Sometimes it’s fun to reminisce about the good old days of PPC advertising. You know, back when the Google Ads platform was called Adwords, things were simpler, and everything just seemed to make more sense.
I was having a moment like that recently after optimizing a client’s Google Ads account. I thought back to 2013 when the majority of our Google Ad campaigns required much less work and still yielded strong results. Back then, we created a handful of ad groups with a few ads in each. Creating a great landing page wasn’t necessary since the client’s website usually did the trick. For most clients, we only needed to spend a few minutes per week optimizing ad performance.
Fast forward to today and we’re spending hours per week optimizing ad platforms, but that’s still not always enough to create more customers!
In addition, we’re not only A/B testing landing pages with segmented messaging, images, and design, but we’re also creating complex sales funnels. These funnels tie together video production, various ad platforms, sequenced email marketing campaigns, and attribution models, all designed to inform a customer, make them feel comfortable, and eventually land the sale… all while collecting relevant data points. Whew!
While this digital marketing arms race has gotten more complex over the years, it’s also created an unintended consequence: the cost to acquire a customer in almost every industry has skyrocketed.
While Google Ads remain a very viable customer acquisition channel, only the best campaigns produce an acceptable ROI.
Below, I’d like to share with you one of our most successful techniques that allow our Google Ad campaigns to perform in “the top 3% in the United States” (according to our Google Ads Rep).
Here’s what we’re sharing in this post:
- The problem: why your ROI from Google ads is declining
- The solution: an introduction to our two-phase funnel
- Examples of our two-phase funnel in action
- Why & how our funnel works
- One bonus tip
- Key takeaways
Stick around to get some actionable ideas for how to get the most out of your Google Ads.
The Problem: Why Your ROI From Google Ads Is Declining
Today’s buying process is no longer as simple as the AIDA Model (Awareness – Interest – Decision – Action) would have you believe. Consumers and B2B buyers tend to hunt for reviews and view many alternatives online instead of going with the first option they come across.
With the internet at your prospect’s fingertips. They can (and will) research products and services before buying because it’s easier than ever to do so.
At the same time, more and more companies have begun advertising on Google. From the early 2000s through the first half of the 2010s, the number of Google advertisers was far lower than today. Because of the increased competition, the cost-per-click has risen across nearly every industry.
In addition, people have grown familiar with clicking on Google Ads over the years so it now takes more clicks to produce a good lead.
Considering the rising costs of Google Ads and the number of clicks it takes to convert into a sale, the bottom of the sales funnel has gotten much longer over the last six years.
By funneling your marketing budget into underperforming ads, your cost to acquire a customer could very easily outpace your customer’s lifetime value, putting you in hot water.
The Solution: Our Thunder & Lightning Two-Phase Funnel
Is there anything you can do about the new, more challenging Google ad landscape
Well, if you’re a B2B business (where Google advertising is particularly complicated and the costs are very high), we recommend that you stop using Google as the first touchpoint with a prospect.
Instead, create a two-phase funnel with the first phase focused on building trust, not making a sale. We call this our Thunder & Lightning Funnel!
Here’s our Thunder & Lightning Funnel in a nutshell:
- Use Facebook to identify the right audience
- Use Google to capture prospects who are actively in the market for your product or service AND already know about your business
For B2B companies, the result is significantly greater ROI than advertising on either platform separately.
Phase 1: Thunder
The Thunder phase actually begins on the Facebook Ads network rather than Google.
Facebook and Instagram have incredibly advanced targeting criteria, so you can start by building a custom audience using Facebook’s ad network. There, you can get your ideal audience to click on your ad. This allows you to build trust, provide value, and educate your target audience, all without pushing for a sale.
Not only does Facebook have awesome targeting capabilities, but it also costs far less for each ad click. You can build up a worthwhile audience much more affordably than on Google.
Phase 2: Lightning
In the Lightning phase, you retain the audience that clicked on your Facebook or Instagram ad and you use Google remarketing. This makes sure that your Google ads ONLY show up for someone who has searched a keyphrase you’re targeting AND has previously clicked on your Facebook/Instagram ad.
Instead of marketing your product or service to a cold audience, you’ll only be spending your Google ad budget on people who recognize your company and are already warm leads.
With our Thunder & Lightning Funnel, you’ll stop wasting money on expensive Google ad clicks from people who have never heard of your business and are unlikely to actually buy from you.
For both phases, you can of course include location targeting to match the region where your business operates.
Examples Of The Thunder & Lightning Funnel In Action
We’ve addressed how the two-phase funnel can solve the common problems that companies face with Google ads, but what about specific, unique problems?
Let’s take a look at some examples.
Solar Subcontractor
One of our clients is a solar subcontractor with a very unique customer base. Instead of targeting homeowners, they only work with other solar contractors. Google ads don’t yield a lot of business for them because they can only target solar subcontractor-related keywords across California.
When we implemented the Thunder & Lightning Funnel, we focused their Facebook ads on building an audience of solar contractors.
We targeted project managers of large fortune 500 solar companies across the US with a variety of ad creative designed to position our client as the best solar subcontractor in California. Once we built up our targeted list, we used Google Ads only as a retargeting tactic.
The campaign ended up creating an incredible 550% ROI with Facebook Ads and a 478% ROI with Google Ads.
B2B Roofing Company
With our B2B roofing company, it’s a similar story. Not every B2B buyer will include a word such as ‘industrial’ in their search query when looking for a roofing company, so we also targeted searches that could be conducted by consumers.
We learned that by running ads for business-centric keyphrases, there was a lower search volume and also a very high cost per click.
When building the Thunder & Lightning Funnel, we were able to protect our client from paying for consumer clicks even when targeting more generic keyphrases.
This campaign has resulted in numerous large commercial contracts being won.
Commercial Truck Dealership
One of our clients is a commercial truck dealership that typically sells fleets of vehicles to other businesses. There are tons of B2C truck shoppers who are looking for a vehicle that can tow their RV, but that’s not actually their target.
Initially, their Google Ads campaign was getting a lot of clicks from consumers, instead of their target audience. That meant a lot of wasted money on dead-end leads.
We set up their two-phase funnel to only show Google ads to small and medium-sized business owners who had previously clicked on their targeted Facebook ad.
They no longer waste their marketing budget on dead-end leads and their overall ROI has improved drastically.
Why & How The Thunder & Lightning Funnel Works
It’s important to understand some of the deeper reasons why the Thunder & Lightning Funnel works. Yes, it’s about targeting, re-targeting, and being smart with your ad spend. But there’s a more important psychological factor at play: trust.
The Thunder & Lightning Funnel works because it builds trust while simultaneously lowering your Google ad spend.
Anyone who clicks on your Google ad is already aware of your company.
Trust is the most powerful psychological marketing tactic there is. The world’s best UX/UI doesn’t stand a chance against trust.
Don’t believe us? Google personal injury attorney Los Angeles. The top three to four ads lead to outdated landing pages with below-average design and cookie-cutter content. So why would these attorneys spend $150+ a click only to push traffic to these landing pages? That’s right, trust. They’ve built trust within the community for months and, sometimes, years.
So stop wasting your money by using Google Ads to ask for a sale before your customers know who you are. Use Facebook and Instagram to convey your value, tell stories, and build trust. Your Google Ads campaign will thank you for it!
Bonus Tip
In our 2-phase funnel, Facebook does the hard work by finding your potential customers. Then over time, you build up your retargeting list to serve Google Ads to them. The biggest issue you’ll run into with this strategy is that Facebook only holds your retargeting list for a maximum of 6 months, then it’s gone!
We recommend that you save your data by using a third-party analytics platform like Mixpanel when you start your campaign.
Similar to Google Analytics, these third-party analytics platforms track all of your advertising traffic, but they also have the advantage of exporting the IP addresses of your website visitors.
An IP address is a data point that both Google and Facebook use to serve retargeting ads to your audience. By warehousing this IP address data yourself, it becomes your data, not Facebook’s! Over time, this will allow you to build and control an incredibly targeted marketing campaign.
Key Takeaways
Here are some of the key takeaways from this post:
- Google Ads have become too expensive for many B2B companies because of increased competition, higher costs per click, and a longer buying process
- Facebook/Instagram advertising offers great targeting at a much lower cost. When retargeting a Facebook audience on Google, you can find people who are actively searching for a business like yours (and have already been identified as an ideal customer)
- Build a lot of trust through Facebook BEFORE heavily investing in Google Ads
- Use Mixpanel to keep the IP addresses of your target audience
If you’re ready to get started with the Thunder & Lightning Funnel but don’t have the time or resources to implement it with your in-house team, get in touch! This strategy is our bread and butter and we’d love to help you stop wasting your budget and start increasing your Google ad ROI.
