The 4 essential elements for Google AdWords success – earth, air, fire, and water.

Keep each element in balance, and achieve great results. But take one away, and prepare for AdWords failure 🙁

Earth

The natural organic demand for your product or service. The number of people who actually want your product or service. Basic demand with all marketing removed. The value you add as a business, your genuine point of difference. The reason customers choose you and not your competitor.

Air

The movement of people, traffic, visits. The flow of people arriving at your website. Their consideration of your business. People moving from one page to the next. People reading one piece of content then another. People looking at your about page. Visitors bouncing, sharing, returning, considering. The movement of customers across the internet as they go about their daily lives.

Fire

Your website, branding, design and content. The spark which ignites, engages, turns visits into sales. Your stylish logo, intuitive layout, and responsive scaling of text and images. Videos which excite, articles which inspire, artwork which motivates. The shiny reception at your office, the sales display at your store, the stylish real estate broker at your agency. The hair and make-up, the best foot forward. The good first impression, the showcase of strength. The desire to portray the best your business has to offer.

Water

The flowing of data. The words and numbers captured as visitors engage with your business. The Google Analytics on your website, the search queries of your AdWords campaign, the database of customer emails. The goals and targets, the key performance indicators, the measures of success. The linking of one dataset to another. The measurement, testing, analysis, and optimisation. The data mining of spreadsheets. The machine learning of insights. The science behind the art.

All 4 elements are required for a successful AdWords strategy. If one element is diminished, the whole strategy starts to fade. Your campaigns are only as strong as their weakest link.

Take away earth… and there is no demand. Perhaps and outdated product or service which is no longer relevant in 2019. A change in consumer values, a change in government grants. A new competitor on the block, a lowering of prices. A disruption which redefines your industry. A change of tastes, habits, fashions. Fewer people desiring the product you offer. Lower macro demand, your industry taking a downturn. Even the most stunning website (fire), highly-targeted AdWords strategy (air), and excellent data collection (water) will struggle to fix a business in a declining industry.

Take away air… and no-one comes to the party. Your shiny new website (fire) receives no traffic. People out there want your product or service (earth), but they just can’t find you. They’re searching Google and you don’t come up. Customers have a need and you can’t fill it. Your new shop just sits there, waiting for that elusive customer to arrive. You have the systems to measure (water), but there’s nothing to measure. There’s no foot traffic, no movement no people, no consideration your business. Your business just sits there, waiting… bit of a shame really after all that hard work 🙁

Take away fire… and the result is apathy. Lethargy and indifference. Boredom and lack of focus. There is strong demand for your product or service (earth), and people are arriving at your website (air). But your website fails to impress. Pages take an eternity to load, fonts are inconsistent, images poor quality, website text uninspiring. Potential customers are right there, on your website, right now, but they don’t bother getting in touch. They’re put off, get distracted, and go elsewhere to your competitor. All that hard work with AdWords, all that keyword research, all those tailored ad messages. Wasted. Because of your poor website experience. Such a shame after investing so much in AdWords 🙁

Take away water… and the result is anxiety. Lack of focus. Your website (fire) and AdWords campaigns (air) are probably performing OK, but sine you’re not measuring there’s no way of knowing. You’re making some sales, so people must want what you’re offering (earth), but it’s anyone’s guess which way your industry is heading. Strategy? What strategy? Admit it, you’re winging it. You start to overreact, make decisions on impulse, become scatter-brained. Revenue is coming in, and you’re scraping by… but what about next month? Next year? Anxiety follows, and the worries just continue.

Success with AdWords requires a delicate balance – a symbiotic relationship where each element supports each other. Keep each in balance, and reap the benefits. But take one away, and prepare for AdWords failure.

Which element is your business lacking? Are your Google AdWords campaigns failing to pull their weight? Or is your website to blame?

Is your industry really on the downturn? Or are you just overwhelmed with the sheer number of possible options?

Give me a call. Happy to investigate and provide some fresh eyes. A little perspective might be all that it takes to set you on the road to Google AdWords success.