Nothing splits the room of estate agents like the question, “Do you spend money on Google Advertising?”

Some say it’s the devil, discard it as hype, consoling themselves that they would get the leads directly from their brand name, or indeed from their organic rankings, and so they don’t need Pay-per-Click (PPC) advertising – it’s just another cost line after all. But that view is typically born out of fear of the unknown and/or the effort of having to engage with and understand an ever-changing marketing landscape.

Others are reaping the rewards from being progressive, and investing in online marketing for their agency, taking advantage of the fear and prejudice from their competitors to steal a march on them before they wake up.

Whichever camp you are in, there is always more you could be doing to maximize efficiency.

I bet you work hard and I’m sure you also don’t have a spare hour per week to monitor and optimisation a Google advertising campaign. Even if you know how to set up and launch Google adverts, maintaining the campaigns can take a fair bit of work.

Like everything these days, technology is here to help you. This is where an automated script can help you spend your marketing money on Google more effectively. These scripts monitor your website conversion data and make informed decisions based on the insight. If you don’t convert people on your website from 10am – 12pm on a Wednesday morning, why would you keep giving Google your money to bid for traffic then?

Think of it the same as your smart meters in your home, using electricity or heating based on your habits and the climate outside.

Have a look at this video where we explain how “day-parting” for PPC works. It’s a great trick for maximizing your advertising budget.

The cost of a click on Google is normally the same throughout the week. There are some ups and downs, but broadly speaking it remains stable. But the hours when the customers who respond, clicking through to your website and converting most cost-effectively do NOT stay the same. And that means there are some points of the day you are burning money, whereas at other parts you are printing profits.

As you’ll see from the video, scripting your PPC bidding will help you turn on, turn off and focus your marketing spend to operate only in the hours when you have the best chance of converting leads. This helps you outsmart any of your more switched on competitors, forcing those competitors’ advertising campaigns into the less profitable hours, whilst you occupy the more profitable space. It makes your ad spend ROI much stronger than a basic campaign.

By mastering these tricks early, and bedding them down, you build an advantage over the competitors who aren’t yet in the game whilst they are asleep at the wheel. When they do eventually wake up to the medium, you’ll be streets ahead in expertise and can easily defend the advantaged position you have established.

None of us have an unlimited marketing budget, so launching smart campaigns like this can help you reap the rewards more cost-effectively.

As the saying goes, work smarter, not harder!

Watch this EYE exclusive: Make Google benchmarking work for your agency