Many businesses lose money on Google Ads. Others, in the same market, run profitable campaigns year after year.
What's the difference?
That's what this book is about.
It's for business owners. It's written in plain English. It doesn't have any technical jargon, short-lived hacks or perishable strategies. Instead it covers the timeless principles that have helped my clients advertise profitably since 2008.
In it you’ll learn that Google Ads doesn't succeed unless it's part of a working system. I'll show you what that system is and how to assemble it. You'll also learn how to make Google Ads more profitable by improving the areas you control:
- Converting more website visitors into leads.
- Attracting better-quality leads.
- Turning more leads into customers.
- Keeping your ads aligned with your business goals.
Table of contents
PART I INTRODUCTION
1. What's in, and not in, this book. Who I am, and how this can help you
2. A sale doesn't just happen, it's a process
PART II THE CLIENT FRAMEWORK
3. Google Ads is only profitable in a working system
4. Clicks: You need enough of the right people to click your ads
5. Landing pages convert visitors into leads
6. Insight: Your ad manager must understand your business
7. Engage leads to convert them into sales
8. Nudge your ad manager and Google to get better results
9. Track sales from your Google Ads
PART III MAP–MEASURE–MAXIMISE
10. Turn more leads into sales
11. Map how a lead becomes a customer
12. Find bottlenecks in your sales process
13. Improve the system, one step at a time
14. Maximize motivation and reduce resistance
15. Case study: From 7 sales to 20 with small step-by-step improvements
16. The faster you call, the more you sell
17. Call every damn lead
18. What to say on the first call to an internet lead
19. Automate follow-up when leads don’t answer
20. Keep momentum to win more sales
21. Case study: How we turned no-shows into $185,150 a month
22. Follow up on every quote to win more sales
23. How to follow up on quotes
24. Catch invisible leaks before they drain your profits
25. Don’t discard not-now leads
26. Case study: How not-now leads became the cheapest, most profitable leads
27. Nurture leads till they're ready to buy with an email newsletter
28. A breather and recap
PART IV GETTING BETTER QUALITY LEADS
29. Lead quality is an advertising problem, not a landing page problem
30. Knowing why a lead is poor quality is key to improving lead quality
31. You pay Google for spam leads
PART V HIRING AND WORKING WITH AN AD MANAGER
32. Hiring and working with an ad manager
33. Running your own ads usually costs more than hiring help
34. Google Ads is the Olympic Games of marketing
35. Things you need to know when hiring someone to manage your ads
36. Red flags when hiring an agency
37. Run a pilot campaign before you commit
38. Work with your ad manager to make your ads more profitable
39. Measure ads by qualified leads, not revenue alone
40. Ad performance fluctuations are normal
41. The end and thank you for reading
PART VI GETTING MORE LEADS FROM YOUR AD BUDGET
42. Better landing pages mean cheaper leads
43. Why your website isn't a good landing page
44. A visitor must believe four things before they'll contact you
45. The 8-part landing page structure that turns more clicks into leads
46. You’ll get more leads when your ads and landing pages work together
47. Writing that is easy to understand converts more visitors into leads
48. Write for experts and lay people
49. Design for skimming, scanning and easy reading
50. Make the next action you want the visitor to take brutally obvious
51. If you make the form look easy, more people will complete it
52. If you can’t shorten your form, cut it in half
53. Don’t ask strangers to book a call
54. Your thank you page is the start of the relationship
55. Fast pages get more leads
56. The end, and an invitation
Afterword
Sample chapter (so you can see if you like my style)
Chapter 29. Lead quality is an advertising problem, not a landing page problem
Many business owners get told the same story when they complain about poor quality leads: "It's a landing page problem." This sounds believable. The landing page is where visitors become leads. And there are some truly awful landing pages out there. But it's wrong.
A landing page can't change who the visitor is
A landing page can affect how many people become leads, but it can't change who those people are. If the wrong person clicked your ad, your landing page can't turn them into the right person.
Imagine a homeowner searching for a shop-vac to clean the garage. They click on an ad for a dust collector. But what if the advertiser sells industrial dust collection systems? A better landing page won't turn them into a factory manager who needs an industrial dust collection installation.
And it's the same with other things that make for a qualified lead:
- A form field asking about budget can't change how much money they have.
- A zip code field doesn't change where they are.
At best, your landing page can try to filter out the wrong people. This is often done in the inquiry form.
But trying to filter out low-quality leads with a form can backfire. The longer or harder the form, the fewer people will fill it out. Even qualified leads will walk away if:
- The form looks intimidating.
- They’re not ready to answer detailed questions yet.
- They don’t know the answers you’re asking for.
- They don’t want to solve a puzzle or CAPTCHA just to contact you, especially when they're only two clicks away from five other suppliers.
Improving lead quality starts by showing your ads to the right kind of people. The challenge is that Google wants to show your ad to anyone with a pulse.
Google's goals are not your goals
In an earlier chapter, we touched on the difference between what you want from Google Ads and what Google wants:
- You want to pay as little as possible for clicks that turn into leads, and leads that turn into sales.
- Google wants you to pay as much as possible, for as many clicks or leads as they can sell you.
Google is very good at getting what they want. They earn billions every year selling clicks and leads. But chasing these billions has made it harder for advertisers to land good quality leads:
- One ad format sends the same lead to four businesses at once. All four pay, but only one might win the sale.
- Your ads show to people outside your service area.
- You pay for clicks from bots, spammers, and sticky-fingered toddlers.
- Google shows your ads to people who have no interest in what you sell.
I once consulted for a contractor who built clean rooms, sci-fi spaces used in manufacturing and research. Only a handful get built in their area every year. But he was paying for 10,000 clicks a month and barely getting any qualified leads.
It turns out that Google was showing his ads to people searching for a clean bedroom or clean bathroom. Ninety-nine percent of clicks came from people looking for tidying tips.
In this case, the ad manager was to blame. It was a combination of careless setup, no monitoring, and general disinterest in the business value of the ads. But even with good ad management, it's a struggle. Google prioritizes their own interests. The only way to get better quality leads is to nudge Google into showing your ads to more of the right people.
Nudge Google to get better quality leads
You nudge Google the same way you train a puppy: you reward good behavior. You can tell Google which leads are qualified and have them try to get more of the same. Over time this feedback improves your ads.
For example:
- One of my clients pre-qualifies leads before they can book an appointment. When a lead books, we tell Google, and Google tries to get similar leads.
- A B2B software training client tells Google when an inquiry is from a business. This feedback has cut individuals looking for training.
This feedback system takes some technical setup, which is beyond the scope of this book. It's something your ad manager should be able to help you with. Once it's in place, you should see an improvement in lead quality.
In the next chapter, we'll look at why knowing what makes a lead unqualified is key to getting better quality leads.