How does audience acquisition work with search advertising?

The traditional process of generating leads by sending people to a landing page where they fill out a few form fields and share their contact information is becoming not only obsolete, but also costly. Slow loading landing pages are the bane of advertisers, increasing bounce rates by 8.3%, decreasing conversion rates by 3.5%, and decreasing page views by 9.4%, according to GetApp. Google Ads has introduced new solutions for advertisers to attract potential customers and lead generation - expanding lead forms.

This is a format that answers the question of how to work in mobile navigation and allows users to become potential customers in a couple of clicks. In this case, the user usually fills out the form fields and submits it on the same platform where the advertisement was shown. 

It is worth noting that the problem of attracting new customers for a business lies not only in quantity, but also in quality. Although lead generation ads generate more leads, these contacts are not as high quality because the lead does not carry any information about their profile. Lead form extensions in Google Ads partially solve this problem: since users are actively searching for either your business or a product or service related to your offer, their clear interest can be considered synonymous with quality.

Let's look at how to use lead forms to run effective Google Ads campaigns.

Lead Forms in Google Ads

Lead forms are lead generation ads that appear directly in mobile search results when you search for a product, service, or enter certain keywords into Google. They can help a variety of companies in different industries - such as real estate, B2B, automotive, travel, hospitality, education, finance and more.

The most common examples of lead forms are companies offering newsletter subscriptions, brochure downloads, or coupon discounts.

A private school might, for example, use a lead form to attract new students by sending them a brochure of its curriculum. Other examples might be a car dealership offering special prices on a number of models, or a travel agency offering a discount to anyone who books a trip during the week. 

Lead form extensions are designed to attract potential customers with a simple CTA. If the user clicks on the link, a special Google Form is displayed. Some of the fields in it are automatically filled in with information based on your existing Google account. At the end of the form there is a call to action - for example, “Apply”, clicking on which you can submit the completed form.

Benefits of Lead Forms 

Companies that use lead form ads report their benefits. Here are some of them.

• Lead forms are filled out in advance, making it easier and faster to obtain information from users.
• Lead forms are already adapted for the mobile interface and do not require additional technical knowledge to configure.
• Lead forms are easy to customize to suit your company's marketing goals.
• Lead forms can be integrated with CRM and email campaigns to quickly contact potential customers who have completed the form.

Privacy and data collection restrictions 

Advertisers should be aware that lead forms are subject to certain advertising policies designed to protect Google users' personal information. This form must contain a link that links to the company's privacy policy to explain how the company will use the information received.

Additionally, Google Ads policies prohibit advertisers from creating lead forms that:

• use previously collected personal information without the user’s consent;
• misuse the user's personal information to provoke an emotional reaction;
• collect credit card numbers, tax IDs, health information, social security number and so on.

In addition, lead forms have other limitations. For example, you cannot:

• use advertising appeals in the company name field - for example, “Buy now from Romashka LLC.”
• advertise alcoholic beverages, gambling or adult products
• advertise political content or health and medical services

Google lead form extensions are also subject to external privacy regulations such as GDPR for European countries. Therefore, advertisers cannot run remarketing campaigns using cookies from EU users who have not consented to their information being used.

How to Track Lead Form Conversions 

Tracking actual conversions helps you better understand your return on investment (ROI) and better allocate your marketing budget.

Google allows advertisers to manage their sales funnel with a conversion tracking tool. Conversions don't have to be payback, but also subscribing to a newsletter, calling a manager or downloading an application. You need to determine which action should be considered a conversion and create a conversion action in your Google Ads account. 

For example, a marketing agency might run a lead form campaign to attract potential clients who want a free PDF template to improve their marketing strategy. After users submit their contact information and receive a free template via email, they are invited to contact the agency by requesting a 30-minute call for a marketing consultation.

In the case of a marketing agency, the way to measure where the conversion came from is to “push” proprietary data from the CRM to Google. In other words, you can download a segment of people who booked a 30-minute call from your CRM and import it into Google to match it with the leads coming from your lead form campaign.

This process can be done manually or automatically by integrating the CRM with an end-to-end analytics tool. 

Source: romi.center 

How to create a lead form

To create a lead form, you must complete the following steps:

1. When creating a new campaign or editing an existing one in Google Ads, you need to select the "Leads" objective.
2. On the screen below you need to specify the type of campaign - in this case it is “Search Network”, and the method of achieving the goal - “Submitting forms for potential clients”, click the “Continue” button.
3. In the “Ad Extensions” section, you need to find the “Lead Form” section and click on the “+” button to create a form.
4. You can now fill out all the necessary information requested to create the form, including the submission confirmation message and call to action. Here you can also choose your text, headline, company name, include a description of up to 200 characters, and specify what information you want to receive from your prospects - name, email address, phone number and zip code. You can also add an image as a background and include a link to your privacy policy, which explains the marketing purposes for which the information collected will be used.
5. In the “Method of delivering data about potential clients” section, if you use end-to-end analytics systems. This will allow you to easily process conversion and referral data from your lead form.
6. Complete and publish your ad campaign to start generating leads.

Conclusion

Even on a small budget, with the right Google Ads strategies, you can reach more potential customers and focus your efforts on promoting your product or service in a way that will increase your ROI and conversions. Once your site is optimized, it's worth applying proven tips for turning traffic into leads: 

• Carefully define your prospect's profile and then meet their needs and desires.
• Make sure your landing page delivers on the promise you made in your ad.
• Optimize every piece of user-generated content for your target audience—don't stop at just the landing page.
• check your navigation, category pages, product pages, checkout process.
• never stop testing, learning and improving.