I know that as a loan originator, or realtor you have a lot going on. So that leaves you with very little time for digital marketing. So that’s where I come in. You probably don’t know much, if anything about what I actually do. Hopefully this will paint a picture.
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I am a digital marketer who specializes in Google products. You’ve probably heard of Google, it’s a very popular company and it earns a lot of money. Did you know that 97% of Google’s revenue comes from one product? That product is Google AdWords. Google AdWords is where I spend about 50% of my time. Google AdWords is an all-in-one digital marketing powerhouse. Sure, you can segment your ad budget and put some here, some there, and some over there, but why would you do that? Put simply, Google is where it’s at. Consider the following facts:
85% of consumers do online research when they are about to commit to a purchase.
82% of searches online in the United States are on Google.
What that means is that when Joe Purchase or Sue Refinance gets to you, or to your realtor, they’ve probably already seen me. Well, not me, but rather the ad I placed on Google’s search results page, or SERP (search engine results page) as they say in the industry.
Let’s say Joe Customer is looking for a mortgage. Big purchase, you think they want to do some research? Of course they do. So they go, where else, to Google. They type in something like “mortgage in my area”. They see Chase, they see Consumer’s Advocate and they see Homestead Funding. Hopefully they click on Homestead Funding. My role is to increase the probability of that happening. The way I do that is by bidding on ad space on the search results page.
Now, as I’m sure you understand, this is a highly competitive space. There are a lot of companies out there competing for loans. AdWords is no different. Quicken Loans spends $22,000,000 per year in AdWords. Plenty of companies do. That’s why AdWords is the ultimate cash cow. Companies don’t mind spending big money on AdWords though, because it literally can pay for itself. I know what you’re thinking, that can’t be true. Well it is. In AdWords, you can set a CPA, or cost per acquisition goal. AdWords will utilize machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms based on the data in your account and automatically adjust your bid strategy so that you’ll only spend money on clicks that matter.
Now if AdWords sounds too good to be true, buckle up, because it’s actually better than what I’ve described. I’m being modest. Not only is AdWords the ultimate lead generation tool, it gives our brand a ton of exposure. How much exposure? Well, in 2017 Homestead Funding had 1,511,608 media impressions from AdWords. Now, if we were advertising on the radio, or on local cable, that would cost us a ton of money and we wouldn’t reach half that audience. In AdWords it costs $0.00 unless they click on our ad. That’s why iHeart radio went bankrupt. Radio is dead. Print is dead too, they just kind of don’t want to admit it. Actually, Hearst Media is a huge AdWords seller now, because it’s the only way newspapers can survive. They couldn’t beat Google, so they joined. If you go on a newspaper website today, like www.TimesUnion.com – that website is powered by Google AdWords.