Insights 30: GOOGLE ADS vs LINKEDIN ??

Hi there,

For a couple of weeks now, we’ve been weighing up how to incorporate Google ads into our marketing mix.

And even though most of our audience lives on LinkedIn, it would be great to capture existing demand via Google for anyone who's searching for a “LinkedIn agency”, “Personal Branding Agency” NOW!

So I sat down with my head of growth and asked him to craft up some google ad campaigns.

My goal was to test the EFFICACY of Google ads vs LinkedIn.

?And the results were quite unexpected.

Within a couple of days, fresh leads from the various ads came rolling in - THICK AND FAST!

MUCH faster, in fact, than my LINKEDIN content pipeline!

For a moment, I started to question the content-driven strategy I’d been honing all these years.

[Carrie Bradshaw voice:]

“Was I wrong? Had I spent all these years leveraging an INFERIOR PLATFORM? Was google paid search advertising … the one?”

Meanwhile, across town:

Paul, our Head of Sales, began pitching our service to the prospects who’d clicked our Google ads.

That’s when we BOTH discovered that every silver-lining has a dark, scary cloud lurking right behind it.

And here was the catch, when it came to our Google campaigns:

Sure, we’d been flooded with new leads - but:

• The prospects had NO IDEA who we were?
• There was no pre-existing TRUST?
• There was no CONNECTION with me, my brand, OR my marketing philosophy

ALL these “warm prospects” were basically?first dates:?

Sure, they were jumping on calls with?me?- but they were?also?jumping on calls with at least 3 of my COMPETITORS.

I might as well have cold-called them ??.

That’s not the experience I’m used to, when it comes to closing warm leads.

As I wrote last week, I’m used to?ONE-call closes:?

A high baller experience!?

People?usually?come to me when they already KNOW they want to HIRE me!

I didn’t end up closing ANY of the inbound leads from our Google ads.

Why?

They are still pulling prices of each supplier on a excel spreadsheet?and deciding based on that.

And that’s when my equilibrium returned - The experiment confirmed something I always knew:

Brand ELIMINATES the competition

When you?create?a BRAND, you’re?drawing?people to?you.

When you?buy?an AD-CLICK, you’re?introducing?yourself to?them.

If they reach out because they KNOW you - and have been following you for a while, they will convert quicker.?

If they reach out because they stumbled across your AD, you will have to compete hard to win.?

You’d better have a VERY low price point!

Which means that crucial first-call is twice as hard: You have to?build trust?AND?sell?them - all on the same call!

(Best of luck with THAT!)

Want to hear MY FULL INSIGHTS about Google vs LinkedIn.???? Check out my podcast for the full deep-dive.

It’s the first podcast I have done on my own.?

I’m calling it?Marketing Aha! Moments with Mel: Where I share all my market insights and what I’m seeing in these Aha segments. Watch out for them, they will be full of marketing juice!

Google ads aside:

Could the ORGANIC LinkedIn traffic from our COMPANY page, ever convert as well as the organic leads which come in from my PERSONAL page?

Think about this:

Gary Vee has over 5 million followers.?

But his company, VaynerMedia, only has 175,500 followers.

29x fewer followers. Even though the company account is connected to 1,200+ employees!

Gary knows what he’s doing. So you can be sure that’s a deliberate strategy.

He knows THIS ????

PERSONAL accounts receive 24x the number of shares vs company account!

Leads from personal accounts are also 7X MORE LIKELY TO CONVERT than leads from company accounts ??

Don’t believe me?

Try it yourself.

Post the same content from you and the same content on company page. Compare the Reach.

Go on I dare you.

So my conclusion:

People buy from PEOPLE.

Are you convinced that personal brand wins over company brand???

Want me SHOW YOU HOW you can use your personal brand to bring brand awareness and leads to YOUR business? ?? Got 29 minutes?

So to wrap up this experiment,?

What's the best way to think about Google paid vs LinkedIn organic as lead sources?

I’ve come to this conclusion:

Google’s a Samantha, LinkedIn’s a Charlotte:?

If you ask Google to find you a date, it’ll find you 20 by tomorrow. But you're just an option to them. Most of them will just use you.

If you ask LinkedIn to find you a date, it’ll take a while, but it’ll find you someone absolutely PERFECT who wants to be with you ??

Peace, Love and EFFICACY,

Mel

P.S.?Know someone who would enjoy my weekly insights? ?? Get them subscribed to my weekly marketing newsletter here ?? https://www.dhirubhai.net/newsletters/unlock-the-power-of-linkedin-6902528427996381184/