⚡ Get All Content for 20% Off ⚡

5 Steps to 'Bernie Madoff-Proof' Your Local Advertising When it comes to pay-per-click, many don't know what is going on behind the scenes of Google AdWords.

By Perry Marshall

entrepreneur daily

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

GongTo | Shutterstock.com

One of my cousins, Neil, invested a good chunk of cash with Ponzi-schemer Bernie Madoff. Neil is a smart, savvy and successful businessman. He built up a big insurance company from scratch. Yet Neil got bilked by Madoff and lost big time.

What made Madoff's massive swindle possible? It largely came down to fraudulent reporting. These people trusted Madoff with their money. But they did not and could not verify the reporting they were getting.

When it comes to pay-per-click (PPC), most local business owners don't truly know what is going on behind the scenes of their Google AdWords account either. They have no idea where their money is really going. They can't tell what, if anything, is being done each month to optimize things. And puts them in the situation where they have to rely on the PPC agency's highly filtered reporting to get information about the keywords, performance, etc. of their campaign.

Related: 7 Common Mistakes Companies Make With Google AdWords

So, what's the solution? Here we share the five steps you need to take to build a successful Google AdWords campaign:

1. Bernie Madoff-proof your PPC accounts.

Don't get yourself in a position where you have to trust but can't verify. You can easily avoid this situation by always using an AdWords account that you are in complete control of. You should own it, always have the username and password and have the ability to log in any time you want to see what's going on in there.

2. Create a Purple Cow campaign.

Marketing legend Seth Godin wrote a book called Purple Cow. The title of the book comes from the following idea. Say you're driving down a country road and see a cow pasture out the window. The cows in it are all normal cow colors, some combination of browns, blacks and whites. In a situation like that none of the cows really stand out and you'd get bored looking at them pretty quickly.

But what if among the browns, blacks and whites there was a purple cow? Now that would grab your attention.

There's no shortage of local businesses running ads on AdWords these days. One of the keys to your success is to make your ads be the purple cow ads that stand out from the crowd.

3. The magnetic landing page.

It's the most common and damaging mistake local business owners make when spending money on AdWords. It's the mistake of sending AdWords traffic to the existing pages on your website. As well-designed as the current pages on your website may be, in most situations they make for very poor landing pages for a PPC campaign.

Related: 4 Key Reasons Local Businesses Fail When Using Google AdWords

We've found the most effective AdWords landing pages are totally focused on the keywords your prospect typed into Google, have no links at the top and make it very clear why and how a potential client can contact you.

4. Precision lead tracking.

I believe this one concept makes the single biggest difference in effectively managing AdWords campaigns for local businesses. With a campaign for an ecommerce site or other online business, it's very easy to track leads and know which keywords and ads are producing the results, which is critical to AdWords success.

With a local business, however, where 60 to 70 percent of the leads can come from phone calls, it can be impossible to get that information.

A relatively new technology called Dynamic Call Tracking, however, provides that information. So for the first time you can see, directly in AdWords, which keywords and ads are generating leads and which aren't.

Related: 10 Ways to Boost Results Using Google AdWords

This is huge. One campaign for a local business where a specific keyword (which you would think is one of the more relevant, obvious keywords to bid on) racked up over $2,900 in ad spend. However, because Dynamic Call Tracking was in place it became clear that the keyword did not produce a single lead despite all the money spent on it.

Using this data, the keyword was paused and the local business owner stopped throwing money away on it and instead focused his budget on the keywords that were actually producing leads.

5. Strategic expansion makes your phone ring.

Now that your AdWords account is set up properly, you may ask, "How do I get more leads?" The first place to turn is Bing ads. It's Microsoft's version of AdWords and it's very easy to take your AdWords account and copy it over to Bing Ads. Bing Ads will serve your ads on both the Bing and Yahoo! search engines. While they don't have nearly as much traffic as AdWords, clicks tend to be cheaper so you can often get leads for less than you do on AdWords.

After that, turning to Google Remarketing and Facebook Retargeting is a great way to generate additional leads, often at a very low cost per lead.

Remarketing campaigns generally have cost per leads that are considerably lower than other forms of advertising and can provide a nice boost in calls to your office. It also increases your firm's brand awareness – keeping your name top of mind of your potential clients.

If you'd like more on how to put these steps into action, join AdWords expert Adam Kreitman and I on June 16, for a free webinar. "How to Know if You're Getting Screwed by Your Online Marketing Agency" is the first in a free, three-part local business advertising training.

Perry Marshall

Author, Sales and Traffic Expert, CEO and Founder of Perry S. Marshall & Associates

Perry Marshall is the president of Perry S. Marshall & Associates, a Chicago-based company that consults both online and brick-and-mortar companies on generating sales leads, web traffic and maximizing advertising results. He has written seven books including his most recent, 80/20 Sales and Marketing (Entrepreneur Press, 2013), Ultimate Guide to Facebook Advertising (Enterpreneur Press, 2014), Ultimate Guide to Google AdWords (Entrepreneur Press, 2014), and Ultimate Guide to Local Business Marketing (Entrepreneur Press, 2016). He blogs at perrymarshall.com.

Want to be an Entrepreneur Leadership Network contributor? Apply now to join.

Side Hustle

The Remote Side Hustle a 43-Year-Old Musician Works on for 1 Hour a Day Earns Nearly $3,000 a Month: 'All From the Comfort of Home'

Sam Ziegler wanted to supplement his income as a professional drummer — then his tech skills and desire to help people came together.

Marketing

Ever Wonder Why Certain Websites Rank Higher Than Yours? This SEO Expert Reveals The Secret to Dominating Search Results

It's often the smart use of SEO, now supercharged with AI, particularly in keyword optimization.

Franchise

The Top Franchise Brands Growing Globally

While our main Fastest-Growing Franchises list focuses on North American growth, more and more brands are looking to grow worldwide. These are the 25 that had the greatest franchise growth outside the U.S. and Canada from July 2022 to July 2023.

Business News

AI Is Impacting Jobs. Here Are the Gigs Affected the Most, According to an Analysis of 5 Million Upwork Postings

The researcher said in the report that freelance jobs were analyzed first because that market will likely see AI's immediate impact.

Leadership

Former Interrogator Shares 5 Behaviors Liars Exhibit and How to Handle Them

Five deceptive behaviors to look for and how to respond to those behaviors when you encounter them.