1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:08,900 Kevin Mako: Hello, product innovators. Today we learn from an expert who manages $18 million per month in e-commerce ad spend on how to launch a new hardware product via Google advertising. 2 00:00:12,460 --> 00:00:21,400 Narrator: You're listening to the Product Startup Podcast, the show that helps bring your product idea to life by chatting with successful inventors, 3 00:00:21,820 --> 00:00:29,740 Narrator: product developers, and hardware industry professionals. Our goal here is to get to the bottom of what makes a product successful, from 4 00:00:29,740 --> 00:00:39,140 Narrator: initial idea to getting your product on store shelves. We're taking you step by step to build a functional product and scale your product business. 5 00:00:39,400 --> 00:00:48,060 Narrator: Hosted by Kevin Mako, one of North America's leading experts on hardware development for small product businesses. Now, on to the show. 6 00:00:49,370 --> 00:00:52,590 Kevin Mako: Welcome back, everyone. Today I'm very excited to introduce Jem Bourouh to the show. 7 00:00:52,830 --> 00:00:58,270 Kevin Mako: Gem is a partner at Accelerated, one of Europe's leading direct-to-consumer advertising agencies for e-commerce. 8 00:00:58,710 --> 00:01:04,710 Kevin Mako: Gem has won many awards and has had seven products hit seven figures in sales in just the first third. days of their campaigns. 9 00:01:05,450 --> 00:01:12,130 Kevin Mako: Today, Jem is going to share some valuable knowledge of her inventors, startups, and small manufacturers on the different types of Google advertising for a new hardware 10 00:01:12,130 --> 00:01:16,630 Kevin Mako: product, the structure and tools needed to launch your first campaign and tips for maximizing 11 00:01:16,630 --> 00:01:26,220 Kevin Mako: the success and growth of your Google Ads campaigns to sell directly to end consumers. Now, on the episode. Hey, Jim, welcome to the show. Hey, Kevin. Thanks for having me. 12 00:01:26,460 --> 00:01:32,860 Kevin Mako: Super excited to be here. Well, excited to have you here talking about selling direct to customers on Google, which is 13 00:01:32,860 --> 00:01:38,620 Kevin Mako: something that is easier than people think, at least to get started. Obviously, there's a lot that goes in behind it. 14 00:01:38,780 --> 00:01:47,040 Kevin Mako: But it's another one of these channels for a hardware startup or for a new product that's launching to the market to sell direct to customers. And it's something that is not 15 00:01:47,040 --> 00:01:52,460 Kevin Mako: always thought about as a first sales channel avenue, but something that can be done right at home from your very own desk. 16 00:01:52,520 --> 00:01:58,620 Kevin Mako: So I wanted to talk to you about some of the best practices around this. You have a tremendous amount of experience in the space. But I'll let you share that. 17 00:01:58,880 --> 00:02:02,840 Kevin Mako: Give us a 18 00:02:02,840 --> 00:02:06,580 Jem Bourouh: of selling hardware products direct to customers on Google. Yeah, definitely. 19 00:02:07,380 --> 00:02:16,260 Jem Bourouh: So for those of you who maybe do not know me, my name is Jim Borough. Born raised in Germany, actually emigrated to the UAE, the last year in September. 20 00:02:16,820 --> 00:02:22,020 Jem Bourouh: Move to Bali, so I'm living in Bali right now. And like some things that I've done, we've had like several product launches scaled 21 00:02:22,020 --> 00:02:27,320 Jem Bourouh: from zero to a million seven times already within a month, which is like crazy if you think about it right now. 22 00:02:27,620 --> 00:02:36,560 Jem Bourouh: The adsman that we're managing within our Google Ads agency is around like 18 million euros. used to be 20 million U.S., but ever since the euro dropped, 23 00:02:36,760 --> 00:02:42,460 Jem Bourouh: it's more like 18 million U.S. that we're managing right now, awarded by the two-coma award, two-coma club, by click 24 00:02:42,460 --> 00:02:50,660 Jem Bourouh: funnels by making one million with one funnel, awarded by Zipify, by making one million in upsells with an upsell funnel. 25 00:02:51,060 --> 00:02:57,160 Kevin Mako: So yeah, that's what I do. A tremendous amount of experience. So let's talk about Google, break it down. How do you sell 26 00:02:57,160 --> 00:03:05,840 Kevin Mako: on Google? What is Google AdWords advertising and how does that apply to hardware startups trying to sell a first product via that channel directly to end 27 00:03:05,840 --> 00:03:11,980 Jem Bourouh: customers and buyers to actually use that product. Yeah, it's a great question, Kevin. So generally speaking, when people think about 28 00:03:11,980 --> 00:03:16,820 Jem Bourouh: advertising online, I think many times people are always overcomplicating it and, you know, 29 00:03:17,160 --> 00:03:21,840 Jem Bourouh: having worries about nothing and just like overcomplicating it, it doesn't have to be that way 30 00:03:21,840 --> 00:03:29,240 Jem Bourouh: because, of course, if you think about social media and all of these things, you're like, oh, I need a video and then I need a page and the setup might be super, super complicated, 31 00:03:29,240 --> 00:03:36,900 Jem Bourouh: but it certainly is not complicated. So when we're talking about Google ads, it's like very, very simple. So let's say you want to buy shoes online. 32 00:03:37,080 --> 00:03:41,720 Jem Bourouh: Where's the first place that you're going to look for on Google? There are like different types of ads that you can see. 33 00:03:41,900 --> 00:03:47,820 Jem Bourouh: Let's say you are in need of a dentist apartment and you don't have a dentist in the city that you're living in. 34 00:03:48,180 --> 00:03:52,900 Jem Bourouh: Naturally, the first thing that you're going to do is look up dentists in my area or something on Google. 35 00:03:53,160 --> 00:04:02,080 Jem Bourouh: And then you're going to get these ads where it says sponsored ads, whatever, like the first few. and these are search ads. So basically what happens with these search ads 36 00:04:02,080 --> 00:04:10,300 Jem Bourouh: is that people are bidding on certain keywords. So basically the phrases and the queries that user puts in and Google and they're bidding on the keywords. 37 00:04:10,480 --> 00:04:17,260 Jem Bourouh: So they are always showing up for that respective keyword. There's also ads for like shopping. So whenever you're looking for Nike shoes, for example, 38 00:04:17,420 --> 00:04:25,720 Jem Bourouh: you're getting these picture ads. This is what a shopping ad is. We have YouTube ads. So these annoying five seconds in front of every video that you can skip. 39 00:04:25,760 --> 00:04:32,960 Jem Bourouh: You have display ads. Display ads is when people talk about oh i've talked about this and now it's haunting me or oh i've clicked on this website now i'm getting 40 00:04:32,960 --> 00:04:36,580 Jem Bourouh: it over and over and over again because display is mainly used for retargeting which is basically 41 00:04:36,580 --> 00:04:41,700 Jem Bourouh: you've had a first interaction somewhere on a website or a competitor's website or something and 42 00:04:41,700 --> 00:04:49,840 Jem Bourouh: now you know you see it over and over and over again the frequency is super high and then you also have discovery which is basically if you're on your phone below the youtube 43 00:04:49,840 --> 00:04:56,200 Jem Bourouh: videos or on your desktop basically on the side so this is basically what google ads is and the beauty of google ads is that 44 00:04:56,200 --> 00:05:01,600 Jem Bourouh: as a consumer, it always makes things easier to find, whether it is a service or a product, 45 00:05:01,980 --> 00:05:05,460 Jem Bourouh: but especially from a seller perspective and a business owner perspective, it's a great tool 46 00:05:05,460 --> 00:05:11,980 Jem Bourouh: because at the end of the day, hopefully you know your customer avatar, you know exactly who's buying your respective product. 47 00:05:12,260 --> 00:05:19,720 Jem Bourouh: And then you can basically just show up in front of these people who are trying to purchase your product, your service that is going to help them 48 00:05:19,720 --> 00:05:26,140 Kevin Mako: solve something that they're struggling with or even make their life easier. That's amazing because one of the big keys, 49 00:05:26,200 --> 00:05:33,160 Kevin Mako: of Google, first of all, is that there's a lot of different channels. And I love that you highlighted the different ones. There's the search ads that come up for services. 50 00:05:33,460 --> 00:05:38,780 Kevin Mako: There's product ads, which are actually very much emerging and very high tech. Google has really put a lot of effort 51 00:05:38,780 --> 00:05:45,300 Kevin Mako: into trying to compete with some of the other major players, like Amazon or other, the variety of places that you can buy product online. 52 00:05:45,560 --> 00:05:52,580 Kevin Mako: Google is really trying to put a conscious effort into actually competing in that. And of course, Amazon is actually one of their main subscribers to product advertising. 53 00:05:52,760 --> 00:06:00,860 Kevin Mako: So that in and itself is a big ticket item for hardware companies. And it's an emerging platform that's easier and easier to launch products on. 54 00:06:01,160 --> 00:06:05,540 Kevin Mako: Then you've got other things like display, which is intent-based display on websites you're looking at. 55 00:06:05,560 --> 00:06:14,680 Kevin Mako: If you're looking at a blog, talking about buying shoes online, it might be a little ad in the corner. All of these things come together to have intent-based advertising 56 00:06:14,680 --> 00:06:21,860 Kevin Mako: in front of people looking to buy a product either yours or very similar to yours at the right time and at the right place. 57 00:06:21,880 --> 00:06:29,520 Kevin Mako: And with all of these channels, it gives a tremendous opportunity to somebody who's creating a new product, especially most of the listeners on the show are creating something 58 00:06:29,520 --> 00:06:38,440 Kevin Mako: innovative, something unique, something that's either solving a pain point or creating an opportunity for somebody. So if you can find on Google that avenue to 59 00:06:38,440 --> 00:06:44,180 Kevin Mako: get your ad in front of those people who have those certain types of intent, there's a very high probability of that person or that 60 00:06:44,180 --> 00:06:47,500 Kevin Mako: intent-based audience is going to convert into an actual sale. 61 00:06:47,680 --> 00:06:54,280 Jem Bourouh: So, Jim, let's get into it. How does that work? It's a great question. How does it work? The question really is, like, where people want to get 62 00:06:54,280 --> 00:06:58,360 Jem Bourouh: start on what the easiest avenue is, because this is like what many people are mostly asking 63 00:06:58,360 --> 00:07:03,500 Jem Bourouh: themselves. It really depends on the service of the hardware, the product that you have at the end of 64 00:07:03,500 --> 00:07:08,960 Jem Bourouh: the day. If it might be something that is super new, no one has seen it before right. You're in a super blue ocean. 65 00:07:09,260 --> 00:07:12,660 Jem Bourouh: You probably want to target by just having keywords that are more targeted 66 00:07:13,680 --> 00:07:20,000 Jem Bourouh: informational queries. It's not really a query where people would be looking for the exact product, 67 00:07:20,160 --> 00:07:24,260 Jem Bourouh: but more like, you know, problems that they have and issues that they have and things that 68 00:07:24,280 --> 00:07:29,040 Jem Bourouh: they are struggling with kind of like reverse engineering like this is my product no one is looking 69 00:07:29,040 --> 00:07:33,540 Jem Bourouh: for it what is the avatar struggling with and this is like how you can come up with all of these 70 00:07:33,540 --> 00:07:37,840 Jem Bourouh: informational queries and of course like it could be also easier depending on the product that 71 00:07:37,840 --> 00:07:43,200 Jem Bourouh: you have but of course like you really have to separate the way that you are targeting so the way 72 00:07:43,200 --> 00:07:52,120 Jem Bourouh: i personally structure my campaigns is i have one dedicated search campaign just for transactional keywords and by transaction what i mean is when people are really looking for 73 00:07:52,120 --> 00:08:01,760 Jem Bourouh: the respective products or alternatives, then we have a navigational campaign. A navigational campaign is pretty much where you'll have all of the competitors' brand names. 74 00:08:02,100 --> 00:08:06,720 Jem Bourouh: So let's say you're not in a blue ocean, but you might be in a red ocean or you're still in a 75 00:08:06,720 --> 00:08:14,300 Jem Bourouh: blue ocean and you have people who are not selling the exact same thing, but something that still solves the same issue, but in a different way. 76 00:08:14,620 --> 00:08:22,100 Jem Bourouh: So you put all of these competitors into the campaign and like all of the skews that they have, the names, the product types, basically, right? 77 00:08:22,240 --> 00:08:28,360 Jem Bourouh: Because at the end of the day, this is what people are. also looking for and then of course we have another campaign which is informational so targeted towards 78 00:08:28,360 --> 00:08:34,100 Jem Bourouh: these alternative ideas or issues that people are struggling with this is basically how you can get set up and 79 00:08:34,100 --> 00:08:38,440 Jem Bourouh: going this is like why it's so incredibly powerful and we've had this in the beginning people always tend 80 00:08:38,440 --> 00:08:43,800 Jem Bourouh: to overcomplicate things where it doesn't have to be really complicated right as long as you know who your 81 00:08:43,800 --> 00:08:48,720 Jem Bourouh: avatar is and in my opinion this should be a given if you're launching a product because launching a product 82 00:08:48,720 --> 00:08:53,380 Jem Bourouh: developing and everything you know like of course you're not developing something if you don't know what 83 00:08:53,380 --> 00:08:57,620 Jem Bourouh: the end result of the product is going to be or with the issues it's going to solve, right? 84 00:08:57,980 --> 00:09:05,140 Kevin Mako: It kind of goes hand in hand with the product that you have and the research that you are trying to conduct here. I like the mention of avatar. 85 00:09:05,460 --> 00:09:14,920 Kevin Mako: Break that down a bit for somebody who's developing a new product. What is an avatar? And how do they use that to then create the actual target keywords for their advertising 86 00:09:14,920 --> 00:09:23,260 Jem Bourouh: campaign on Google? Avatar is really, really wide, right? We could pin it down to who is going to be the target market. First things first, you're trying to pin it down like, 87 00:09:23,380 --> 00:09:29,100 Jem Bourouh: top bottom. Something that I want to mention here is like a super interesting example from the dad of a friend of mine who's a headhunter. 88 00:09:29,460 --> 00:09:38,580 Jem Bourouh: And the way he asks questions to prospects is he's not really trying to get to the underlying issue, but it's more like seeing the thought process that 89 00:09:38,580 --> 00:09:45,940 Jem Bourouh: people have. So an example would be how many people in Japan are buying razors? And you know, this is like where the entire thought process starts. 90 00:09:46,060 --> 00:09:53,120 Jem Bourouh: Okay, how many people are living in Japan, who was shaving? Is it only men? Is it women? Do people have razors that they can use multiple 91 00:09:53,120 --> 00:09:59,480 Jem Bourouh: times, you know, can you have an upsell for that? Basically, just thinking about how many times people shave and hair growth is going to be different. 92 00:09:59,640 --> 00:10:06,980 Jem Bourouh: So it's from simple thinking to more dedicated thinking. And it's the same thing with the avatar. It starts like very basic. And then it goes down, who's struggling with this? 93 00:10:07,060 --> 00:10:14,600 Jem Bourouh: What are the ages? What about the population? Who do we want to target? What country are they living in? And then it goes down to things such as age, how old is the 94 00:10:14,600 --> 00:10:21,580 Jem Bourouh: person, then what job are they working? So it's kind of like thinking about not only gender and age, 95 00:10:21,580 --> 00:10:25,800 Jem Bourouh: but also like hobbies, what the people do, what they're struggling with, how they spent 96 00:10:25,800 --> 00:10:34,400 Kevin Mako: their free time. The easiest way I like to think of an avatar is imagine your customer, visually imagine that customer, name them. 97 00:10:34,600 --> 00:10:41,220 Kevin Mako: A lot of companies will actually have a physical form of their not necessarily ideal customer, but they're most likely customer. 98 00:10:41,620 --> 00:10:47,940 Kevin Mako: And they're trying to actually figure out what does that person do? What's their sex? What's their age? What are they doing? Where are they living? 99 00:10:48,120 --> 00:10:54,280 Kevin Mako: What is their lifestyle habits, etc. etc. And you can generally for most physical consumer products, especially if you have a niche 100 00:10:54,280 --> 00:10:58,860 Kevin Mako: invention or something that's solving a very specific pain point or creating a very specific 101 00:10:58,860 --> 00:11:05,160 Kevin Mako: opportunity, you could usually drill that down to a very specific type of person. That's your avatar. That's your customer. 102 00:11:05,500 --> 00:11:11,080 Kevin Mako: Obviously, there's going to be different customers, but that's kind of a base point. And that allows you really easily to understand, okay, here is the person 103 00:11:11,080 --> 00:11:18,860 Kevin Mako: that I'm trying to target. Now, how do I create keywords to attract that very person to my product? And that comes into the next step. 104 00:11:19,000 --> 00:11:27,080 Kevin Mako: So first is Avatar, once we understand what the customer is, we have a very clearly defined picture of what our buyer is like. What is their intent? 105 00:11:27,280 --> 00:11:34,000 Kevin Mako: Now we try and match a keywords to it. So, Jim, tactically speaking here, if we have no website, no Google AdWords account, 106 00:11:34,220 --> 00:11:42,500 Kevin Mako: anything like that, how do you set this stuff up so that somebody can actually create an ad for their product, have somebody go through to a website and actually purchase 107 00:11:42,500 --> 00:11:46,480 Jem Bourouh: a product from them? What are some of the tactical basics of it? Very, very good question. 108 00:11:46,480 --> 00:11:55,300 Jem Bourouh: Because first of all, as you've already mentioned, you need to think about the status quo. So where are you ad right now? And how does the entire workflow of Google ads work? 109 00:11:55,620 --> 00:12:03,140 Jem Bourouh: So not only like workflow about like, how do I set up ads in a technical way, but like, what is the customer journey? So someone looks for the ad. They click the ad. 110 00:12:03,240 --> 00:12:08,220 Jem Bourouh: If they click the ad, they're going to be sent to a website. You know, this is like the first requirement. You need a website. 111 00:12:08,500 --> 00:12:17,200 Jem Bourouh: If you don't have a website, very simple to get one going. You can have simple HTML code with a Shopify buy button, for example, and integration. You can also just send them. 112 00:12:17,560 --> 00:12:23,840 Jem Bourouh: If you're on Kickstarter, you can also send them to Kickstarter. It's super simple. So you don't have to make a website, putting the tracking code, super simple. 113 00:12:24,200 --> 00:12:28,540 Jem Bourouh: Basically, all of the information that's, let's go with an example of Kickstarter, actually. 114 00:12:28,760 --> 00:12:33,500 Jem Bourouh: So whenever you have people who are going to your Kickstarter, they know about your product, 115 00:12:33,700 --> 00:12:38,180 Jem Bourouh: they know about the vision, they know about the money you're trying to raise, they know about what exactly they're going to get. 116 00:12:38,200 --> 00:12:46,440 Jem Bourouh: If it's like a greeting card for a dollar, you know, or like a mention for five or like an actual product for 50 or whatever, the price point might be. 117 00:12:46,780 --> 00:12:54,980 Jem Bourouh: This is pretty much the entire customer journey for we're talking about Kickstarter. So they click the ad, they go to your Kickstarter and then they're able to see all of the 118 00:12:54,980 --> 00:13:02,020 Jem Bourouh: information. Let's say you don't have a Kickstarter where you can just do is simulate something like a Kickstarter. There are like many, many websites that you can emulate here. 119 00:13:02,300 --> 00:13:08,060 Jem Bourouh: The easiest way to do it is probably just look at your competitors and see what they're doing. If you don't know what the website 120 00:13:08,060 --> 00:13:15,480 Jem Bourouh: of your competitor is, the easiest thing and this goes a bit more into the technical side of things is, and it's not hard because we can use tools. 121 00:13:15,620 --> 00:13:23,860 Jem Bourouh: A tool that I really love to use is SEM Rush, because what SEMRush allows us to do is we can just put in hypothetical keywords. I could just type in the keyword, 122 00:13:24,160 --> 00:13:30,900 Jem Bourouh: and then it's going to give me advertisers who are bidding on that respective keyword, and what this allows me to do is, of course, see their website, 123 00:13:31,000 --> 00:13:37,840 Jem Bourouh: and then, like, get some more insights on how much they're spending, what the traffic looks like, how many people are looking for the keyword in a month. 124 00:13:37,860 --> 00:13:46,520 Jem Bourouh: And not all of this data is 100% accurate, But what you're trying to do is to see what the websites of the competitors look like. 125 00:13:46,680 --> 00:13:50,980 Jem Bourouh: And I'm not saying that you should copy this one to one, but it's just for you to get a feeling 126 00:13:50,980 --> 00:13:58,120 Jem Bourouh: and understanding of how they're communicating all of their USPs, the value propositions and everything and what they're offering, the price points. 127 00:13:58,300 --> 00:14:03,600 Jem Bourouh: This is like basically how you can conduct this entire competitor research and market research with SEM Rush. 128 00:14:03,780 --> 00:14:11,260 Jem Bourouh: Once you have that set up, things you can use to set up a website if you just want to set up a super, super basic website. Shopify, of course, you can do anything. 129 00:14:11,640 --> 00:14:16,920 Jem Bourouh: If everything of you is hosted on Webflow, go with Webflow. If it's on WordPress, go with WordPress. Once you've set up 130 00:14:16,920 --> 00:14:22,640 Jem Bourouh: your website, you know, you need to implement the tracking code, but there are also like apps they can install. You know, it takes you five minutes, boom. 131 00:14:23,200 --> 00:14:28,860 Jem Bourouh: You have the tracking code set up because if you're bidding on keywords and everything, you need to know what keyword actually brought 132 00:14:28,860 --> 00:14:34,420 Jem Bourouh: the sale. It's impossible to increase the budget and everything if you do not know where the actual purchases are coming from. 133 00:14:34,740 --> 00:14:43,940 Jem Bourouh: Of course, like with the recent data policy, private changes from Apple and iOS back in May 2021, for those of you who do not know, there's been a change that Apple 134 00:14:43,940 --> 00:14:50,060 Jem Bourouh: basically updated iOS and pretty much removed a lot of the tracking options. So something that I like to 135 00:14:50,060 --> 00:14:59,340 Jem Bourouh: use for the tracking that goes hand in hand with Shopify is a tool called Triple Whale, which just allows you to do the attribution better. An attribution is the purchase is being 136 00:14:59,340 --> 00:15:02,840 Jem Bourouh: attributed to their respective campaigns or keywords or whatever it is. 137 00:15:03,240 --> 00:15:11,980 Kevin Mako: This is basically the entire workflow, like starting from website and everything. To break it down, first foremost, you have to have some sort of a website or a platform 138 00:15:11,980 --> 00:15:16,860 Kevin Mako: or an area where somebody can actually look at your product, see what it does, and click the purchase button. 139 00:15:17,040 --> 00:15:21,340 Kevin Mako: So that's essentially your purchase asset, your website, whatever else. Relatively easy to set up. 140 00:15:21,380 --> 00:15:24,880 Kevin Mako: You can hire an agency to do that or you can set it up on many platforms that are out there, 141 00:15:24,980 --> 00:15:33,200 Kevin Mako: but you need somewhere to land to showcase your product, essentially your store online and have somebody buy it. Next step is you have to obviously set up your campaign. 142 00:15:33,240 --> 00:15:38,860 Kevin Mako: figure out what your intent is based on the original avatar and get people actually coming to that site. 143 00:15:38,960 --> 00:15:45,300 Kevin Mako: And I love that you mentioned Jem 2, something that a first time Google AdWords advertiser might not think about, but how important tracking is. 144 00:15:45,980 --> 00:15:51,520 Kevin Mako: Everything must be tracked because what you want to do over time is figure out what is working, what is not working. 145 00:15:51,760 --> 00:15:58,020 Kevin Mako: And I think that makes it very simple for somebody to start a Google campaign because you don't need to perfect it out of the gate. 146 00:15:58,260 --> 00:16:05,040 Kevin Mako: You just need to get the basic information out there. think about the basic intent-based keywords, and then start the campaign. 147 00:16:05,360 --> 00:16:10,960 Kevin Mako: From there, you can actually analyze and review what's happening in real time based on who's 148 00:16:10,960 --> 00:16:20,520 Kevin Mako: actually purchasing it, based on the intent that you theorized would attract that potential customer. So you start small, like everything, start with your MVP and work your way up. 149 00:16:20,640 --> 00:16:25,100 Kevin Mako: So, Jen, let's jump over to that side of setting up an actual Google campaign. 150 00:16:25,760 --> 00:16:30,860 Kevin Mako: What is kind of the easier starter campaign if you just wanted to get the ball rolling? Let's assume you have your website. 151 00:16:31,020 --> 00:16:38,320 Kevin Mako: you've got any little explainer on it that tells the person what the product is and has a purchase button. Now they want to actually advertise on Google. 152 00:16:38,520 --> 00:16:43,620 Kevin Mako: What's the easiest way to set it up? And what of the various channels that we talked about before? What do you think is the easiest one to get 153 00:16:43,620 --> 00:16:51,100 Jem Bourouh: started on to just start test advertising to see what some of those keyword intents are and how well they're actually tracking? Great question. 154 00:16:51,520 --> 00:16:55,120 Jem Bourouh: So let's say everything is set up. With Google, there's a lot 155 00:16:55,120 --> 00:17:02,460 Kevin Mako: of reverse engineering and reverse thinking and just like connecting the dots. So like this is why I love it so much. Overall, explain it to the audience. 156 00:17:02,880 --> 00:17:08,980 Kevin Mako: What is the starting step? If I just want to sell my widget, let's look at one of macro designs past products, underwater fishing camera. 157 00:17:09,300 --> 00:17:18,640 Kevin Mako: What campaign would you set up to advertise to that group on Google? And how do you actually go about setting it up to drive those folks over to the landing page, 158 00:17:18,780 --> 00:17:25,500 Jem Bourouh: the website, the Kickstarter campaign, or whatever actual digital asset used to try and sell and allow a customer to purchase that product? 159 00:17:25,540 --> 00:17:33,540 Jem Bourouh: We know that people are going to be looking for underwater fishing camera. Take the keyword, put it in an SEM rush, or put in the keyword tool of Google, 160 00:17:33,720 --> 00:17:39,740 Jem Bourouh: and then you're going to get recommendations. So you're not only stuck with underwatering fishing camera, but you're going to see other different keywords 161 00:17:39,740 --> 00:17:46,360 Jem Bourouh: that are similar, but not the same. It's the same, but it's not the same. Basically, what are you going to do, create a campaign, choose manual CPC. 162 00:17:46,680 --> 00:17:54,560 Jem Bourouh: So basically, a bidding strategy where it says, I want to bid X amount per click to make it very simple. You want to put a starting bit of 70 cents. 163 00:17:54,760 --> 00:18:01,380 Jem Bourouh: You want to use the keywords that you have, underwatering fishing camera. and within a campaign, there's something called an ad group. 164 00:18:01,600 --> 00:18:08,280 Jem Bourouh: And within an ad group, you have two things, keywords and ads. Keywords are the words, the keywords that we've talked about, underwater fishing camera. 165 00:18:08,560 --> 00:18:15,920 Jem Bourouh: And then you need to start to write your ad. So this is where you can really do the objection handling and the selling and showing all the USPs and everything. 166 00:18:16,160 --> 00:18:22,960 Jem Bourouh: So you can be like, this is the number one underwater fishing camera. This helps you to see underwater. This helps you to take pictures underwater. 167 00:18:23,340 --> 00:18:32,500 Jem Bourouh: It's better than XYZ because ABC, you know, like money backer. guarantee, 24-7 customer support, basically all of that stuff, everything that is differentiating 168 00:18:32,500 --> 00:18:34,020 Jem Bourouh: you from your competitors. 169 00:18:34,920 --> 00:18:42,100 Jem Bourouh: You can do this in the headline. Then you can also explain the product within the description. So you can talk about your product, you know, again, USPs and 170 00:18:42,100 --> 00:18:49,180 Kevin Mako: everything. And then you just want to launch the campaign at what, $50 a day, $100 a day, and then just let it spend. 171 00:18:49,300 --> 00:18:57,320 Kevin Mako: The whole idea there is you want to put these things out there, try your initial theories essentially. And these are your ideas, like what are those keywords? The easiest one 172 00:18:57,320 --> 00:19:01,660 Kevin Mako: is just, we'll describe your product. That's the starting theory, right? As opposed to thinking of all 173 00:19:01,660 --> 00:19:08,180 Kevin Mako: these different intent-based audiences and supplementary industries, et cetera, just start with the core. What is your product? 174 00:19:08,640 --> 00:19:17,600 Kevin Mako: What does it do? Use those keywords and then write ads that are similar to those keywords. And ideally, your landing page, your website, your crowdfunding campaign, your Shopify, 175 00:19:17,800 --> 00:19:24,580 Kevin Mako: whatever it is that you're using to actually display your product, ideally that somewhat matches the ads that you're describing. 176 00:19:24,800 --> 00:19:32,060 Kevin Mako: And therefore, somebody who has the intent to buy an underwater water fishing camera, clicks on that ad because they saw it that you are selling exactly that. 177 00:19:32,220 --> 00:19:36,480 Kevin Mako: They land on a page selling exactly that thing. And then you've got all these great things you tell 178 00:19:36,480 --> 00:19:42,500 Kevin Mako: them about it. And at the end, somewhere or somewhere in that page, they hit the button that says purchase now and they actually whip out their credit card. 179 00:19:42,640 --> 00:19:48,480 Kevin Mako: And this is where the whole system begins. And it could be that simple to start. And through this, you can start to analyze based on what 180 00:19:48,480 --> 00:19:58,020 Kevin Mako: Jen was talking about in terms of tracking. You can start to track to see of the various keyword combinations that you used and the various advertising messages that you used, 181 00:19:58,320 --> 00:20:04,980 Kevin Mako: possibly even the various landing pages on your website that you tried, which ones of those are actually converting at the highest 182 00:20:04,980 --> 00:20:13,080 Kevin Mako: ratio, which is for every dollar of advertising you spend, what's your return on ad spend? So did that make you $5, $10, or maybe no dollars? 183 00:20:13,220 --> 00:20:20,120 Kevin Mako: And you can start to analyze, okay, you're going to cut out the campaigns that aren't making money, and then you can start to increase the campaigns that are making money. 184 00:20:20,120 --> 00:20:28,180 Kevin Mako: In conjunction, you can start adding new campaigns into test against the old ones. And that essentially is the basics of digital advertising altogether, 185 00:20:28,440 --> 00:20:35,420 Kevin Mako: but it's especially effective on Google because so much of this could be tracked through and so much buyer intent is happening directly on the Google platform. 186 00:20:35,640 --> 00:20:36,380 Kevin Mako: Couldn't have said it better. 187 00:20:37,600 --> 00:20:44,780 Kevin Mako: So, Jim, let's jump into some of the details about this. You mentioned the tool. I love SEM Rush. That helps you put in your keywords. 188 00:20:45,180 --> 00:20:53,160 Kevin Mako: So let's use the underwater fishing camera example. And it'll actually show you not just how much activity is happening with that keyword, 189 00:20:53,380 --> 00:21:03,320 Kevin Mako: but it'll show you alternative keywords, how competitive they are and a bunch of other data sets that allow you to start to decide how to become more efficient with your ad spend. 190 00:21:03,380 --> 00:21:12,780 Jem Bourouh: Are there any other tips or tricks that you find are effective for not just launching the campaign, but launching and then scaling and capturing more audience? Yeah, definitely. 191 00:21:13,340 --> 00:21:20,420 Jem Bourouh: So we've talked about tracking before and whether it is personal finance, or whatever, doing your books, bookkeeping, anything, 192 00:21:20,840 --> 00:21:28,000 Jem Bourouh: you always need to make sure that you have an outlook on your KPI's, right? You can't be profitable if you're not measuring. And it's the same with Google and everything with life. 193 00:21:28,400 --> 00:21:33,880 Jem Bourouh: You can't sleep good if you're not tracking your sleep. You know, you can say, okay, I've slept eight hours, but like how good did he actually sleep? 194 00:21:34,140 --> 00:21:42,300 Jem Bourouh: You know, quantifying, qualifying, and same thing with Google. You should always make sure that you should set some certain KPIs 195 00:21:42,300 --> 00:21:50,460 Jem Bourouh: and rules in order to kill respective keywords, right? Yeah, and KPIs, for those, don't know, what's key performance indicators. Maybe first things first. 196 00:21:50,720 --> 00:21:58,260 Jem Bourouh: There's something within Google ads, which is called Quality Score. Quality Score consists of three different things. First of all, we have ad relevance. 197 00:21:58,660 --> 00:22:08,600 Jem Bourouh: So, ad relevance is how much does the ad query relate to the user's intent? So if you bid on underwater fishing camera and you send them to a landing page, 198 00:22:08,720 --> 00:22:16,920 Jem Bourouh: which has an underwater fishing camera, good ad relevance. If you're bidding on underwater fishing camera and you're sending them to a dentist website, bad ad relevance. 199 00:22:17,300 --> 00:22:19,880 Jem Bourouh: Basic example. You also have landing page experience. 200 00:22:20,680 --> 00:22:26,500 Jem Bourouh: So is the user finding everything on their website that they're trying to find? How about the bounce rate? Like how long I'm staying on the website? 201 00:22:26,900 --> 00:22:34,780 Jem Bourouh: Are they clicking through the website? How many pages? On average, does a visitor go through? What about the loading speed and everything? And then we also have 202 00:22:34,780 --> 00:22:40,000 Jem Bourouh: expected click-through rate. So expected CTR means based on the copy, so the headlines and the 203 00:22:40,000 --> 00:22:47,360 Jem Bourouh: descriptions and the ads that you're writing on Google, Google basically says good, bad. If it's good, the copy is deemed to be good. 204 00:22:47,500 --> 00:22:55,000 Jem Bourouh: Then you're getting a good expected CTR. If it's a bad copy, you're going to be getting a bad expected CTR. All of these three factors are going to go 205 00:22:55,000 --> 00:23:04,200 Jem Bourouh: into something which is called quality score. And then the quality score is multiplied with your CPC or the bid that you have, which at the end gives you an ad rank. 206 00:23:04,400 --> 00:23:12,560 Jem Bourouh: So let's say you have a quality score of 10, Kevin, you're bidding 10 cents. I have a quality score of five and I'm bidding 20. 207 00:23:12,680 --> 00:23:20,040 Jem Bourouh: Even though my bid is almost double, you're still going to rank above me because your quality score is higher and your ad rank is going to be higher at the end of the day. 208 00:23:20,260 --> 00:23:28,740 Jem Bourouh: Taking that into account, you should always set rules. So let's say, just because the KPIs are bad, so the cost per conversion, 209 00:23:28,920 --> 00:23:35,740 Jem Bourouh: so the cost per sale that you have, you know, always, always take a look at what other things are going on. So take a look at your quality score. 210 00:23:36,000 --> 00:23:42,200 Jem Bourouh: a look at the amount that you have spent. Take a look at the CTR. Take a look at all these things, right? Take a look at your conversion rate. 211 00:23:42,600 --> 00:23:48,560 Jem Bourouh: Because if a keyword might not work, it might not be because of the Google ads. It might just be because of your landing page. That it's not selling 212 00:23:48,560 --> 00:23:55,960 Jem Bourouh: enough, that there's something broken. You don't have the respective payment processor. Maybe you're not offering PayPal or after pay or whatever it is. 213 00:23:56,260 --> 00:24:02,360 Jem Bourouh: Always try to look at the bigger picture. This is like the biggest tip that I can give. Always look at the bigger picture and try and 214 00:24:02,360 --> 00:24:08,040 Jem Bourouh: troubleshoot if there is any issues as best as you can look at everything else that is going on don't 215 00:24:08,040 --> 00:24:17,140 Jem Bourouh: only look straight but also look left and right because even if it doesn't have to do anything with google ads it might you know have an impact on google ads just 216 00:24:17,140 --> 00:24:22,560 Jem Bourouh: because of the nature of the business just because you're bidding on a keyword it doesn't mean that people are going to buy you know 217 00:24:22,560 --> 00:24:27,200 Jem Bourouh: the entire funnel has to be super super good and this is why i recommend starting off with all of these 218 00:24:27,200 --> 00:24:34,320 Jem Bourouh: hot things it's kind of like you can imagine a funnel that you have and the basic media of buying funnel is you have top of funnel, middle of funnel, bottom of funnel. 219 00:24:34,700 --> 00:24:40,900 Jem Bourouh: And it's kind of like getting from cold, warm, to hot. Now you twist the funnel around and it starts with bottom, middle, top 220 00:24:40,900 --> 00:24:45,200 Jem Bourouh: of funnel. So you should try and gather the obvious queries, the 221 00:24:45,200 --> 00:24:51,880 Kevin Mako: obvious searches that the users have and then start going to the things that might be a bit more difficult because that way you can 222 00:24:51,880 --> 00:25:01,220 Kevin Mako: harvest all of these very, very obvious keywords and make sales as soon as possible. I love that you mentioned that because that is the whole concept of low-hanging fruit. 223 00:25:01,300 --> 00:25:06,440 Kevin Mako: And what people don't realize is when you have a global market, a massive, almost 8 billion people, 224 00:25:07,200 --> 00:25:15,500 Kevin Mako: there's a lot of people that are going to be looking for a very specific keyword intent, the very thing exactly to the T that you are selling. 225 00:25:16,080 --> 00:25:20,040 Kevin Mako: That's the easiest place to start because, of course, your quality is going to be the highest. 226 00:25:20,180 --> 00:25:27,720 Kevin Mako: The conversion rate is going to be the highest because as somebody's typing in that very specific, that very niche thing, your exact match is coming up. 227 00:25:28,060 --> 00:25:32,840 Kevin Mako: And of course, that yields generally to a better click-through rate, which yields to a better conversion rate on your website. 228 00:25:33,000 --> 00:25:38,400 Kevin Mako: If you're describing it well and there's no problems on your site, like Jim mentioned, everything goes through somewhat seamlessly. 229 00:25:39,200 --> 00:25:40,820 Kevin Mako: That is the easiest place to start. 230 00:25:41,540 --> 00:25:50,400 Kevin Mako: And really, you don't need to be migrating down to middle, even middle funnel until you truly feel like you've saturated that top of funnel, which arguably takes a long time 231 00:25:50,400 --> 00:25:56,240 Kevin Mako: for a lot of companies because of how big the internet is. It's the easiest, cheapest advertising that you're going to have. 232 00:25:56,560 --> 00:26:04,880 Kevin Mako: But of course, all of this could be tested against real data, which is the beauty of Google AdWords, it's so different than traditional marketing, which used to be throw an ad on 233 00:26:04,880 --> 00:26:10,920 Kevin Mako: the radio and hope it works. It's kind of hard to tell whether or not the buyers are coming from the radio or some other source. 234 00:26:11,080 --> 00:26:19,260 Kevin Mako: You try and somehow peg it with maybe a mention on there that gives you a coupon so you can somewhat track it, but it's very loose. Here, it's extremely accurate. 235 00:26:19,420 --> 00:26:28,020 Kevin Mako: You know precisely who is converting and where they converted from. So it allows you to take all these theories that you have, practice them, and then tweak and refine them. 236 00:26:28,020 --> 00:26:35,380 Kevin Mako: The magic of all this at the end of the day is if you can find a set of keywords and an advertising campaign and a landing page, 237 00:26:35,520 --> 00:26:45,440 Kevin Mako: those three key combinations, if you can find a set of three of those that works, that's really creating profit on every dollar that you put into it, $10 in revenues coming out. 238 00:26:45,620 --> 00:26:51,800 Kevin Mako: Once you crack that, you can simply scale and grow that to quite a level until you hitch that saturation point. 239 00:26:51,880 --> 00:26:57,080 Jem Bourouh: So it's a really magical moment for a company to try these things, find that return on ad spend, 240 00:26:57,080 --> 00:27:03,660 Jem Bourouh: and then just start selling on the internet more and more and more simply by the click of a button to expand that campaign that you've tested. Definitely. 241 00:27:04,600 --> 00:27:09,240 Jem Bourouh: All right, what else would you like to jump into before I let you go as we're coming to the top of the hour here? 242 00:27:09,360 --> 00:27:17,780 Jem Bourouh: We can talk about some more advanced stuff for the viewers, listeners that might have some experience with Google ads, so it's going to get a bit nerdy. Yeah, let's go for it. 243 00:27:17,940 --> 00:27:26,880 Jem Bourouh: Jump into a few of those actionable tips and then we'll let you go soon after that. A few things that happened in the past few months is that Google is always steering towards 244 00:27:27,080 --> 00:27:32,940 Jem Bourouh: like more steering towards more machine learning, AI and everything, right? Why? Because at the end of the day, 245 00:27:33,360 --> 00:27:41,060 Jem Bourouh: Google wants to make as much money as possible and they want to enable everyone to make advertising as easy as possible. Because this is like the core business of Google. 246 00:27:41,220 --> 00:27:47,300 Jem Bourouh: They're making their money with ads being served. Something that has happened because of that is smart display campaigns 247 00:27:47,300 --> 00:27:52,980 Jem Bourouh: have been removed, smart shopping campaigns have been removed. And you campaign type in January has been introduced, which is called Performance Max. 248 00:27:53,500 --> 00:28:00,040 Jem Bourouh: Performance Max is like pretty much everything combined soul search shopping display discovery youtube but just in one campaign type where you just have to 249 00:28:00,040 --> 00:28:04,600 Jem Bourouh: provide all of the assets you you let us spend some data on either it works or it doesn't google is always 250 00:28:04,600 --> 00:28:09,940 Jem Bourouh: getting better and better and better at these things i had to say and in the beginning i was a bit scared 251 00:28:09,940 --> 00:28:18,480 Jem Bourouh: because i'm the type of guy who's like very very nerdy and who's looking at the data and who loves to do as many things as manual as you know you can whether it is for ego 252 00:28:18,480 --> 00:28:26,720 Jem Bourouh: or or just safety you know whatever you want to call it but google is actually doing a great job at that not only with performance max, but also with the keyword match types. 253 00:28:26,920 --> 00:28:34,360 Jem Bourouh: There's another keyword match type, which was called BroadMatch Modified. It's like the plus for some of you who might not know, the match type. 254 00:28:34,900 --> 00:28:40,940 Jem Bourouh: And what Google does is they removed it and they're basically telling people that they should use BroadMatch. 255 00:28:41,240 --> 00:28:46,820 Jem Bourouh: So basically, BroadMatch is what everyone hates because they're so scared of it because it can bring so much money. 256 00:28:47,060 --> 00:28:53,260 Jem Bourouh: And like there are so many unrelated queries that basically could come up if you're using broadmatch, right? 257 00:28:53,260 --> 00:29:00,140 Jem Bourouh: extreme example broad match underwater camera you might be served for a query such as mermaid's tail 258 00:29:00,140 --> 00:29:05,800 Jem Bourouh: to maybe similar things because it's both in the ocean but it's like okay does it really have 259 00:29:05,800 --> 00:29:14,360 Jem Bourouh: anything to do with each other and actually google is getting very very very good at that not only with broadmatch but also with smart bidding so machine learning so target cpa 260 00:29:14,360 --> 00:29:20,100 Jem Bourouh: target role as maximize conversions because they're investing a lot a lot of money to just make these features better another 261 00:29:20,100 --> 00:29:28,200 Jem Bourouh: tip that i can give don't be afraid to try and use these tools but be encouraged to use them, because if you're going to be able to nail them and going to be 262 00:29:28,200 --> 00:29:36,520 Jem Bourouh: super good at them, you definitely have a competitive advantage because barely anyone that I know besides from all of the geeks, they're using broadmatch. 263 00:29:36,680 --> 00:29:42,860 Jem Bourouh: However, that doesn't mean you should create a campaign with like thousands of dollars and just start spending, get educated, 264 00:29:43,080 --> 00:29:49,580 Jem Bourouh: you know, start reading about that a bit, see how it actually works and then try and dip your toes really, really slow. 265 00:29:49,700 --> 00:29:53,000 Jem Bourouh: Start with a super low budget and then just see what happens. Go very 266 00:29:53,000 --> 00:29:59,600 Kevin Mako: heavy with a negative keywords. So basically things that you do not want to show up for and then you're going to be able to see what happens. 267 00:30:00,060 --> 00:30:02,440 Kevin Mako: I've seen it personally on our own accounts that we're 268 00:30:02,440 --> 00:30:08,820 Jem Bourouh: managing. The results are amazing, whether it is broad match or target ROAS or maximize conversions. 269 00:30:09,000 --> 00:30:18,900 Jem Bourouh: It's crazy. Jim, if somebody wants to offload a lot of the work of managing and scaling these campaigns, explain what your agency does and how someone can get in touch. 270 00:30:19,380 --> 00:30:25,400 Jem Bourouh: Definitely. So as we've already mentioned the beginning, I am running a Google Ads agency. Right now we're spending 18 million 271 00:30:25,400 --> 00:30:35,060 Jem Bourouh: euros a month, which is like quite a lot of money for mainly e-commerce businesses, which hardware also counts to. Basically, what we're doing is it done for you service. 272 00:30:35,300 --> 00:30:41,120 Jem Bourouh: So we're taking care of all of the work and we're providing you with detailed reports. We're telling your action plan, what we're doing, 273 00:30:41,920 --> 00:30:47,340 Jem Bourouh: the results, reporting, pretty much everything, right? So you're giving us access to the account and we're 274 00:30:47,340 --> 00:30:52,900 Jem Bourouh: doing everything, whether it is research for the keywords, market, competitor, writing the ads, 275 00:30:52,980 --> 00:30:59,600 Jem Bourouh: writing the copy, doing the conversion pixel, so the tracking, doing the reporting, doing the scaling, the launching, everything. 276 00:30:59,900 --> 00:31:07,620 Jem Bourouh: So done for you service, you don't have to worry about anything, and you're just giving us access. Yeah, that's it. Jim, much appreciated for your words of wisdom 277 00:31:07,620 --> 00:31:11,700 Jem Bourouh: today. And thanks again. Thank you so much for having me, Kevin. Pleasure. Great on. Take care then. 278 00:31:11,880 --> 00:31:21,700 Narrator: Thanks for tuning in to this episode of the Product Startup Podcast, the show that teaches you what it really takes to bring your product to market and turn it into a 279 00:31:21,700 --> 00:31:28,740 Narrator: big success. This podcast series is brought to you by Mako Design + Invent, the original and leading 280 00:31:28,740 --> 00:31:38,120 Narrator: firm in North America to provide global caliber in-to-end physical consumer product development to startups, inventors, and small product business clients. 281 00:31:38,300 --> 00:31:47,120 Narrator: If you're looking for product development help on your invention, head over to Mako -design.com. That's M-A-K-O Design dot com. 282 00:31:47,340 --> 00:31:55,400 Narrator: for a free consultation from one of Mako Design's Ford Design Studios from coast to coast. Thanks for listening and see you next time.