway.
Yeah, I think adding value to other people, I think is, is good for the soul.
Yeah, it means that you don’t have to, do something that you’re not comfortable with. So I don’t like to be heavy on pitching all the time. And if I can help someone, then it makes me feel good.
Absolutely. That’s what that’s how I feel exactly. If I can help this one person, then you know, my day is wonderful. Love it.
Anyway, Thomas, thank you so much for your time today. And I hope that we can chat again, on a similar topic sometime in the future. Well, I appreciate you having me on. And I’ll be looking out for the YouTube channels getting on and thank you for your contribution. You’ve, you’ve done a lot of work. So thank you for that. Thank you. All right, let’s talk again soon. Okay, bye bye.