Open Source Content Management

Those of you that signed up for Google Engage and have been approved. How do you plan to use your Engage membership?

Offer coupons to existing clients? With or without a setup fee?
Offer them to leads?

Would be interesting to hear your ideas.

there is obviously some work involved in setting up a campaign, so you need to think twice about offering to run a free initial campaign for someone with the Engage voucher...

I'll try this on an existing client with a niche market with not much competition on the keywords being searched, and track the results to show the client that AdWords works with a strategic campaign.

I also recommend using it on clients who sell something online. It is way easier to see the result with an increase of sales vs. creating brand awareness.

The best way to convince a client to use AdWords is by increasing the client's sales. It is a different story convincing a client to use AdWords for brand awareness.

Putting a business package together... for instance...
"a website, CMS and Hosting with FREE AdWords to the value of R 500. All this for the low, low price of R 3, 999.00! (T&C apply)"
Might bring you a couple of interested clients as well.

People like the word "FREE". Give it a go.

Lohan, you're talking about measurable results - make sure that your Google Analytics and Adwords accounts are linked. Make sure that you have measurable goals set up in Analytics, whether that's a lead, sale, or in the case of MSB - a registration and login to the profile area. That way you can accurately track how effective your campaign is.

Yes that's the phrase I'm looking for... measurable results. The phrase that pays. Do you document your statistics to use it as a case study to show to potential clients?

Generally not - I would provide statistics if a client asked for them. Results vary greatly from industry to industry, I wouldn't want a client in a highly competitive online industry expecting the same ROI as one in an industry with much less competition.

Oh okay, that's very good advice. I'll keep that in mind. It is difficult to convince clients of the potential of Google Engage. I thought perhaps if you show them case studies they would see how good it works. (Guess it depends on the strategy you use?)

lohangrobler wrote:
I think you mean 'the potential of Google Adwords' there. Engage is only the program that allows members to issue Adwords coupons.

Sorry I did not attend, would have loved to be part of it.

Have any of you guys managed to activate an Adwords account with your Engage voucher, or did you have to pay the R50 activation fee?

I'm sure that I've activated an account with a voucher in the past, but I've just used the first of my vouchers and I am getting a message saying:

"Your ads aren't running because your prepaid balance is exhausted."

It would make a lot of sense if we could activate the adwords campaigns with credit from the voucher as opposed to paying it - that way we can offer potential clients a truly free trial...

www.google.co.za/intl/en/adwords/coupons/terms.html