Getting the Most Conversions through Paid Advertising with Olivia Lawson

As you’re building your marketing strategy, are you incorporating paid advertising? Paid ads offer an opportunity to convert your audience into customers when done right. In today’s episode, Google Ads consultant Olivia Lawson joins us to share how entrepreneurs can get started with paid ads, what to consider, and how to get the most value out of this advertising strategy. Listen in as she walks us through the different advertising channels to consider for different campaigns, and how to determine which is the right fit for you!

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Guest Bio

Olivia Lawson is a certified Google Ads consultant and a self-confessed data nerd. She’s on mission to help local service providers and e-commerce business owners break past the six-figure barrier with profitable pay-per-click ad strategies.

Olivia’s love of Google Ads started back in 2018 while running her own online store. With a solid background in tricky tech and data analysis she set out to learn the ins & outs of pay-per-click advertising. She loved it so much she sold the store to chase her vision of making Google Ads accessible to small business owners.

When she’s not helping small businesses smash their revenue goals, you can find her volunteering with a local dog rescue or exploring the great outdoors. Every year, she leads a group of women into the backcountry to experience the magic of our wilderness and unplug from modern-day distractions.

Today’s episode is brought to you by my Client Hub Template inside the DIY Systems Template Shop. Business owners often have their client information spread across a variety of different tools, making it hard to access the information they need to make critical decisions. That’s why I built the Client Hub Template for Airtable, to take the guesswork out of building your own!

Here are the highlights…

[2:14] Get to Know Olivia

[5:25] What to Consider Before Starting Google Ads

[10:10] Is Your Website Converting?

[13:46] Conversion Data to Pay Attention To

[17:09] The Importance of Keyword Selection

[20:47] Incorporating Paid Ads & SEO

[22:06] Does Organic Ranking Matter for Paid Ads

[24:11] Brand Traffic Campaigns & Branded Keywords

[29:27] ROI: Social Media Ads vs. Google Ads

Mentioned in this Episode

Jordan Gill

Connect with Olivia

Website: olivialawson.co

IG: @olivialawson.co

Threads: @olivialawson.co

Google Ads ROI Calculator

Review the Transcript:

Colie: Hello, hello, and welcome back to another episode of the Business First Creatives Podcast. Today, I am talking with Google Ads expert, Olivia Lawson. Now, our pre talk has made me feel like this is going to be fire. Some of y’all are going to be feeling a certain kind of way. And if you feel that way, That’s good.

You can come drop in my Instagram DMs. We can have a conversation, but hopefully this gets you excited about ads, or at least thinking about the questions that you should consider before you jump feet first into the pool of ads. Olivia, good morning and welcome to my podcast.

Olivia: Hi, Colie. Thanks so much for having me on your podcast. You know, I’ve been a huge fan since, I guess before the Secret Showcase.

Colie: I know. So it’s I love having Jordan Gill people on my podcast. You know, that’s what I lovingly call all of us that are in the system. Save me world. It is such a joy to talk to all of us because I feel like we all come from like a similar perspective on business. And so I never feel like I have to figure out how someone feels before we can have a really good conversation.

Olivia: Yeah, that’s very true.

Colie: So tell me about how you got started in Google ads, because I’m used to having like photographers on here and they pretty much all have the same story, but I’ve never had an ads expert on the podcast. So tell me how you got started.

Olivia: So I got started back in 2018. I like to refer to myself as a recovery and Shopify store owner turned Google ads manager. So back in 2018, I co owned a online store, right? Like most of us trying to escape the corporate hustle. And, you know, we use social media ads to. That first level of strategy for the business marketing, the social ads, they were great for reaching and connecting to, new people, new audience in general.

But I think like most of us, we were definitely getting to the point where it was like, okay, we need sales to pay the bills, not just engagement. So we started exploring. More intentional marketing strategy. And that’s when I jumped into Google ads. And, what I discovered was the learning curve was real steep.

But the results were pretty much unbeatable. And so that turned me into a raving Google ads lunatic. It felt really good. To be in control of ourselves and our marketing without being tied to social media 24 seven. And, you know, eventually I wanted to do that full time and we made the joint decision to sell the business so that, I could run Google ads full time and that’s what I’ve been doing since.

Colie: Okay. So you’re one of those people that were like, Hey, I had this business and I learned this one thing and it went really well. And you’re like, Oh, no one else is doing this. Well, let me jump in and teach other people how to have the success that I’ve had. I love that for you.

Olivia: Yeah, I mean, I was side hustling during that time as well for local lead generation in Facebook and Instagram ads. And then, you know, when I learned the Google side of things, I kind of side hustled into that as well. But, I wanted to work with more small businesses more directly, uh, not just in a side hustle fashion, but yeah, definitely.

I cut my teeth on my own business first. Yep.

Colie: what is it that Jordan says? If you’ve had success for yourself or you’ve had success for others, that’s when you know that you’re in a position to like build your VIP date. I mean, isn’t that what she says?

Olivia: Yep.

Colie: So I didn’t realize that you used to be a Shopify owner. That makes so much sense now that I know that in that you really focus and niche.

And I mean, you help other people, but it specifically mentions Shopify owners on your website. So. in this audience, I’m sure I have some people who have Shopify stores, or even other kinds of digital product stores. let’s back up. So people have a business. And like you said, we’re getting engagement on social media, whether we’re running ads or not, but all of a sudden we’re like, okay, I need sales.

You know what? Someone told me that I should run some Google ads and that will just bring in the sales. So as a business owner. How do you know that you are ready to like jump into the ads world? What is it that we should consider before we jump into learning about Google ads and perhaps DIY measures as well as hiring a professional like you?

Olivia: Yeah, I love this question. Because I think as small business owners, sometimes we just hit the ground running, right? We don’t really stop to consider that. But really I like to think of it in two ways. You’re, if you have a shit ton of money and you can spend it on ad spend to shortcut that Testing and refinement process of your funnel and your offer, then cool, throw it into AdSpin because you’ll do it much faster.

If you’re like most of us that, you know, we’re testing and refining our website and our offers, etc. organically over time, then there are a couple of key questions you want to ask yourself before you jump into that. One of them being like, is your product or service? Is it searchable? Is it something that people would hit Google and search for, right?

If it’s super niche and maybe not something that they would look for, maybe not a great idea for Google ads. The second one, which I think you’re going to love is, are you currently tracking your website metrics? Without that, I think you can’t really make an informed decision on whether or not you’re ready for it, without having your website metrics tracked and established.

Do you really know if your offer is ready for paid marketing? I say no, you don’t. Third kind of tracks into that is like, can you confidently say that your website is converting? Visitors into leads, cells, et cetera, right? Like, is it doing its job? If you can say yes, then maybe it’s time for that. Fourth question being, do you even want more sales or leads?

Right? If you don’t have processes and systems in place to handle, say, 30 extra leads a month. You might not want more. And then I think the last one relates more to your sales process. If you’re a lead based business, are you closing the organic leads that you’re getting

Colie: Yeah.

Olivia: at a high enough rate, right? If, if the answer is no, then you don’t have a lead problem.

You have a Sales and closing problem and then ads just magnify what’s already happening in your business. If you’ve got, you know, customer experience issue or sales issue or your website isn’t performing well, paid ads, it’s just gonna like highlight that.

Colie: Olivia, I don’t know if you know this, but I scribbled something down because the one thing that you said out of all that I was like, Oh my God, we need to just magnify this if you will. And like, shout it from the rooftops. You said ads magnify issues. And so I feel like a lot of the time. People think that ads are like the bandaid that’s going to fix your business.

And the truth is. Ads are only going to help you if you are successful now. Like if your organic process is working, if you are, the leads that you’re actually getting into your business, if you are actually converting them into paid clients, then more leads are going to help you. That’s true. But if you aren’t able to convert the leads that you’re getting through your website copy, through your sales calls, like whatever your process is, ads are not going to help you get more sales.

It is just going to bring more leads, which is going to cause you to spend more time to get the same result, which is a lack of sales.

Olivia: Yeah, but now you’re paying for it, right?

Colie: That part.

Olivia: That, that is the, the key thing. And I think that my process of evaluating a business to see whether or not they’re even ready to, to work with me, you know, is really comes from that perspective. I want to educate them, not only, For working with me, but if they go find someone, you know, on Upwork or whatever else that they’re empowered with the information that they need to say confidently, yes, I’m ready or no, actually, I’m not because once you start paying for traffic to your website, now you’re you’re paying for whatever result that you’re already getting.

And if that’s a good one, then great, you’re probably going to make money. But if your website and whatnot is not doing its job, well, Now you’re paying money for that.

Colie: Yeah. So you mentioned website analytics and knowing how your website is performing is like the number one thing that you need to do in order to determine if you’re ready for ads. But for those people in the audience that are like, okay, so I’ve got my website and I’ve got Google analytics hooked up, but like, I don’t know what to look for, what are a few things that we could start?

like keeping track of today so that down the line when we’re like, okay, I know what my website is doing. Am I ready for ads? We have all of that data available for us to make that kind of decision.

Olivia: Yeah, I mean, the easiest place to start is just looking at what your site is currently converting at. That’s just a fancy way of saying, you know, what the percentage is of leads. From the visitors that you’ve had to your website. So if you’re a lead based business, you’d want to look at the unique users that you have, preferably over like a 90 day period.

And then during that same time period, how many leads did you get? That tells you how well your website turned those visitors. into leads. If you’re an e com store, well, that’s a little different. You can get that number real easy from WooCommerce or Shopify.

Colie: And I know you and I were having a conversation about CRMs because hello, it is me. Why would we not? And so I want to make sure that everybody in the audience listening knows There is not one place that you are going to be able to go to get all of your data. Like that one magical place doesn’t exist. And so you do have to jump into your analytics on your website in order to find the traffic that’s currently coming to your website so that you can get an idea of how many unique visitors you’re getting on your website. Every month or every 90 days, as Olivia said.

But then when it comes to leads, there are ways that you are going to be able to track if you have your analytics set up properly, when someone ends up filling out your lead form on your CRM, you are going to be able to feed that information back into Google analytics. But I feel like a lot of people don’t do that, but so that’s your conversion rate on your website, which is separate.

From your booking conversion rate that most of us talk about in your CRM, because that’s the second level. Like we’ve got these leads and how many of those leads ended up booking your service and paying you money. A lot of people mentioned that that is like the conversion number. But again, you have to know what your website is converting at before you can start to look at what your sales process is converting at.

If you are a leads based business and you are getting in leads and perhaps you’re doing a sales call or you’re sending them just a proposal from your CRM, like those are two distinct numbers and you need both of them in order to make an educated decision about marketing, whether that’s organic marketing or it’s paid marketing.

Olivia: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, and you, if you really want to nerd out, you can start to measure the conversion rates along that entire process. But, you know, particularly for. paper click ads, i. e. Google ads, where your website is doing the heavy lifting, right? It’s the, it’s the ads job to bring them to your website, but it’s your website’s job to turn them into a lead or a sell.

That is the, the queen number, if you will, to, to look at.

Colie: So, I mean, let’s get really nerdy since you mentioned the

Olivia: Okay.

Colie: I’m like, I’m here

Olivia: Let’s do it.

Colie: Okay, so you’ve created an ad for someone, they’ve clicked on the ad and they’ve landed on the website. Now that’s me visiting, I’m a unique user, I’m there. What are the different things that we should look at and how should we be crafting like someone to if you will take a path on our website, because eventually we want everybody to land on a contact page, right?

That’s where if you are a leads based business, someone is going to go to your contact form. They’re going to fill out your contact form. They’re going to get sent into your CRM and like that’s considered a lead. But is there any value in like looking at the other pages that someone visits? Like, is there any conversion data there that we should pay attention to?

Olivia: Yeah, for sure. I mean, especially for lead based businesses, One of the things that I do in my accounts, at least initially, is set up micro conversions. So I look at, for lead based businesses, what, what’s the average number of pages that they looked at on a website, right? Because if they’re looking at more than, say, three pages, that’s pretty warm.

shows quite a bit of intent. Back in universal analytics, rest in peace.

Colie: I know.

Olivia: I was able to set up micro conversions for duration. So I would look at, okay, well, what’s the percentage of people that are spending more than three minutes on a site? Cause again, that shows a good amount of intention. So yeah, I mean, if you’re comfortable in Google analytics, looking at what the, Average engagement is in terms of pages, the duration, that’s one of the things that I look at for my own website, evaluating different channels, right?

If I’m spending all this time on Instagram, but most of that traffic is only spending, and this is true story for my website, only eight seconds, but on other channels, they’re spending seven minutes. Well. One of those is more intentional than the other and I might spend more of my time on the other channel.

Colie: Yeah. I mean, but I will also say, because from the very beginning of my business, I mean, Google analytics is what I looked at. I mean, I used to look at it all the time. I used to see like the path that people took and for newborn clients, I mean, it’s kind of weird. Like, and even when I was running ads for a very brief amount of time, I would send someone to a specific page.

That had like that core information because I feel like that’s the number one thing that I see wrong when I have Photographers that I’m mentoring or coaching and they’re running ads and they’re just sending them to their home page I’m like, oh my god So you just basically held up a flag and said come and then gave them absolutely no direction in what to do next So I would send people to like a specific newborn landing page And then from there, if they clicked on the about me page, Oh, well, they’re interested in learning more about me.

And then if they ended up clicking on like a different services page, okay, they’re still interested. And so I would watch every little thing that they did. And in the beginning, I mean, I didn’t have a lot of traffic, Olivia, so I could really like, you know. Look at the people, but I knew that if someone got on my website and they looked at two pages, like the chance that they were going to inquire was probably something insane, like 80 percent and of the people who actually inquired with me at that point in time, if they actually sent me a, I am interested in working with you, I have like a 90 percent close rate, which I don’t have now.

I mean, I can talk about the good old days, just like you said, universal analytics, rest in peace. I mean. My closing rate is nowhere near that anymore, but I just knew that back then, if I looked, that’s how I knew that, you know, ads may work if I can bring them in, but can we have a slightly different conversation?

Because I feel like you mentioned at one point intention, right? If they’re on your website for more than three minutes, you consider them to be warm. So is there a different way that you treat your audience if they’re warm versus cold in terms of ads? Like are there different things that you do for Google ads because most of those people, if not all of them, will be cold, right?

Mm

Olivia: but the intentional aspect of it is coming more so from your keyword selection you know because at the In very simple terms, the ads are triggered based on what someone is searching for. And so you’ve got words that are going to sit at the top of the funnel, which are going to be very broad in nature.

It might be, you know, newborn photographer or how to be a photographer, right? It’s it, they’re a level above. So you’re not really sure, are they looking for a photographer or are they looking to be one? Are they? right? The intention is not there. then you have the middle of the funnel traffic, which has a higher intent.

It may be newborn photographer in insert your location. Well, that has a very high intent associated with it. And then the lower part of the funnel, which is going to be someone specifically looking for, you know, Billy Bob photography in Austin, Texas.

Colie: I will say, so that’s one of the things that I’ve always felt was super fascinating when I would look at my analytics way back in the day, I just assumed that anyone, or at least most people that searched Colie James photography was another photographer. Because why would, like, a specific, like, random person having a baby search for my name?

Now, I know they could have gotten it as, like, a referral. But back then, when I was mentoring most people who were searching Colie James Photography, it was because someone told them that, you know, I was doing something and they wanted to come buy a course from me. So, key words are definitely, Something to pay attention to.

And so keywords for Google ads, is that something that you as a professional would help someone sort out? Or do people come to you with like their keywords already developed?

Olivia: no. Short answers. No, don’t come to me with your already developed keywords cause they’re probably not going to be, profitable.

Colie: She’s being polite. They’re going to

Olivia: yeah, yeah, I am. They’re going to be, they’re going to be shit. No, I do my own keyword research and, really I let, so there are search term reports within Google ads that you can.

Assess and evaluate for what people are actually searching to get an impression. I’m looking at those weekly for my retainer clients, to see, you know, are there hidden gems in there that are not currently being bid on that? You know, we can take opportunity of, and usually that’s how you start to build a very profitable account is you’re looking for that middle of the funnel traffic that maybe doesn’t have a ton of traffic, but, you know, the cost per clicks are lower.

They’re much more intentional. There’s usually a lot more juice to squeeze out of that middle traffic that, you can go after before. Going up the, up the ladder to broad.

Colie: So Olivia, I’m going to ask you a question and I’m pretty sure that you’re going to look at me like I’m crazy, but I just realized I want to try to fit this in to the conversations that I had in July related to SEO. So when it comes to organic traffic, we all spend a lot of time looking at keywords so that we can know what people are searching for so that we can try to rank.

Our websites, but I just realized, I don’t really know what the intersection between SEO and paid Google ads is. So, because I have no idea how it is to phrase the question, can you just take that and run? Like, if I’ve already done a lot of research on SEO and I’m beginning to rank on things organically, how does that play into like a paid ad strategy?

Olivia: Yeah. So, in the best case scenario, you have a really strong, solid SEO strategy, in which case the Google ads specialists can leverage some of that data into our strategy. But you know, really the unsexy answer to this is. SEO is organic. Google ads are paid. Paid ads will always rank above any SEO.

So Google ads can help improve your SEO in some cases, but it doesn’t work the other way around. Your SEO won’t impact Google ads. Google ads, because you’re paying to play in that field.

Colie: So let me ask you like a slightly different question. What is the benefit then? Cause like, I don’t really pay attention to my photography website. Anyone listening, I haven’t edited that thing in like two and a half years, but I still get leads because for some search terms, I’m still page one.

So if I’m already ranking super high on SEO, how does paying for ads play into getting clients for the same thing that I’m already ranking on page one for organically? Like, does it benefit me if my ad is at the top, but I’m in like the number two spot? Like, or do those not even, do those not even matter together?

Olivia: It does matter. I thought there’s a study here recently. I think it was back lingo that posted it, but something like less than 0. 6 percent of people ever go past page one of Google in the search results. So really the top four positions in that page, those are primetime real estate spots. You want to be in the top four in order to.

Maximize the opportunity for getting that click. To answer your question about SEO and whether or not you would want to, you know, also have a paid ad for that. I think one of the big benefits that we often forget about from a paid ad perspective is your SEO record on the search page results.

That is that’s information that Google has crawled and pulled together and decided it’s going to show for that particular search term. Well, with your paid ad though, you get to control. what that information is showing, what snippets you want to show. If you’re running a sell or a coupon code, right, you can add that promo extension.

You can have images that show with it. Like you can just deliver so much more information to a prospect that that in and of itself improves the overall experience from their perspective.

Colie: Yeah.

Olivia: you know, it’s, it’s not just being. top of page. It’s also the quality of information that you’re able to communicate.

Colie: And being in control of what is showing, that is an excellent point because we don’t have any control over what Google shows organically. I know sometimes I get people and they’ll like type something in and they’ll be like, how do I get my Google search to look like that?

And I’m like, you don’t, that’s up to Google. Google gets to decide how it shows your stuff. And, you know, people get a little upset about that. I’m like, but Google. That’s how organic works. And I’ve never thought about telling them, well, if you want to be in control of it, get yourself a paid ad, because that’s how to make sure that you have control over what is being shown to people who are, you know, searching for those terms that you’ve identified.

Olivia: Yeah. so there’s brand traffic that is a type of campaign that I honestly recommend all businesses have. And that’s really one of the big reasons why, is because you have control a hundred percent of what’s being shown. So if you’re running specials or, you know, whatever, what you want to test some different copy or what have you, you have the.

ability to control that. The kind of second benefit to that is that you also protect your brand’s position on the SERPs from competitors, cause there’s nothing that says, your local competitor can’t bid on your brand name. So now, you know, they’re showing up above you, your SEO again, doesn’t matter much because paid ads will always trump SEO.

Colie: Olivia, I’m biting

Olivia: I struck a chord.

Colie: you struck a chord because the thing that was happening in the back of my mind is, you know, I set up CRMs and while there are a lot of that I’m very knowledgeable about, I mostly play around in the HoneyBook Dubsado world, right? And one thing that HoneyBook does that I will say is worlds, I know you’re laughing because you know what I’m talking about.

If you do a search guys for Dubsado. Honeybook has paid ads that say, did you mean Honeybook? And then they start talking, they’ll have like a Honeybook versus Dubsado link specifically showing. And so that is definitely a benefit of paid advertising is if you do want to target your competitors. brand, you can do so in a way to where when someone searches for that other brand, you can, if you will, like try to usurp it by putting your position earlier and then giving them information about why you are better or, you know, what features you have that they don’t have.

I mean, the first time that I saw that, I cracked up laughing and I know that other people noticed too because my bestie started screenshotting them and sending them to me like, Oh my God, do you see this? I mean, I’ve seen them do it in other ways and it’s not just HoneyBook. I don’t want to throw shade on HoneyBook.

There are many brands that I have seen where you search one thing and the brand competitor. isn’t paid advertising trying to convince you to come to them first. So I mean, Olivia, thank you for mentioning that because it was on my mind to ask you about that. And that’s a definite benefit of like paid advertising.

Olivia: sure. And you know, they don’t, competitor campaigns don’t typically convert well, because if you’re looking for Dubsado, right, you’re looking for Dubsado. But what it did with it being so cheeky is you remember it, right? It’s memorable. You’re talking about it.

Colie: So the other thing is, I mean, I’ve seen that in like paid advertising for Google, but the other places that I’ve seen it, and of course you don’t run YouTube ads, do you?

Olivia: I do on occasion, depending on the business.

Colie: Okay, so I’ve also started noticing that not just on Dubsado, but like I have a few how to videos on my YouTube channel related to Dubsado and the ads that are showing when someone clicks onto my video is an ad for HoneyBook. And of course in YouTube ads. Like you can’t stop the video until at least five seconds have gone well in that five seconds.

They’ve already told me why honey book is better. And I mean, sometimes they get you intrigued. And so even if it doesn’t work in like a Google ads perspective, because it’s not visual, they’re not talking to you. If I saw it on Google, And then I went to YouTube to like, you know, search something. How do I create a proposal?

And that honey book ad was presented to me in front of someone’s video on that same topic. I mean, that’s two touch points now. That is two different versions of paid ads that I have now seen trying to convince me that hey I know you thought you wanted Dubsado, but why don’t you give HoneyBook a look? I mean and if you do that enough times I feel like people are going to be curious enough to click the link because you were like they’re not very successful But I tell you what if I’ve seen it like seven times I’m gonna be like, you know what maybe maybe HoneyBook does have something because Dubsado doesn’t run ads So I will say in that perspective, HoneyBook definitely has a leg up because Dubsado isn’t putting out anything to like counteract that, did you mean HoneyBook?

You know, we’re here and we serve. I mean, one of their things tells you how many, how many users they have. Like I’m telling you their marketing department is definitely on point.

Olivia: Yeah, it’s, uh, they’re, they’re very cheeky, which I appreciate.

Colie: All right, Olivia, I feel like we have spent a lot of time talking about Google Ads, which makes perfect sense because you are the Google Ads expert. But I know that you have a little bit of experience in social media ads.

So I want to just take a brief moment, or maybe a few, if you get really spicy, I want to talk about the idea of choosing between Google Ads and social media ads. Because I know from your website, you have a great article. You believe that businesses could benefit from both, but if I’m jumping into ads for the first time, and let’s admit, I have a pretty low budget.

How do I decide which one is going to give me the biggest benefit or the highest, like return on investment, if you will, between Google ads and social media

Olivia: Yeah, I, I love this question. I feel like I can hear the pitchforks in the background, just clink clinking. But, my initial answer to this is one that you’re probably not going to like, but it depends. It depends on what the goal of the business is. But generally speaking, if your goal. for running ads is to get sales or leads, then Google ads is going to be the better place generally to start.

The reason for that is, you know, simply because of that higher purchasing intent that we talked about, right? When, a person is hitting Google, they have like, they’re on a mission to solve a problem. So they have a much higher intent than say, someone’s scrolling on Instagram. Getting hit with an ad.

I think especially if you’re, like a local service provider, like photographers and things like that, Yeah, search ads are going to be the better place to start. And then once you’re making money from those ads, you expand into other channels. The caveat to that is if you are a service or a product that really needs to build brand awareness and get visibility.

A good example of this would be, like I recently have become a huge fan for all of in June nail polish,

Colie: Their ads are on point. Yes, they are.

Olivia: but, but let me tell you, I have bought so many nail polishes at Target and CVS and whatnot at thinking, I’m going to, you know, do my nails and it doesn’t work, right? I I’m terrible at it.

So I never thought to go to Google to look for a option for a home manicure kit. It was it. Instagram ad that hit me repeatedly that then made me go look for reviews and product videos and things like that. So if you’re a business like that, Oh, yes, tell me.

Colie: am sorry. I am like, I have to interrupt you because my next thing was going to be okay. Like you said, building awareness. And I do think that there is something to say with using both kinds of ads in concert for the exact reason that you just mentioned, you had no idea that you needed to know how to do a home manicure easier, but you saw the ads on Instagram.

And I think the key point here is that. They didn’t convert you on Instagram.

Olivia: No, they did

Colie: to the search engine. I mean, and it, it might be how old we are. I, you know, you didn’t say that you went to TikTok to look at a video, which I feel like the younger people would now say that, but you went to the search engine to find out more and to see if people had reviews.

And so that Instagram ad alone. wasn’t enough to convert you. It’s only when you went to the search engines and you saw the reviews and you got more information, that’s actually where you got converted. But like you said, you can only convert in a search engine if you know that it’s something that you need to go be searching for.

So sometimes we see something on Instagram. I mean, I feel like they target me all the time because I didn’t even know that I needed new bras. And I started getting all of these ads for, you know, bras that didn’t have wires and comfort and like all these things. Now I will say those people did convert me from Instagram.

Like I clicked the little thing, it took me to the website. I saw it, I bought it. Then I bought like 20 more and I’m not even exaggerating. It’s, it’s, it’s a problem, but I mean, I converted on Instagram, but in that moment, I don’t think that a bra is something that I would have considered going to get a review for.

I mean, I think that I go look for reviews. for like particular things, but I don’t think a bra is something that I would have went and looked at a review for. At least, you know, I definitely didn’t. But so these are just something to keep in mind. How you market in your business is not one lane.

So when you’re marketing in your business, you don’t want to have just one type of marketing, whether that’s organic or it’s paid ads or it’s referrals, you need to have different avenues that you are using to market your business.

And that is still true, even for paid advertising. There’s not just one kind of paid advertising. There’s tick top. There’s social media. There’s Pinterest. Oh, my God, Olivia. We didn’t even talk about Pinterest, but that’s a whole different kind of like. paid ads. So before you discount doing paid ads inside of your business, make sure that you are, you know, actually researching all of the different kinds of paid ads that you could potentially use in your business and make an educated decision on which one is best for you.

Olivia: Yes. I could not have said it better. Educated decision. I

Colie: I mean, and if you’re really clueless, that’s when you go and you find an expert. And I will say, even though Olivia on her website, it says that she’s a Google ads expert, she has enough knowledge and information about the other types of ads that you could be running. And so I, I want to make sure that everyone knows, like.

Even if you go to someone for one kind of ad, I feel sure that like most people are going to give you an honest answer and be like, you know what? This is not really for you yet. You’re not really in a position to benefit from this. Why don’t you go try this first? And then after you’ve done this, and you’ve, you know, gotten your, your process down a little bit more, because I would also say, Olivia, remember how we had that conversation earlier, ads magnify issues.

And so guys, if you go to an ads expert, I will say, if they identify that your process is not good, they took a, they take a look at what you’re doing organically, and you are really not in a position. to benefit from paid ads until you fix the problems in your process in your funnel to start. They’re going to give you that advice, right?

Right. Olivia, at least you would.

Olivia: would, uh, a hundred percent because if you take someone on that isn’t ready for it, no one’s happy. And at the end of the day, I sold my online store and quit my corporate job to do this full time because I want people to be happy and I like to win. I want my clients to win. So that, yeah, is. Probably the most important thing for me.

And yes, we are versed in many ads, many ad types. But I focus on Google ads because it’s. by far the most profitable that I’ve seen for small businesses when you have a limited budget. And the, the platform itself is very complex. So for me to try to, um, you know, be a Jill of all trades in the ad world, it’s not going to work well.

Colie: No, but at least you’re not. Cause I mean, I consider myself in the same way. As I told you, I really only do Dubsado and HoneyBook builds. And now I also help people build out processes and systems in Airtable, which you know, but if someone comes to me, And I don’t think that those are a good fit. I tell you, I get people all the time that come to me and they tell me, Oh, well, I’ve got a team.

And I’m like, wait, hold on, pause. I got to ask you a whole list of questions about your team, because if you need multiple email addresses, if you need to be able to schedule with different people, the CRMs that I work in are not the one for you. And so, like, that’s one of my, I ask them a question. And if you can’t answer in the appropriate way to my questions, no, I’m going to need you to send you to somebody else because it doesn’t do me any good to set you up in a CRM that isn’t going to be successful for your business.

And the same is true of an ads expert like Olivia. She’s not going to put you in ads that are not going to be successful. Cause again, everybody needs to be happy. She needs to be happy that you hired her and you need to be happy that you’re not losing money, you know, forever on your ads that are not working for your business.

All

Olivia: am a profit first, ads manager. That’s really, that’s the lane I stay in.

Colie: right, Olivia. This has been amazing. I mean, I feel like we could talk ads all day, but if people would like to hop on your website and find out more about this, you know, Google ads versus social media ads blog post that I’ve talked about, and also just find out about your services, where can they find you on the Internet?

Olivia: Yeah, so you can visit my website, which is, , olivialawson. co, I’m also on Instagram. You’ll usually only find me in the stories and in the DMs, also at olivialawson. co. Lately I’ve been stomping around over on threads. That’s been a lot of fun. So you could also find me there at olivialawson. co.

Colie: And I feel like the one thing that you guys can always get from Olivia guys is like a hundred percent honest opinion. I do feel like that’s what I love about you.

Olivia: For

Colie: why I was excited to have you. I mean, people feel the same way about me. So I feel like we’re kindred spirits. It’s all good, girl. Even if it’s just you and me.

Olivia: Yeah, for better or worse. Yes, you do get honest, honest opinion and insights from me. Yeah.

Colie: All right, guys. I hope that this has been insightful. If you are currently running any kind of paid advertisement, or if it’s been on your mind to perhaps do this year, but. That’s it for this episode. See you next time.