Google Ads is the ideal platform for a photographer that’s looking to target people who are searching for their services online. Whether you’re a wedding, corporate, headshot or any other type of photographer, this platform will help you reach your audiences effectively.
However, many photographers struggle to set up effective campaigns for their businesses. And this usually leads to poor performing ads that wastes a lot of money.
In this blog post I’ll share some tips to help you set up an effective Google Ads campaign to promote your photography business.
1. Campaign Objective
The Leads objective is one of the best Google Ads objectives for a photographer. This helps you to focus on getting as many quality leads as possible in your target locations and for your budget. And you get guidance from the system to customize the campaign features.
This objective also helps you to set up the correct goals to tracks calls and inquiries. So, that includes setting up call tracking and form tracking on your website.
2. Campaign Type
After selecting your objective, you’ll now pick the Google Ads campaign type that’s ideal for a photographer. There are multiple campaign types to pick from, and some are relevant and some aren’t, but you can read up on each before you get started.
For a photographer looking to target people who are searching for a photographer on Google, the Search campaign is one of the most ideal. It helps you to pick the keywords to bid on, that will trigger your ads when the searches are matched.
You can create one or more Search campaign types for your business, but one is usually ideal if you are targeting a single location, like a city for example.
3. Campaign Budget
Setting the right Google Ads budget for a photographer can be a challenge, especially for one that has never run campaigns before. So, many photographers have questions on how much to spend on the ads per day and per month, that will help that get the results that they are seeking to get.
The good thing about pay per click (PPC) advertising in Google Ads for photographers is that usually a big budget is not required. Even if you are targeting a big city like Miami, Los Angeles, Chicago or New York, it’s usually best to start with a small budget and then increase it as you get more leads.
So, you could start with a monthly budget of $600, which is about $20 per day if you are running your ads throughout the month. And then you can increase it as performance improves.
4. Bidding Strategy
Now, you’ll need to pick a bid strategy. Because Search advertising is an auction, you’ll be bidding on clicks on your ads and the winner of the auction gets the click. There can be multiple winners of course, so it’s important that your ads are visible and attract the right clicks.
So, you’ll need to pick a bid strategy. In Google Ads the two bid strategy types are automated and manual bidding. And under automated there are a few to choose from, with Maximize Clicks being usually the best to start with because it tries to get you as many clicks as it can for your budget.
Later, when you’ve maintained at least 15 conversions per month you can switch to a Smart bidding strategy like Maximize Conversions with a target cost per action, to focus on improving your conversions.
5. Keyword Selection
To run an effective Google Ads campaign for a photographer, you need to find the right keywords to bid. Fortunately, there are tools that help you to carry out keyword research, like the free Keyword Planner tool in Google Ads.
Also, competitor research on a platform like SERanking will help you to see what keywords other photographers in your locations are appearing for. And you can also see how much they are spending for each, which helps you to budget accordingly.
Along with the keywords you select, you should also choose the right match types to start with. And it’s a good idea to start with phrase or exact match, so you can control the type of search queries you get.
6. Text Ads
With Responsive search ads in your Search campaign you get a lot of text space to promote your photography business and highlight your key benefits. So, you have 15 headlines to add, each with a 30 character limit, and four description lines of 90 character spaces each.
And at auction time, the system picks the best combination of headlines and description lines to create an ad that aligns with a user’s search query.
So, it’s a good idea to add as many headlines and descriptions as possible and add your keywords and calls to actions too.
7. Ad Scheduling
As scheduling helps you set the times when you’d like your ads to run and be visible on Google Ads as people search for a photographer. The default setting will run your ads on all days and hours and it’s ok if you are just starting so you can see what the best ones are.
Because people search at all times and hours it’s a good idea to be always visible and allow your ads to run until the budget runs out. And as performance improves, you can adjust this to your requirements.
Conclusion
I hope this article on Google Ads for a photographer will help you to set up an effective campaign to promote your photography business.
Contact me today to discuss your requirements. I’m a certified Google Ads specialist and I’ll help you to set up an effective campaign for your photography business.
0 Comments