Google Ads – Setting Goals and Target Audiences with Bobby Machado
Instructional Series 1 Episode 1 of 4
Bobby is the CEO and Lead Strategist at Signa Marketing, CEO at Sector 7 Apps, and a partner at Quick Job Products with his brother Cesar Machado.
As a kid, Bobby always had an interest in business such as providing landscaping services, training horses, or reselling “Tang” back to his parents during 5 grade. His experience in the digital world began when he taught himself how to code websites in high school, which turned into a way for Bobby to make money on the side while racing motocross, which remains as one of his passions to this day.
After he stopped competitively racing at the age of 22, Bobby decided to focus his full-time efforts in web development as a freelance web developer, which then introduced him into the digital marketing world. Being the analytical and creative type, Bobby developed a passion for digital marketing and data. After working at an automotive digital marketing agency as a paid media specialist, managing a little over $300,000 per month in Google Ad spend for several auto dealerships in the United States, Bobby combined my passion for business and launched Signa Marketing.
Signa Marketing currently makes up about 70% of Bobby’s time and he enjoys hosting a Signa Marketing show named “Blueprint”, in which he answers any and all user-submitted questions on how to market their business online. New episodes are released on Signa Marketing’s YouTube Channel.
Overall, Bobby enjoys being immersed in anything “digital” that has a positive impact on people and humanity.
Listen to more episode of The Business of Business Podcast here
Full Transcript Below
Roy – The Business of Business Podcast (00:02):
Hello, and welcome to another episode of the business of business podcast. I’m your host, Roy, of course we are the business. Uh, the podcast that brings you a wide range of guests over a whole diverse set of topics. And today we’re trying something a little different. We are, uh, we’re lucky to have, uh, Bobby Machado back with us that he is with Sigma marketing.
And, um, what we’re going to try is a smaller series. About a 10 to 15 minute podcast that we released, uh, in conjunction or off, off. You know, in a different day of the week from our normal full length podcast. But what we’re going to do is talk about a subject and bring you. Um, you know, actionable items. That we can, that you can actually do over the next week.
Hopefully a series of about three to five per month. That way, you know, we’ll talk about some different subjects. A little bit more in depth than what we usually do. So first off, um, uh, Bobby, thank you for being with this. And, uh, this is going to be interesting. And I just, uh, I appreciate you agreeing to give this a try force.
Bobby (01:08):
Oh, absolutely. Right. No, I really appreciate the opportunity. Happy to, uh, to do what I can to provide value to your audience. Yeah,
Roy – The Business of Business Podcast (01:15):
Yeah. This is, uh, you know, I think I get some feedback that the longer shows are great. But then it’s like so much information. It’s like, really, where do I start with this? So, uh, we’re going to try breaking this down. We’ll do this for a few months and. You know, kind of see what the reaction is, see how it goes. But, uh, and hopefully, uh, we will think of some really catchy, fancy name for this as we go through. But for now, we’re just gonna get some good information out there. Uh, I think our first topic that we’re going to talk about is Google ads. Is that correct?
Bobby (01:48):
That’s that’s correct. Yes. Google ads. Um, I, and I felt, you know, Google ads. Is one of those topics where a lot of people, whether you’re a small business owner or a solopreneur. You’ve heard about it. You’ve probably even received a promo ad credit in your email inbox, right.
Uh, asking to spend 150 and get 150 free in app advertising and so forth. And so really easily one can find themselves into the Google ads, rabbit hole. As you will, like they can have paint and figure out how, how to do this. And so, um, and Google, you know, they have a ton of documentation upfront. They’re doing our best, their best to, to gonna guide people. But the fact of the matter is that, yeah. It’s a, it’s a platform, um, that there’s a lot of bells and whistles to it.
And there’s a lot you can do with it. Just like how you can with Facebook and all these other platforms too. There’s just a lot there to unpack. So, um, I felt that with Google ads. What we can start with is first how to define your goals and your target audience.
Roy – The Business of Business Podcast (02:47):
Perfect. Perfect. Yeah. Cause I it’s, it’s something that it’s a necessary evil, uh, Google, God love them. They, they have good products, but it’s very, uh, you know, for as simplistic like me, it’s very over, uh, engineered. So it can be daunting just thinking about taking that first step. So I think this is a great jumping off point for this series too. You know, it can help some people that have wanted to take advantage of, uh, Google ads and, uh, you know, give them some actionable items to actually get started. And so that’s great. Well, let’s jump into the goals and targets.
Bobby (03:23):
Perfect. So we’ll start with, uh, paid search advertising, then we’ll move into display, uh, advertising and then video advertising after that. Okay. So, and paid search just because that tends to be sometimes one of the most common depo ones people say, Hey, you know what? I want to show up at the top of Google for these types of keywords, because I can get in front of people that are actively searching for my service from our product.
So the way to go about that is, uh, first when you’re doing keyword research, you want to start doing keyword research. Google has a platform, a tool called the Google keyword planner. So you’ll find this when you log into, when you sign up for a Google ads account and you log in, you’ll see there, there’s a tools button at the very top. You can click on that and it’ll expand, you’ll find the tool that’s called the Google keyword planner.
Bobby (04:12):
So basically this tool allows you to do two things. You can look at historical data of past keywords that have been ran on the platform, uh, and see what their cost per click is and kind of how much traffic they’re getting and stuff like that. Um, and you can also forecast. So with forecasting, you can plug in your desired keywords that you would like to show up for and place, uh, Elmo and imaginary bid, as you will.
And you’ll get basically a forecast of how much traffic you would receive from that, from that keyword or set of keywords. Right? Um, so this process is actually really important to do because what it allows you to do is actually see, is there actually a search volume behind the keywords that I would like to show up for, right? Because the last thing you want to do is spend time building campaigns and, and all that good stuff around keywords where no one’s searching for those keywords.
So, uh, so yeah, so one thing that the tool is, uh, known for is being very conservative with its forecast. So meaning sometimes you’ll see a keyword that says that even it only has 10 searches per month and you had even, you might even argue and say, well, that doesn’t make any sense. Most likely there is more search volume. It’s just that this tool tends to be tends to be pretty conservative with how it forecast. Yeah. So, uh, so the question
Roy – The Business of Business Podcast (05:29):
I was going to ask you about that is that what about time in the, um, you know, time in that key word, as well as that, if all things else being equal, if, if you’ve been, uh, if you’ve had your information, your search lined up for that key word and today, if you’ve been doing it for a year, and so today I jump in, are we going to have an equal chance at that? Or because you’ve been there doing it for a while, is it gonna skew more to you? Yeah, that’s a great question.
Bobby (05:58):
So it is going to be different where it’s the people that create a brand new account. You do kind of go through a, kind of like a period of the network, trying to make sure that you are going to be an ethical and good advertisement. Okay. Um, and so they kind of do hold back the reigns a little bit and, you know, you can build a campaign you’ll launch that game and you’ll get you’ll acquire impressions and traffic, but there is a maturity period that the, the account goes through.
And so, yeah, you’ll definitely see if you have a different account of someone that’s been running, uh, advertising towards some keywords, uh, for a year, the behavior of those keywords is going to be different compared to a new advertisement. Okay, great. Yeah. So, but yeah, but in terms of, you know, say, for example, I’m a business owner that has a specific service, um, what I need to do versus conduct keyword research.
Bobby (06:47):
And so I do, I do want to use a Google keyword planner, but even if it’s prior to that and I’m thinking like, Oh, I’m not sure exactly what they’re searching. That’s where I just go to Google search and just conduct some exploratory keyword research because what I like to see is like, or my competitors buying these keywords and like, and stuff like that. So that kinda at least gives you some type of benchmark to kind of have some type of direction at, at first.
Okay, great. So, so from there, let’s you use the keyword planner. You’ll actually want to look at all that data and, uh, and then download it because once then you’ll download it and you’ll actually have a total, uh, in terms of how much spend you would actually be spending to acquire those keywords. Okay. Um, now sometimes, sometimes this can total to 10 to $20,000 a month.
Bobby (07:38):
So when you ask yourself, then at that point is how much of a, how much piece of the pie do I actually need to produce results for my business? Because you don’t need a dominate and, you know, uh, have full coverage. You just want to make sure that you’re kind of doing the math to know, okay, how much, how much traffic do I actually need. Right. So, so what we, we typically do is, uh, reverse engineer. You want to start even from your sales process, to be honest. So this will be different for different companies, but start from what your sales processes, in terms of what’s your close rate, how many appointments you need, et cetera. Once you get to the appointments number, then you’ll, you’ll reverse engineer. If you have roughly a two to 3% conversion rate off the landing page.
Roy – The Business of Business Podcast (08:21):
Okay. Yeah. And that’s a good point to make too, because, uh, you don’t, you want to make sure that your infrastructure is set up to handle the, the new traffic that you may generate. You don’t want to be overwhelmed and then, uh, make prospects mad because they, you can’t get to them fast enough or different things that come up. You know, it’s another, you know, we talked about this on the show not long ago, but there, there there’s two threats to business. One is not having any customers.
And then one, the other one is to be, you know, to get overwhelmed to you, can’t handle them. You know, we want to be kind of somewhere in the middle and, uh, you know, that way we don’t make people mad that we can’t get to them because unfortunately the numbers are, if I’m a happy customer, I tell one person, if I’m dissatisfied, I’ll tell eight people. So, you know, word can spread really quick. So anyway, not to interrupt you. Go ahead. I’m sorry. Oh yeah,
Bobby (09:14):
Yeah. No, you’re, you’re totally, you’re totally right though. Absolutely. And that is something to think about. Absolutely. It’s and sometimes it’s glossed over to be honest, because someone gets excited like, Oh, I can get all this business off Google, and they’re not thinking about the backend of the business or the front end of this, this aspect, but yeah. They’re not thinking, okay, can we actually handle that? And how is that going to affect element too?
Roy – The Business of Business Podcast (09:34):
Yeah, exactly, exactly.
Bobby (09:38):
So, so yeah, once you, once you look at, okay, you get that number of how many leads you actually need, just reverse an engine, reverse engineering from appointment setting to a typical conversion rate of two to 3% on landing page. Then you have an actual lead number that you like a target in that sense. So when you have that lead target, then that’s where you, uh, are able to, or will actually, that’s where you look at the commercial, right?
My bad, well, two to 3%, because that’s where you backtrack to see how much traffic you actually need. And that’s what you’re trying to get to is you’re trying to get to how much traffic do I actually need to land on this landing page to have that type of conversion rate, to get the lead count that I want. Right.
So that’s the number that then, uh, you want to get basically matched into your, uh, from your, from your keyword research, because in your keyword research, that’s where you have all your actual traffic number and traffic numbers and actual search volume numbers. Okay. So that’s how you’re able to forecast how much budget you actually need to be able to actually get the leads that you’re targeting.
Roy – The Business of Business Podcast (10:40):
Okay. Okay. Great. All right. So was that, uh, pretty much going to be what you want to cover for this episode?
Bobby (10:49):
So that’s on paid search. We could just dive into this layer real fast and video. That’s a little bit, that’s a little bit more easier. Okay, perfect. So with display advertising, uh, there is, uh, there’s a million ways that you can start with display advertising. So just as a, as a quick tech tip for small business owners, when you first set up Google ads, make sure to set up your remarketing list and your remarketing tag from the very, very start.
What this is going to allow you to do is that basically when you’re running any type of campaign, uh, anyone that reaches your landing page or your website will actually get cookied and you can remarket to them, uh, over, at any type of duration between 30, even up to 180 days. Wow. Okay. So yeah, so this type of campaign is, is really nice because, uh, it’s really efficient.
Bobby (11:39):
You’re basically putting a, what I call like a targeted online billboard in front of someone that has already seen your, your, uh, brand before, but that’s how you can build that familiarity. Okay. So, so that’s one way to target for display. Now, if you want to run an online targeted billboard button from new people, uh, there’s several ways you can do this. Um, some of the main ones it’s just going to be by buying, uh, contextual keywords.
So basically targeting blogs or news sites that are talking about a specific subject matter, um, or, uh, one of my favorite, which is custom audiences. So basically if, say for example, Roy, you were interested in a specific service and you’ve been doing some research and conducting research on Google search. Um, me as an advertiser, I can actually show a display ad while you’re, uh, navigating through us other blog posts, but about that subject matter.
Bobby (12:31):
So you’ll even find yourself saying, Oh, wow, I just saw this ad. I was just, I was just Googling about this stuff. Okay. But that’s a way to target as well. Uh, those two capabilities are identical almost on, on YouTube video advertising. So yeah, the reason why I recommend definitely if from a brand awareness standpoint, definitely leveraging YouTube for video ads, but then also display advertising is because you get a lot of bang for your buck.
I mean, if you, if you were to do this type of strategy and buy real billboards of, you know, out here at Phoenix is the I 10 and stuff like that, it just costs you an arm and a leg, but these platforms do allow small business owners and solar opportunity solopreneurs the opportunity to build brand awareness and really get out there in a way that’s still very efficient with their budget.
Roy – The Business of Business Podcast (13:19):
Right. Yeah. And I think the other part of that w you know, always to keep in mind is that, you know, while we’re trying to attract people that may be buying right this moment, we, we also have to have that long-term strategy of being out in front of somebody that may not need our service today, but, uh, you know, in a month from now, they may be looking, or maybe they’re just real slow decision makers and they need that constant reinforcement, but, you know, it’s a great way to stay out in front of potential buyers for sure.
Bobby (13:49):
Oh, absolutely. I think that’s something I’ve been preaching, especially from what happened in 2020, because a lot of businesses that only focused on lead generation and completely neglected brand awareness and or hurt because leads dried up there. No one knew about them. No one knew that they existed. And so, yeah, I preach always, you know, don’t be vulnerable, be diverse. I treat buying media almost like a stock portfolio. You want to make sure you exist because you’re going to get different returns from different channels.
Roy – The Business of Business Podcast (14:22):
Yeah, exactly. All right, Bobby, well, thanks a lot again, uh, this is Bobby with, uh, Sigma Cigna marketing, reach out. If you need some help with your Google set up, uh, he’d be glad to, you know, help you with that. And, uh, we will be back next week with part two of this, and I’m looking forward to seeing the, you know, uh, giving everybody this actionable item. So, uh, Bobby, thanks again. Uh, you can find us, of course, at www the business of business podcast.com. We’re on all the social media channels. Bobby, why don’t you, uh, tell them how they can reach out to you if they need some help doing this?
Bobby (15:02):
Oh, of course. No, thank you so much, Roy, for the opportunity again, to, um, definitely you can find us@cignamarketing.com. That’s a SIG N as in Nancy and then a, um, marketing.com and, uh, on all our social media channels. Um, our username is consistent everywhere, so it’s just Cigna marketing, um, uh, Instagram and Facebook and YouTube are channels that we’re very active with producing content. So, uh, if you do have a question, uh, feel free to reach out through any of those channels and we’re more than happy to help.
Roy – The Business of Business Podcast (15:30):
Awesome. Bobby, we’ll see you next week. Thanks a lot. Thank you so much for coming.
Listen to more episode of The Business of Business Podcast here