How to Find New Customers in The UK with Google Ads

Google Ads is one of the most effective advertising platforms for small to medium sized businesses in the UK. Many businesses use it to advertise their products or services and drive leads and sales from their target audiences.

However, the UK has over 5.5 million businesses, and many of them advertise on Google and it is getting more and more competitive. In fact, average cost per click (CPC) rates have continued to rise, especially after the Covid pandemic and it has gotten more competitive.

But, Google Ads is still the most effective way to advertise your business online, because you are targeting people who are actively searching for your products or services. So, the intent is high, and that’s why conversion rates are high too.

In this guide, I’ll share some tips to help you find customers through Google Ads by setting up effective ads.

 

1. Understand Your Target Audience

First begin with a knowledge of who your customers are and what they need. So, you should identify their demographics, interests and purchasing behaviour, so you can work that into your ads and landing pages.

And use research tools like Google Keyword Planner to find keywords your potential customers are searching for. And look for a mix of short and long-tail keywords.

 

2. Set Clear Goals

After identifying your target audience, you now need to set goals that define what you want to achieve.

So, you’ll identify your campaign objectives  whether that’s sales, leads, brand awareness etc, and you will identify key performance indicators to track like click through rate (CTR), conversion rate, cost per acquisition (CPA) and so on.

 

3. Create Targeted Campaigns

With Search campaigns you can use text ads and add keywords to target people searching for your products and services. And you should focus on intent and select keywords that suggest that users are ready to be customers.

With Shopping campaigns you can promote your ecommerce business and drive sales from customers who see your product listings on Google and its shopping partner sites. These ads showcase a price, title, image, store name and so on.

Use Display campaigns to reach users who are on partner websites within the Google Display Network. You will use banner and image ads, and these are great for brand awareness and retargeting.

 

4. Leverage Audience Targeting

You can use audience settings for your Search ads and narrow down your focus to people who are searching and fit a certain profile.

And you can use audiences for Display campaigns and use the following:

– in-market audiences – target people who are actively searching for your products or services

– custom audiences – create custom intent and affinity audiences based on behaviours, keywords or website visits.

– remarketing – create audiences of people who have visited your website before and re-engage them.

 

5. Optimize Ad Copy and Creatives

Next, you’ll create your Google Ads campaign to start advertising and get customers and you’ll need to update the following:

– compelling headlines – write clear and persuasive headlines that address the needs of your users.

– call-to-action (CTA) – include strong CTAs in your responsive search ads like “buy now” or “get a quote”.

 

6. Set a Budget and Bidding Strategy

Setting a budget for a new campaign can be a challenge. How much do you need to spend to drive the volume of customers that you need? This can be hard to answer. But doing keyword research can give you a good idea. And starting with a small budget too is good, and then you can increase it as performance improves.

With bidding you can choose between manual and automated bidding. It’s a good idea to start with an automated bid strategy like Maximize Clicks and then test others later.

 

7. Utilise Extensions

Ad Extensions, also known as Assets, enhance your ads with additional information like sitelinks, callouts and structured snippets. They help to increase visibility and improve your click through rates which boosts the performance of your campaigns.

 

8. Monitor and Optimize Campaigns

After setting up your campaign, you’ll be ready to start advertising, and drive clicks and sales for your business. And you will monitor and optimize the campaign.

Google provides tools like Google Analytics and Google Ads reporting to help you monitor the performance of your campaign.

And you will add negative keywords to avoid wasting money on irrelevant searches.

And this will help to improve your quality scores as you enhance ad relevance, expected CTR and landing page experience.

 

9. Evaluate and Scale

It’s important to regularly review your campaigns to see how they are performing. This will help you to understand what’s working and what isn’t.

And then scale successful campaigns by increasing budgets and exploring new keywords and audiences to reach more potential customers.

 

Conclusion

By following the steps above and continuously optimizing your Google Ads campaigns, you can effectively find and attract new customers and increase your overall business growth. I’m a Google Ads specialist with over 15 years experience. Contact me below to discuss your requirements.