The short answer is you can, but the real question is should you? Ask yourself, is your business better served by staying focused on the business of your business or learning and playing with AdWords? Are you really going to dedicate the time necessary to learn AdWords? Google has invested millions trying to make it simple enough for anyone to run. They’ve only been partially successful. Like any profession, the devil is in the details. It seems easy enough – you create a campaign, write an ad, and select a few keywords and AdWords is running and money is going to Google. Unfortunately what is not happening with this basic simple set up is the creation of value for your business.
I have made my living as a search engine marketing expert since 1994. In all that time I have never had a client that did not know their primary keywords and more about their business than I do. However they rarely understand the issues involved in effectively targeting those keywords.
Plumber keywords are a classic example of this because the typical plumber should only target searches with “Intent to Engage Services” but many searches will be either non-specific or off topic. The keyword Plumber Los Angeles is a good example. At first blush this would seem to be a great keyword but what if the real search is “Plumber Jobs in Los Angeles”? This search matches the Plumber Los Angeles keyword and most plumbers are paying big money for that search, and many others of questionable value. We often see incredibly broad terms like Plumber and that is an accident looking for a place to happen.
I own a pipe wrench but that in no way makes me a plumber. I can install a faucet and sometimes it does not even leak very much. However it takes me twice as long and it never lasts for a long time because I do this so infrequently that I never do it right. It always takes five trips to the hardware store to get all the right parts and most times I need to buy a few of the parts a couple of times. Plumbing only looks easy until you have to actually do it, AdWords is the same way.
AdWords seems simple enough until you get under the surface. There are three major networks, seven types of keywords (Positive/Negative; Broad, Modified Broad, Phase, and Exact). Matching is not just to keywords because you also have keyword themes, direct placement, and remarketing audiences in the Display Network. The keywords are a selection model for a system that has millions of searches per day and the system is an interactive auction with literally thousands of variables involved. As a person that was trained as a computer programmer I can tell you without hesitation that AdWords is the most complex system I have ever worked on because you never know what a person with a blank search box will type in.
AdWords is very much like the old game show “Family Feud” except it happens millions of times per day and you have to guess the word, write an ad for it, and figure out the right bid. Marketing is an ecosystem and AdWords has a role that interacts with other parts of the process. AdWords creates traffic to your website but to create value the website much bring the person to the action of contacting your business.
The question is not can you run AdWords, because you can. The question is should you? Or is your business better served by staying focused on the business of your business?