Low Hanging Fruit A La Google Ads with Nik Tsoukales: An EOFire Classic from 2021

0:28Light that spark fire nation. It's not about hard work, but smart work. And usually people fail because they are not analyzing and owe so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Nick and our sponsors. Over 41 ,000 businesses have future-proofed their business with NetSuite by Oracle, the number one cloud ERP, bringing accounting, financial management, inventory, and HR into one platform. Download the CFO's guide to AI and machine learning for free at netsuite.com slash fire. Do you have the right mentor in your life right now? For the first time in seven years, I'm opening up a few mentorship slots for individuals who know they need the guidance and accountability to take their business and life to the next level.

1:13Email me at john at eofire.com with a subject line mentor and we'll schedule a 15 minute chat to go over the program and see if it's the right fit for you. Nick, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with. What's up, Fire Nation? What's going on, John Lee Dumas? Thank you for having me. One thing that I believe will help you become successful that people will disagree with is that it's all about hard work. It's all about hard work. I highly disagree. It's not all about hard work. It's about smart work. And that's actually going to kind of be a little bit of a theme here today because one of the things we'll be talking about, Fire Nation, is people who worked so, so hard to get that amazing organic SEO rolling in only to find out one day that it either stopped or something else happened and then all of that hard work maybe evaporated into nothingness and other things around that as well.

2:17But first off, I do just want to say that you believe, Nick, that Google ads are step one in most small business marketing plans, or at least that they should be the first step. Why do you believe that? At least for digital marketing, for those of you that have opened up a retail location, I get that. People are walking in the door. For those of you that have built a traditional referral-based marketing machine. I get that too, right? You might get some quick hits with friends and family sending you business. But I think Google Ads needs to be number one. And the reason for that is we have a cash register.

2:50You have a business that needs revenue. So the idea of focusing on the long-term strategy of building up your SEO or even building a brand recognition for the first year, two, three years of your business, I mean, it's just a really good way to starve for a while and it's just not necessary. So I'm gonna have to disagree with you a little bit. It's not really disagreeing with you, but it's kind of hammering the point home that even if you are a retail business, this needs to be step one. I'm telling you right now, because in Puerto Rico here, one of the most miserable things that businesses do is they have zero Google presence.

3:30Their Google Maps are in the wrong places, no reviews. It is just a disaster upon a disaster. And the few, and the very few businesses that do it right are crushing it as a result because you only get one chance. I mean, if I go to a wrong place where your restaurant is supposed to be and it's not there, or if I only see that there's one or two reviews for your place, forget about it. It's not even getting my attention. And then all of a sudden one person goes to one restaurant, has an amazing experience. And now I live in a community of thousands of people here in Puerto Rico. Everybody's sharing with everybody that can make or break your business.

4:06So this is so important for every single business out there. And as I kind of teased a little bit about Nick in the beginning, you know, how people rave about the power of organic SEO because it can be so valuable. And a lot of times it's free because, you know, you're putting in the work to make it happen. Why do you believe that Google ads are a smarter investment than organic SEO? Not only do I think it's a smarter investment, I actually think it's a little irresponsible to solely rely on SEO. And I'll tell you my own experience. My last company, we relied heavily on SEO. I spent 25 hours a day working on the SEO of our company.

4:49And then lo and behold, one morning I woke up on a Saturday, Google changed one of their algorithms. And all of a sudden, my rankings kind of went to hell in a handbasket, right? And all of a sudden, I've got a team of 20 salespeople that rely on the leads coming from SEO. And they're gone. So I had this reality check. I was like, wait a second. Google, Facebook, all these platforms, they're not nonprofit organizations. They're making the majority, the grand majority, more than 90 % of their revenue typically on ad dollars. So my whole thing is the only way that I can create predictable marketing on these platforms is by paying for it.

5:35And I'm not saying you shouldn't be doing SEO. We offer it to our clients every day. It's a huge part of our marketing plans. But I think people should be starting with paid marketing and really try to get it into your heads that these are pay-for-play platforms. You need to have a cost per acquisition predetermined early on when you're creating a business. And you need to take that cost per acquisition, apply it towards your digital marketing plan, and understand you're going to be paying to get clients. And it's the responsible thing because if you have a sales team, you know, if you put$1 ,000 into the Google machine, it's going to spit out XYZ number of leads for your team the next day, and they're going to eat.

6:19If you're just playing the SEO game, you don't have that same predictability, and that is a little irresponsible as a business leader for your team. I like how this is a very left or right issue, meaning like you're either understanding this Fire Nation or you're not, because this is something that we really need to understand in our businesses that we have the ability to take control, not allow Google to stay in control and change that algorithm one magical day and or devastating day, however you want to look at it, and either get hammered or potentially rewarded for whatever that change may be.

6:57No, you're able to take control. You're able to say, look, I have a sales team. I'm going to continue to be able to get them the right leads because I know how to do just that. And I know, Nick, that there is a dirty little secret about Google Ads that both the big boys and the big girls don't want us to know, and they already know it. What is that? It's less marketing and it's more economics. When I first started spending heavily on Google Ads, it's when I had that SEO debacle and said, okay, I got to put money into the machine. I wasn't thinking the right way. So my thought process was, if I could spend, let's say,$10 ,000 in the month of November on marketing, what's going to be my return on ad spend?

7:48And I really focused on ROAS. And I would focus on my multiples of ROAS? Am I getting four times my money? Am I getting five times my money? And actually my dad brought me aside one day because I was complaining about how much money we were putting into this Google monster. And he was like, what are you complaining about? And I was like, dad, hey, we're spending, you know, at that point we were spending about a hundred grand a month on just Google ads, nevermind Microsoft and Facebook and all that good stuff. And he said, you're not spending a hundred thousand dollars per month. And I was like, what do you mean he's like well let's let's break it down per day what did you spend yesterday and i said give or take three grand and he's he told me he said well did you make a return did you make your money back on the three grand and i and i said yeah i did make my money back i made about six from it he goes okay so you are playing with the house's money right now and he made me understand this almost in casino terms.

8:49He said, listen, you made your money back. You got a two to one. Okay. So now you're playing with the house's money. You are recycling that$3 ,000 every single day. You're not spending a hundred grand per month. You're not spending a million plus per year. You're spending three grand over and over and over because you've gotten back your initial investment. And when he told this to me, and this is a guy who was a serial entrepreneur, you know, well beyond anything I've ever done. Right. And he made me think far bigger than, than, and what I was thinking. And he actually explained it to me at the time.

9:30He said, listen, the big guys, they don't think in, in just a row as, although that's important, you got to be in the positive, the big guys, the big companies think if I'm going to put so much money into the machine, how quickly can I get it back so I can start playing with the house's money? And once I'm playing with the house's money, I can grow very, very, very quickly. And that's how we hit the Inc. 5000 three times because we had that mentality now. We're like, hey, we're not playing with our money anymore. We're playing with the house's money, and that's the best scenario. In Fire Nation, I love just where Nick started on this whole concept.

10:09It's just, It's a matter of economics. It's literally a matter of economics. When you can put in three, get back six, the next morning you're waking up, you're literally regurgitating that three initial and now you're just utilizing the house's money. And we're going to talk about people failing with Google ads. We're going to talk about why Google ads are a better source of revenue and generating leads than social media and so much more when we get back from thanking our sponsors. There's a lot to consider when starting your own business and protecting your identity and privacy are top concerns.

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12:48netsuite.com slash fire. Nick, we're back and I hear about people failing with Google ads all the time. They're like, I'm confused. I woke up one day, my ad's been out of control. This happened, that happened, things are getting rejected. It's just a lot of complaining, a lot of whining. Why do people complain about failing with Google ads all the time? What are they doing wrong? Usually what people are doing wrong is not analyzing search terms. Okay. And I'm going to get a little technical here. Let's do it. I love it. Usually with Google ads, you're bidding on a series of keywords. So let's say you are running a legal practice in San Diego, California, right?

13:31Sunny San Diego. And you want people that are typing in lawyers to see your ad. They're searching for it, high intention. They're Googling. They're looking for it. You're not running an ad on Facebook. People are watching cat videos and you're disrupting them with your ad. They're actively looking for what you have to offer. So you bid on that keyword. And what happens? You get a ton of people clicking on your ad for that keyword, lawyer, lawyer in San Diego, let's say. And you find that nobody ever calls you. And then you get turned off of Google ads. And you wonder, why is this happening? I'm literally giving these people an ad for exactly what they're looking for.

14:15I'm giving them a website experience that perfectly aligns what they're looking for, but they're not converting. And usually the big mistakes we find are in the search terms. So you have keywords, which is what you bid on in search terms, search terms or search queries. Okay. This is what people are actually typing into Google. Okay. To have your ad populate. So just because you bid on lawyer in San Diego, California, doesn't mean that only the people who type in lawyer in San Diego, California will find you. Google will actually issue your ad to variations of the keyword that you're bidding on.

14:56So let's say you have five people yesterday that bid on free lawyer in San Diego, California, and they get to your website and realize you charge money for it and they abandon your site. And you paid for those clicks and you made no money. Well, you need to be analyzing these search terms every single day when you launch a campaign for a minimum of 90 days and looking for terms that people are typing in that do not provide value to you, that would never, ever turn into a lead. And then what you do is you take those terms, things like the word free, cheap, garbage, scam, anything that's negative associated with what you're bidding on and putting them into something called the negative keyword list.

15:46And this is essentially a blacklist. It basically says, do not show my ads for anyone that typed in the following word associated with my keyword. And that'll ensure that you are getting the cleanest, most pure traffic possible. That's going to turn into cash. Now, something else that I did tease right before the break is the fact that you personally prefer Google ads, over social media ads every single time. And listen, you kind of warned us you're going to get technical before, but we actually love that kind of stuff. So share with us why, give us some specific examples and get as technical as you need to.

16:24Well, you know what? I'm actually going to jump into some psychology, John Lee Jumas, a little psychology here. And let's just think about this. Okay. And by the way, I hear this all the time. Nick, I don't run Google. It's$10 a click on Google. I run on Facebook. It's a dollar a click on Facebook or it's a dollar for every thousand impressions on Facebook, whatever it is, right? It's so much cheaper. But here's what I want you to think about, okay? Think about intention, okay? When someone is going to Google and they are searching for something, usually they have some sort of pain. they have some sort of problem that they need solved.

17:06They've maybe called four or five of their friends and asked them if they had a referral and they didn't, right? So what do they do now? They go to Google. They're searching for what you have to offer. Whereas if you're running a Facebook ad to generate a lead for your business, for example, right? They are not in that moment, in that second, looking for what you have to offer. Now, they might be someone that could possibly be in the market for what you have to offer or someone that fits the demographic of someone that would need or like what you have to offer, but they're not looking for it in that moment.

17:41And that counts for something. So ultimately what you're doing with your, uh, with your social media marketing is disruptive marketing. You're disrupting them. Okay. And in order to get them to take action, you need super provocative headlines, amazing imagery, headlines that grab them, big, big hooks. And that will typically drive in a ton of volume in terms of the amount of leads you could create. And then we're just speaking and referring to a service business for a second. But ultimately what happens is you get a whole list of people that inquire for your services that are not motivated in that moment.

18:18So you get a very, very long sales cycle. You tend to burn out salespeople because they got to call and follow up and reach out to people 100 times. And it kind of burns out a lot of businesses. Whereas with Google, you can turn it on. If you're a lawyer in San Diego, I use that analogy again. You can turn it on. If you can generate 10 leads this week, because they're high intention, you could convert a quarter, a third, even half of those leads within a very, very short period of time, Short sales cycle, easier to make money quickly. Even if you have a lower return on investment, you're quicker to cash.

19:02You're quicker to put money into the cash register, which keeps the machine alive. Facebook, longer sales cycle, less interest, more burnout for small businesses following up on those leads. So that's why I always go to Facebook. It's just the recipe for fast tracking money in the cash register. And not only that, if you're – again, I reference lead generation, right? If you're generating leads for your service business, you're going to get the most high-intentioned people. We've studied it, actually. When we compared lead gen for companies that we've marketed on Google versus Facebook, we'll typically see on average 25 % of the leads from Google will convert, where something like 5 % of the leads from Facebook will convert into a client, okay?

19:48So the sales cycles, if we have a two-week sales cycle from our Google leads, we'll see a six to eight-week sales cycle on our Facebook leads. So those numbers, they're undeniable. Fire Nation, these are the type of numbers that you need to be able to plug into your business and see how and why they actually work. And Nick, you've been doing this for a long time now. Again, you kind of got into this due to necessity. Now you're just a complete convert for obvious reasons, for all the stuff that you talked to us about today. Give us the one big takeaway, the thing that you really, really want to make sure Fire Nation gets from our entire conversation.

20:27This is me passing the mic to you and having you maybe just try to convince that 5 % to 10 % of our listeners who still quite aren't 100 % convinced that this is the path for them. You got to pay to play, okay? The big boys, the big companies all have what looks like very big marketing budgets, but they've taken that equation I mentioned earlier, and they're hitting home runs with it, right? So you've got to pay for play. The second thing is you've got to realize that there are people right now looking for what you have to offer. And this is why I'm a big fan of Google Ads as well. You could be in a particular marketplace right now in a particular zip code.

21:11But for whatever reason, maybe that's the only place you can do business in. Okay. There could be 20 people right now every single day that are actively looking for what you have to offer only on Google ads. If you're not running those ads, you're leaving that money on the table. It's free money. Guys, literally, it's free cash. You put a dollar into a machine, it spits out two, three, four, five. it's a shame to leave that money on the table because those Googlers, they're not going to find you in any other way. They're only finding you online. Don't leave that money on the table, Fire Nation.

21:49And Nick, give us the best way that we can connect with you and your business, any specific call to action you have for us today, then we'll say goodbye. Hit me up anytime on our Instagram at Realtop Digital. You can email me nick at realtop.com. And yeah, we got an awesome offer. If you go to realtop.com front slash fire, because it's so damn hot in here. We've set up an offer where basically you actually have two choices. If you are currently running digital marketing and you feel like your accounts are just sluggish and not making money, we will 100 % free of charge, go in, audit all your campaigns and give you a minimum of five, maybe even 10 bullet points where you can save a boatload of cash and make a boatload more money.

22:40And or if you're an analog business, meaning you're not doing any digital marketing, we will gladly create a forecast for you free of charge where we can literally tell you how many people in your marketplace are looking for your product or services. We can break down how much it will cost you to acquire those clients and how you can mark Target yourself on Google to grow very, very quickly. It's a free one-hour digital marketing strategy session. It's on JLD. Boom. That is fantastic. I mean, Fire Nation, who does not want to save a boatload of cash and simultaneously make a boatload of cash? I mean, it's a pretty great combination.

23:24And I love when people give out their email addresses. So take advantage of it with any questions you have, Fire Nation. nick that's n-i-k at real top.com and again take advantage of that call to action real top.com slash fire fire nation you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with you've been hanging out with nt and jld today so keep up the heat head over to eofire.com type nick n-i-k in the search bar and the show notes page will pop up with everything we talked about links to all the awesomeness. And Nick, thank you for sharing your truth, knowledge, value with Fire Nation today.

24:03For that, we salute you and we'll catch you on the flip side. Thank you for having me, John Lee Dumas. Hey, Fire Nation. Today's value bomb content was brought to you by Nick and Fire Nation. Over the last decade, I've interviewed more than 3 ,000 of the world's most successful entrepreneurs, and I've created a revolutionary 17-step roadmap to your financial freedom and fulfillment, I put it all into my first traditionally published book, The Common Path to Uncommon Success, personally endorsed by Seth Godin and Gary Vaynerchuk. The Common Path to Uncommon Success is the step-by-step guidance that you need to achieve the lifestyle of your dreams.

24:40Visit UncommonSuccessBook.com, UncommonSuccessBook.com, and get your copy today. I'll catch you there, FireFire Nation, or I'll catch you on the flippity flip side. Over 41 ,000 businesses have future-proofed their business with NetSuite by Oracle, the number one cloud ERP, bringing accounting, financial management, inventory, and HR into one platform. Download the CFO's guide to AI and machine learning for free at netsuite.com slash fire. Do you have the right mentor in your life right now? For the first time in seven years, I'm opening up a few mentorship slots for individuals who know they need the guidance and accountability to take their business and life to the next level.

25:26Email me at john at eofire.com with the subject line mentor, and we'll schedule a 15-minute chat to go over the program and see if it's the right fit for you.