How my dad went from depending on partners to having clients coming to him with Google Ads lead generation campaigns (part 2 of 2)

On the first part of this 2-part story, I was telling you how thanks to the Google Ads lead generation campaigns I’ve running from my dad, he no longer depends on just his partners (insurance companies) to send him work, and how things took an unexpected (positive) twist over the years.

About 4 years ago, as I was separating from my now ex-wife, one day my dad called me out of the blue and told me had an invitation for me.

Something to clear my mind from the painful separation…

“Son, I’m going on a cruise…

And I want you to come with me”.

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

Sure, I had been on nice vacations before, but being invited like this by my dad in a difficult moment was something really special. And I happen to like the ocean A LOT (I had never been on a cruise).

As it turns out, my dad was doing so well with a combination of getting more business from his partners and the campaigns I was running for him, that he could afford to travel like this with all his family and me. He later went to do a lot more fancy international traveling.

I know what you’re thinking. “OK Juan Pablo, that’s really nice, but what does that have to do with me, my business and everything that’s going on in the world right now? We can’t even travel!”

This is not about me or my dad. It’s about YOU. It’s about what’s possible. It’s about thinking beyond the dark circumstances that are around you and everyone.

I’m not making any claims or promises here, don’t get me wrong (success is ultimately up to YOU), but I know from firsthand experience well-executed Google Ads lead generation campaigns are not just abut numbers on a spreadsheet and KPIs. Those things are nice, but this is more about DREAMS. I would love to help you achieve YOUR dreams.

What are YOUR dreams? I would love to know! Just comment down below and let’s lift each other up. This thing WILL pass, and this is the best time to prepare and come out shining after all this ends.

How My Dad Went From Depending on Partners, to Having Clients Coming to Him with Google Ads Lead Generation (Part 1 of 2)

My dad is a lawyer, has been doing that for 40 years. He was my very first client for Google Ads lead generation, and we’re still working together after many years.

When we started, he performed work for an insurance company (he still does). It’s a pretty neat agreement for him, because they send him work all the time.

However, it can be scary and dangerous to depend on just one partner to send work your way. In fact, for the last few years it has been rocky for him, and he recently started working with a couple more partners to help mitigate the drop in work sent by his main partner.

Back then, I proposed to him “Dad, what if you could get your own clients? I could run a campaign on Google for you, and you would get potential clients coming to you”. I was fresh out of the agency world and eager to take my skills working with big clients to normal, everyday entrepreneurs.

It’s a tough market, a very specific and small niche (he specializes in car accidents), but I was confident I could make it work. He liked the idea.

So I put on my wizard hat, got to work, and finally launched a Google Ads lead generation campaign for him. At first, it was just crickets. I started getting worried.

However, after a while, the first leads started coming in. And he started closing them. At first it was just a trickle, but over time it started snowballing, and we reinvested much of the profits back into the campaigns.

But this is not all… after some years working together, things took an unexpected (positive) twist. Something very personal for both of us…

To be continued…

How travel businesses can adapt and survive during COVID-19

With all the current travel restrictions and scrutiny, if you are not allowed or don’t want to market your traditional travel offerings, being more creative could be your only way out while things return to normal.

Maybe your customers and potential customers are not allowed or don’t want to travel, but they sure wish they could and think a LOT about travelling. What could you offer them that helps scratch that itch? Here are some ideas:

  • A course/book on how to find the best travel deals and tips on what do to in particular destinations.
  • Online experiences that simulate travel. Frequent travelers crave their (virtual) getaways!
  • If you are a business that services the travel industry, think about ways you could help your clients, for example, with keeping in touch with their customers and potential customers using social media.

What do you think about these ideas? Do you have any others?

Are your Google Ads campaigns due for optimization?

Times like these are perfect to go DEEP into Google Ads optimization. If it’s driving traffic, it should be monitored regularly.

However, just having a quick look every once in a while is not going to give you enough leverage to get you out of a tough spot. Spend some time “sharpening the saw”, so to speak.

Look at your account structure, and look for optimization opportunities to both AMPLIFY and SIMPLIFY. Think high impact – minimal effort. Most advertisers are missing so many opportunities, if they only knew where to look and actually took the time to do so.

And if tinkering with ads is not your thing, hit me up.

I can probably move a lot of levers for you in just a few minutes looking around your account. If your time is worth anything at all, don’t spend another minute trying to figure it out all by yourself (or working with anyone who’s not a true expert). Let’s arrange a consult, and let’s move the needle in your business NOW with smart Google Ads optimization.

Just comment GO DEEP if you’re interested.

Is your travel/tourism business struggling? Asking the right questions might help…

When facing business or even personal challenges, sometimes we forget the simple power of asking the right questions.

I just connected with a travel agent and told her I wanted to understand the market better. She pointed me to “host agencies”. I had no idea what those where, but started doing some research and found out they can be perfect partners for what I do (I help travel businesses generate leads automatically and effortlessly with Google Ads)!

If you are in the travel/tourism industry, I’m sure you have a lot of questions right now. I’m here to help. I might not be able to answer your question, but I can probably point you in the right direction. So ask away!

You can comment down below or message me directly if you prefer.

Here are my social media handles:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/juanpablocm/

https://www.facebook.com/JuanPabloCangasM/

Also please share this post so we can help more businesses in the travel industry.

Are you a business owner or marketing manager in the travel market? I want to help you.

I’m deeply passionate about travel and want to find out ways to help businesses struggling in the current environment. So if this is you, please comment down below or message me directly and let’s connect…

I have resources, processes and frameworks that might help you navigate these tough times, like my guide to digital marketing in COVID times for travel/tourism business owners.

Here are my social media handles:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/juanpablocm/

https://www.facebook.com/JuanPabloCangasM/

Also, I would really appreciate it if you can please like and share this post with your colleagues that might benefit from this!

Why paid media can save you in these difficult times

It’s very likely that your business is on survival mode right now. It can be very tempting to start doing a million things in order to get more revenue. But that can backfire.

This is NOT the time to do SEO and network.

Those things have their time and place, and I’m not saying you neglect them completely, but when you need revenue NOW, they are not the best option. They are mid/long-term plays.

To me, in difficult times, there is NOTHING like a well-executed paid media campaign.

You create a good offer, a great landing page, a great campaign, turn it on, and you are off to the races. You start getting leads on your inbox, your phone starts ringing again, and you are back in business.

I’m not saying it will be easy, but it WORKS.

Imagine showing an ad to the people who are looking EXACTLY for what you sell, EXACTLY at the moment they are looking for it. Imagine figuring out your numbers so well, that you KNOW if you spend a certain amount in ads, you get twice as much in revenue.

If you can get to this level of clarity and optimization with your paid media, NO crisis can knock you down, ever (unless the internet is destroyed or something).

– Juan Pablo

P.S.: I’m creating a free training where I go over each of the top 3 mistakes I see people new to Digital Advertising make, and how to fix them. Plus, I’m gonna give you a couple bonus tips that will help you slash your ad costs by probably 50% on Google Ads pretty much immediately*.

Click here to get the training: https://bit.ly/Online-Advertising-Advice

*The savings will depend on your situation, but I’m confident the 2 bonus tips will save you some money pretty quickly!

It’s Sink or Swim Time in Digital Advertising – What are YOU Gonna do?

“Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.”

  • Dale Carnegie

Well, most of us get actually have to “sit home” at this time, but the rest of this quote is perfectly applicable for digital advertisers at this uncertain time.

Many businesses are cutting back on ad spend. I understand the fear and uncertainty, it can be paralyzing, and the temptation is strong to just “sit this one out”. But I strongly believe that would be a mistake.

Imagine you were drowning in the sea. You can see the distant shore, but it’s far away. What would happen if instead of summoning all your strength and giving it your all to swim there, you just gave up? You would DROWN.

This is exactly what you’re doing if you’re not advertising at this time. You are drowning.

Cashflow and sales is life to a business, and you ain’t getting any this way. Even if you do survive this crisis, you would have missed a huge opportunity and will be really far behind your competitors.

E-commerce is exploding right now. Online education is all the rage. Why can’t your business evolve and surf those waves? Why don’t you take advantage of all the dirt cheap traffic available RIGHT NOW, and get a foothold on your market?

You can become a freaking market GIANT at this time, quicker than ever before, if you just summon some bravery and act.

Or you can just drown.

It’s up to you.

– Juan Pablo

P.S.: I’m creating a free training where I go over each of the top 3 mistakes I see people new to Digital Advertising make, and how to fix them. Plus, I’m gonna give you a couple bonus tips that will help you slash your ad costs by probably 50% on Google Ads pretty much immediately*.

Click here to get the training: https://bit.ly/Online-Advertising-Advice

*The savings will depend on your situation, but I’m confident the 2 bonus tips will save you some money pretty quickly!

This is How to Write a Great Google Ad

Writers block… everyone that has ever written an ad has faced it. Is this you?

Normally, the advice for writer’s block is just… write! Write whatever comes to mind, and then edit later.

Yeah, this usually helps, but the problem is that Google Ads need to be short… so freely writing a bunch of long-winded copy won’t work, because it probably won’t even fit in the ad. So what to do? Here’s 3 tips:

  • Focus on your USP (Unique Selling Proposition)

What makes your product/service different? Write short sentences around that.

If you REALLY have your USP nailed down, use it on your Google ad!

Here’s an example of a good USP, the old Domino’s Pizza’s: “Fresh Hot Pizza Delivered To Your Door In Under 30 Minutes Or It’s Free!”. I recommend Mark Joyner’s book “The Irresistible Offer” that has some of the best thinking I have seen on this subject.

  • Use keywords

If you have a properly structured Google Ads account, coming up with ideas from your ad groups should be pretty easy. Just rotate the keywords, focusing on the ones with best performance (if your account has some history). This will increase your Quality Score as well, because the keywords will match the ads, which can drive down your CPCs and other cost metrics.

  •  Use calls to action

Use phrases like “Call Now”, “Schedule an Appointment”, “Download the Free Ebook”, “Watch this Training Now”, etc.

Just mixing and matching these components should be enough to write your first ad. You can develop more ads organically over time as you gather data from the campaigns’ results, customer surveys, your growing understanding of the market, among other places.

Hope this helps!

Juan Pablo

P.S.: I’m creating a free training where I go over each of the top 3 mistakes I see people new to Digital Advertising make, and how to fix them. Plus, I’m gonna give you a couple bonus tips that will help you slash your ad costs by probably 50% on Google Ads pretty much immediately*.

Click here to get the training: bit.ly/Online-Advertising-Advice

*The savings will depend on your situation, but I’m confident the 2 bonus tips will save you some money pretty quickly!

5 Simple Steps to Stop Digital Advertising Overwhelm and Finally Get Stuff Done

When you are starting out a career in digital Marketing, or getting your feet wet as an entrepreneur trying to learn digital advertising, it can be pretty overwhelming. So many strategies out there! You probably don’t know where to start.

Maybe you have dabbled in a bit of everything. But what’s really blocking you right now is the setting up of these things: How to create the ads, and get them approved by Google, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube? And how to make sales and generate leads from the traffic?

You can do this, but you gotta take it step by step.

  1. Stop consuming and stop doing. Get unstuck

Let me guess… you probably bought or signed up for many courses and are following a bunch of experts, but haven’t really taken advantage of them yet. Put a stop to that. You need to stop consuming information, and start taking action.

  • Choose one platform, and master it before you move on to the next one.

Which one to choose? That’s a topic for another occasion. But whatever you choose, give it a good shot and don’t be discouraged if your first campaigns fail. This is normal, even experienced pros fail from time to time. The important thing is to learn and gather data, which then you can act upon to improve your campaigns.

  • Make sure you get familiar with your chosen platform’s policies.

So many people get in trouble with account suspensions for doing things that could have been easily avoided just by reading the policies.

  • Keep it simple!

Don’t worry about advanced features and fancy softwares and all that. Just get a campaign up and get a feel for your market. You can adjust as you go and create better campaigns later. But you gotta learn the process, so don’t expect a homerun on your first try.

  • After your ads are approved and running, make sure you stay on top.

Login at least once a week, ideally more often, especially when you have just launched a new campaign, and make any necessary adjustments.

Just implementing these 5 simple tips can help you avoid some massive landmines with your ads. Now, go implement!

– Juan Pablo

P.S.: I’m creating a training where I go over the 3 most common mistakes I see people make with their ads when learning digital advertising, and how to fix them. Plus, I’m gonna give you a couple bonus tips that will help you slash your ad costs by probably 50% on Google Ads pretty much immediately*.

Just comment FIX MY ADS if you want it.

*The savings will depend on your situation, but I’m confident the 2 bonus tips will save you some money pretty quickly!