Surge Marketing has gained long-term clients by
helping them with Google AdWords.
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Before working with Google AdWords, Troy Mutter was a ten-year veteran of
traditional marketing, helping businesses advertise through newspapers, magazines,
TV, billboards and mailouts. Frustrated by the cost and ineffectiveness of those
types of marketing, in 2001 Mutter began doing contract work with a skin care
company that used Google AdWords, and he was hooked. "I learned a lot about the
cost-per-click advertising model, and I was really blown away because the company
was making a huge profit using that program," he said.
Mutter was so impressed with the results that in December 2005, he decided to set up his own shop. "It's primarily because of what I learned with AdWords that I started my own company," he said. "I realized there was a huge opportunity." So he founded Surge Marketing Corporation (http://www.surgemark.com/) to focus on maximizing AdWords campaigns for clients in the health, law and real estate industries. Approach The companies Mutter works with were spending a lot on traditional advertising and not getting the results they wanted. "If you go into a magazine store, there are thousands and thousands of magazines–the market is saturated," he observes "For small businesses, putting an ad in a magazine is ridiculous. It's too expensive, not effective, and really hard to track. For that same $10,000, you can get 20,000 targeted visitors to your site, where they can instantly purchase your product. If you had that money in a magazine ad, you might get thousands of eyeballs looking at it, but then they have to go and find your store or call you or get to their computer." Mutter's strategy is a simple matter of restructuring and re-organizing online ad campaigns. For a recent client, Mutter renamed campaigns according to their performance ("bad," "poor," "good," "better") and then funneled money to and from campaigns. "We put money towards campaigns that have results and took money away from those that don't," he says. And he likes the ability to make improvements on his campaigns at any time and see instant results. "I love using Google because we can change things in real time," he said. Conversion rates are key, according to Mutter, who calls the AdWords conversion tracking system "phenomenal." "It's all about cost per conversion," he said. "That's something a lot of sites don't offer. If you don't have a conversion tracking system, you're blindly advertising." And he's enthusiastic about the keyword tool, which generates potential keywords for campaigns and reports their Google statistics, including search performance and global traffic trends. Mutter uses it to develop new campaigns with variations on existing keywords. Surge Marketing Corp. has recently begun to work with local companies near its Victoria, B.C headquarters, and Mutter said local targeting is one of Google AdWords' best features. "One misperception is that when you advertise on the Internet, you're advertising to a worldwide market, and therefore it's really expensive," Mutter said. "But with local targeting, you can show up on that worldwide search but only pay for that local market, which is really inexpensive." He says local targeting is more cost-effective than advertising in the yellow pages and magazines. "You can spend as little as $50 month and have number one placement for the search terms that you want," Mutter said. "Other companies are not doing that. What I recommend for any company trying to reach a local market is that they need to be on Google." Mutter also believes the program is a great way to do cost-effective market research. "You put an ad specific to your business on Google AdWords, along with 100 search terms," he said. "Within a day, you're going to find out which of those is the most appropriate for your ad. Right away you get a clear idea of who's searching for your company. If you're advertising in North America, you could find out which state is more interested in your products. There are research companies that can do it for you, but they cost a lot of money. Google AdWords provides free, instant research." Results Mutter says that some Surge clients are spending, for example, $12,000 for Google AdWords each month and seeing $100,000 in revenue over the same period. "The results are staggering," he says. Another of Surge's current clients started with a 0.33 percent conversion rate; now it's 5.6 percent. Their overall clickthrough rate has jumped from 1.8 percent to 2.9 percent. And the client's revenue has increased by 36 percent. "One of my big selling points is ‘I can show you results tomorrow," he said. "I tell companies that if we start this today, by tomorrow you're going to be in a top position for the search terms you want. It's a pretty easy sell." He says he often relies on the advice of AdWords support staff for pointers. "In fact, we're getting credit for what Google does," he says. These results have led to Surge itself seeing an increase in renewed contracts. "Every client we're getting is turning into a long-term client because of the results they're seeing with Google," he notes, adding that companies that use traditional marketing are missing out. "They're getting poor results, and aren't able to track or target effectively," he says. "There are huge opportunities for companies to come to the AdWords model of advertising." About Google AdWords Google AdWords is currently used by thousands of businesses worldwide to gain new customers in a cost-effective way. AdWords uses keywords to precisely target ad delivery to web users seeking information about a particular product or service. The program is based on cost-per-click (CPC) pricing, so advertisers only pay when an ad is clicked on. Advertisers can take advantage of an extremely broad distribution network, and choose the level of support and spending appropriate for their business. For more information on launching your own campaign or getting expert help, visit http://adwords.google.com. Would you like to share your Google AdWords success story with us? We'd love to hear from you! *2005 Home and Garden Survey, conducted by Media-Screen and GMI (April 2005). Return to BIM overview page |
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