Google Engage is a relatively new product offered by Google. It is aimed at small marketing online companies. After signing up for the program and watching 3 videos, Google will give you 20 coupons worth 100.00 (unlimited really), marketing materials, and support to promote their AdWords Pay Per Click Program.
The coupons are only good for new AdWords subscribers, or accounts less than 14 days old (one per customer).
Google recently paid for me, and 26 other Google Engage partners to fly out and visit them in sunny Mountain View California, to participate in a “Workshop”, which was really more of a focus group as the promise of training turned out to be pretty thin, and it seemed like Google was looking for feedback from us.
The experience was good and I did learn quite a bit, but mostly from other attendees as is usually the case when you do conferences, work-groups, and conventions.
As an AdWords manager I do not find the Google Engage program helpful at this point. I need help acquiring new leads, and help “re-engaging people who have tried AdWords and found it wanting.
The only teeth this program has are the 100.00 coupons which are not enough to help potential clients cross the chasm and become customers of AdWords, or of mine for that matter.
Here the rub, I want to get paid by people to set up and manage their AdWords accounts. Google is willing to set up the campaigns for free, but that takes money out of my pocket. People do not care about one hundred dollars of free AdWords spend when I am charging 300.00 to set up their account (really small businesses – like contractors). To them, their spending 300.00 for 100.00 worth of advertising- So whats free about that?
Now suppose I go out and find potential new AdWords clients, give them the coupon and have them call Google to set up their new campaign. What does this do for my company? I spend my time and money finding a customer for Google whom is not paying me for the work. They want to empower the customer to manage their own campaign, they certainly do not set up the campaign for them and then say, “hey, call the nice guy who gave you the coupon to manage your AdWords account”.
AdWords Pay Per Click program is seen as risky by small businesses, they do not know how much a new customer will cost them in ad spend. A return on investment seems unlikely. As a potential AdWords customer you have to account for; the cost of clicks, campaign set-up, and the cost of AdWords management fees.
Compare Engage to Groupon
Groupon clients know the exact amount of risk /exposure they have, they know exactly how much a new customer will cost, it’s fixed and requires no out of pocket expense. This product has a great concept that eases a new advertiser into the market.
Google Engage has a better product in my opinion because you can acquire new customers without giving away the cash register. I give a client a $100.00 coupon with a phone number to Google Support, which will set up their entire account, and small businesses get new customers for free via search engines, and can then see the cost of a new customer (5 clicks @ $2.00 each cost $10.00 = 1 customer with average spend of 100.00, = $90.00 profit) .
Marketing Google Engage Via Marketing Agencies is Silly Without Incentives
So where does that leave me, the marketing agency? Now I have to explain to the customer that Google only sets up the account, that “GOOGLE” will not do as good a job as I will (which is defiantly true), that they need me to optimize, manage and monitor their campaign for them? Which is also true!
It is irresponsible to advice people to manage their own accounts. Customers are likely to loose more money learning the ropes than paying for management service, unless they have 6 months to study the software.
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