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Google Ads for Financial Advisors_ How To Build a Comprehensive Strategy

Google Ads for Financial Advisors: How To Build a Comprehensive Strategy

Reading Time: 10 minutes

Are you afraid of investing your ad budgets for 2022 into paid advertising?

In the third quarter of 2021, Google reported a 43 percent growth in overall ad revenue, with revenue predicted to surpass $460 billion by 2024. Meanwhile, in the fourth quarter of 2021, advertisers spent $62.1 billion on Google Ads.

Financial advisors are increasingly using Google Ads to attract their target audience. These financial advisor ads can help you target more customers to your website by reaching local internet users looking for your products or services.

So if you are looking for new local business leads, Google Ads for financial advisors have become a very efficient way to advertise. However, Google Ads management is complicated, and getting the most out of the platform necessitates skill, experience, and a significant amount of time.

Our focus in this article is to point you towards Google Ads PPC strategies that have proven effective in increasing conversion rates and boosting ROI.

We’ll dive deeper after this outline:

  • An introduction to search advertising for financial advisors
  • Steps to building an effective Google Ad Campaign
  • How to measure and optimize your Google ads
  • Google Ads regulations every Financial advisor should beware of
  • Should you hire a Google Ads PPC Agency? 

Let’s begin.

An Introduction to Search Advertising for Financial Advisors

Google Ads is a pay-per-click advertising platform that allows you to reach target markets for financial advisors when they search for your products or services. So, as one of the most popular search engines globally, 63 percent of people will most likely click on a  Google search ad than on other sites’ ads.

M3-3-How-many-people-click-on-paid-search-ads-most.png

(Source: Clutch)

The Google Ads interface is easy to use and gives you access to various powerful features and tools that make it possible to tailor your financial advisor ads to suit your specific needs.

According to Google, search ads can increase your brand awareness by 80 percent.

The way people search has changed, so in 2022, financial advisors will need to change their approach as well. They need to build on their knowledge of customer behavior, demographics, and industry trends to create an effective Google Ads for financial advisors strategy.

Steps to Building an Effective Google Ad Campaign

Google Ads management can be a great way to reach target markets for financial advisors and generate leads. First, however, it is essential to know how Google Ads for financial advisors works to get the most out of your campaign.

Although Google Ads are a great way to advertise your business, they can be tricky to set up. Here are 7 steps to build an effective Google Ad campaign for financial advisors in 2022.

  • Determine your goals
  • Create a Google Ads account
  • Find the best keywords
  • Set up a bidding strategy
  • Create ads on the right platform
  • Optimize your ads for conversions and clicks
  • Monitor and optimize

Let’s look at each of these 7 steps in detail.

1) Determine Your Goals

As a financial advisor, you want to reach target markets for financial advisors who are most likely to be interested in planning their finances.

2) Create a Google Ads Account

If you’ve never used Google Ads before, it’s best to start by creating an account, as this will allow you to manage your financial advisor ads and make changes quickly. 

3) Find the Best Keywords

Keyword search tools like Google Ads Keyword Tool allow you to get the most relevant keywords based on your niche.

4) Set up a Bidding Strategy

An effective bidding strategy Google Ads accepts will get you the audience you are most likely to convert.

Target your ads based on the budget you allotted for them and what you want from them. Then create a bid that matches where your ad will show up to generate a good return on investment.

5) Create an Ad

You can create an ad by setting a specific budget and uploading an image, making your message more personal. 

6) Set up Your First Campaign

Once you have set up your Google Ads management account, create a campaign to start advertising for your business.

7) Monitor and Track Results

After you’ve launched, you’ll need to track your results. We recommend using Google Analytics to track the conversion rates from your ads. In addition, Google Analytics will give you an idea of which KPIs are essential for your financial brand.

M3-3-Role-of-Google-Analytics.png

(Source: Business2Community)

You can also use Optimizely to see if your ads have improved over time.

How to Measure and Optimize your Google Ads

It’s not easy to be a successful financial advisor in the 21st century. That’s why it’s crucial to have a plan in place to measure and optimize your Google financial advisor ads campaigns, whether you’re using them to attract new clients or sell additional products and services to existing ones. 

Fortunately, there are several key aspects of measuring and optimizing your Google Ads for financial advisors, so let’s look at them individually.

Account Structure

Before optimizing your Google ads, you’ll need to set up your Google Ads account correctly. Create a Google My Business page for your business, set it as Verified, and add any additional relevant details like store hours or contact information. 

It’s also helpful to add a high-quality photo of your storefront or building as well—this will help increase click-through rates for local businesses that are advertising in their area. 

Finally, make sure you have all of your Google Analytics tracking codes installed on your website before getting started with Google Ads for financial advisors. Otherwise, you won’t be able to see how much traffic is coming from each ad campaign.

Define Bidding Strategies for Keywords

You can use several different bidding strategies for keywords in Google ads. Moreover, you must first define which bidding strategy Google Ads will consider best for optimizing a given keyword. 

The primary benefit of using Google’s ad platform is that it gives you access to real-time data from a massive volume of searches. It also allows you (especially if you have a larger budget) to refine your campaign as often as necessary. 

Google Ads has three main bidding strategies: Manual CPC, automatic CPC, and manual CPM. Each has its advantages and disadvantages depending on your business goals and financial situation.

M3-3-Smart-Bidding-Strategy.png

(Source: Adtuo)

Focus on Quality Scores

Quality Score is an Ads performance metric measured on a scale of 1–10.

google-quality-score.jpg

(Source: Digital Logic)

Although many factors go into calculating Quality Score, one of its biggest drivers is ad relevance—your PPC ads need to show up when users search keywords. Next, focus on creating quality content. Google rewards pages with high-quality content by giving them higher Quality Scores and lower costs per click. 

M3-3-Google-ads-quality-score.png

(Source: Kparser)

Make Data-driven Decisions

While many financial advisors advertise on Google, very few have a genuinely data-driven paid advertising strategy for managing their ads. The good news is that using Google Analytics (the platform behind all of your Google advertising) can help you optimize your ad spend.

If you’re not collecting visitor data at every step in your funnel, it can be hard to know what visitors do once they arrive at your site. So make sure you’re strategic about how much time and money you put into acquiring visitors vs. converting them into clients—because if people aren’t turning into clients, any amount of impressions or clicks doesn’t matter.

Keyword Research

The foundation of any successful PPC strategy is knowing what your ideal clients are searching for. You can pay only when a customer clicks on your paid search ads. If they’re not interested in what you offer, they don’t have to stay on your site—no more time-wasting!

M3-3-Keyword-research-benefits.png

(Source: Iamrobert)

Hence, it is crucial that you only advertise where your ideal customers are actively looking for solutions. 

To learn what Google Ads keyword strategy they use when searching online, use Google’s free Keyword Planner Tool. These keyword insights will be eye-opening; it’s not uncommon for advisors to discover hundreds of relevant but undiscovered terms!

Budgeting for Google Ads

Google Ads for financial advisors is a hugely valuable tool, but it isn’t free. It can be easy to forget that while you might be paying Google every time someone clicks on your ad or receives one of your text ads in Gmail, you still have some control over how much you spend. 

Google also allows financial advisors to use several bidding strategies depending on their overall campaign goals—such as getting people to a particular page on your website or driving more in-person appointments.

Negative Keywords Matter

To ensure you’re not wasting money on advertising for searches that aren’t relevant, be sure to monitor your negative keywords. These will tell you what people search for that Google shouldn’t return your ad for.

M3-3-Benefits-negative-keywords.jpg

(Source: Pay Per Call)

For example, if you’re an advisor in New York City and one of your target keywords is financial advisor, including negative keywords like NYC or New York may make sense. 

Once running ads, monitoring them becomes just as important as setting them up in Google Ads.

Monitoring & Re-optimization

There’s no such thing as a perfect Google Ads management campaign, at least not for long. What works well one month may not work so well another. That’s why it’s essential to monitor it regularly and make changes when necessary. 

In general, you want to be making relatively small adjustments regularly (monthly), but on occasion, you’ll need to make more drastic changes. 

The good news is that Google provides various tools for measuring everything from clicks and impressions to geographic location breakdowns. But the bad news is that there are so many things to estimate that it can be complicated knowing where to start or what numbers matter most. 

Here are some questions worth considering: 

  • What is my overall average cost per click? 
  • How does that compare with other similar campaigns? 
  • How does it compare with other keywords in my account? 
  • Are any of my keywords underperforming compared to others in terms of cost per conversion? 
  • Are any overperforming compared to others in terms of conversions
  • Where are people clicking on my ad coming from geographically? 
  • Are they relevant areas based on how I define “relevant?” 
  • How do those geographical areas differ in performance metrics like CTR, CPC, CPA, etc.? 
  • Which day(s) and time(s) have higher/lower performance than others?

Google Ads Regulations Every Financial Advisor Should Beware Of

Google Ads is a popular advertising platform that allows advertisers to promote their products and services through search engine results. Google Ads policies financial services are stricter than other industries. Financial advisors need to be aware of the latest changes to avoid penalties. 

Here are the latest Google Ads regulations financial advisors must beware of to avoid getting penalized:  

1. Ads must not be misleading, deceptive, or fraudulent

Ads must not mislead, including by omitting information. In addition, ads should be identifiable and represent the advertiser’s products and services in a non-deceptive way. Google may not review all aspects of your ad for compliance with these policies, but ads for financial products are reviewed more strictly.

2. Ads must not make false or misleading claims

Ads must not misrepresent, conceal or distort information about the product. Claims should be supported by “actionable” content, meaning a link to additional information or other material that supports the claim.

3. Ads must disclose material facts

Ads must disclose all relevant information about an advertisement that materially affects the ad’s weight in the marketplace. An ad must inform material facts that the advertiser is aware of and can reasonably expect are likely to affect an individual’s decision to purchase a product or service. 

It includes information about the existence or amount of any taxes, delivery charges, and financing costs involved with a transaction. Example: “Free Trial Offer” The company offers this product without charge during the trial period, but it will begin charging your card once the trial period ends.

Should You Hire a Google Ads PPC Agency?

Google Ads is the biggest and most competitive ad platform globally, with more advertisers than any other platform. However, with so many advertisers competing to be visible on Google, it can be challenging to keep your ads at the top of the heap, especially if you don’t have experience managing PPC campaigns or lots of free time to manage them yourself. 

A paid search advertising agency can help you out by setting up and running your Ads account, allowing you to focus on what you do best – advising clients and planning for their financial futures.

Is it worth it to hire a paid search advertising agency?

M3-3-Benefits-of-outsourcing-digital-marketing-services.jpg

(Source: Reddit)

They understand Google Ads.

When it comes to Google Ads for financial advisors (or any search engine marketing campaign), you must have a pay per click advertising agency that understands. You can carry out your Google Ads keyword strategy, and any other paid advertising strategy. 

Not having a proper Google ads plan will make you waste money on unfocused keywords, duplicated ad copy across different websites, and zero results. Working with a paid search advertising agency can be tricky but can help you focus on financial services-related keywords while offering advice when things get tough. 

Most importantly, a pay per click advertising agency can help you avoid wasting money by hiring freelancers who charge per hour but don’t necessarily provide expert knowledge or strategies.

They are experts at developing Google Ads keyword strategies.

Financial advisors often don’t have Google ads expertise and aren’t experts in developing paid search advertising strategies. Creating a Google ads keyword strategy is crucial because it’s one of the most significant factors affecting your click-through rate (CTR) and conversion rate (CR). Your Google ads campaign will fail without one.

Set Your Google Ads in Motion!

Google Ads for financial advisors is a fantastic tool for those who know how to use it, but it can be confusing, especially when you first get started. Even if you have a decent understanding of what works and what doesn’t, setting up your account and managing your bids, keywords, and ad groups can be time-consuming—especially if you’re trying to do everything yourself. 

And even if you do manage all that work yourself, most advisors will admit that there are aspects of Google Ads management that are impossible for them as individuals.

That’s where we come in!

At Flying V Group, we work tirelessly to ensure that your business achieves your desired results. So contact us right away if you’re ready to take your firm to the next level.

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Written by Robb Fahrion

Robb Fahrion is a Co-Founder and Partner of Flying V Group. Robb has helped over 350+ companies build their businesses online and is responsible for building Flying V Group into one of the premier marketing agencies in the United States. Robb and his team have managed over $10M in marketing budget and continue to accelerate the growth of clients' businesses. A love for business and competition is what fuels Robb to create dynamic marketing plans to help his clients grow exponentially.

April 29, 2022

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