Tag Archives: AdWords

Drive better results: An insider’s look at the latest Google Ads innovations

With the busy holiday season ahead, we're investing in new ways to help you work smarter and exceed your omnichannel goals. Check out the innovations we unveiled today at SMX East.

Easier ways to manage your messages

It’s no surprise that messaging has become a big part of our modern lives. If you’re inviting a friend to “Friendsgiving” dinner, you’re probably sending a quick text message. In the coming weeks, we’re rolling out two improvements to click-to-message ads:

Email forwarding sends text messages to your email, so you don’t need to provide a phone number to use message extensions. Responding to the email will automatically send a text reply back to your customer.
Automatic reply sends a preset message back to customers as soon as they message you. For example, you can automatically reply with, “Thanks for your message. We’ll get back to you within the hour.”

To help measure the success of your click-to-message ads, we’re expanding message reporting to include message conversions. You’ll be able to define the number of user-initiated exchanges needed to count as a conversion. For example, if it typically takes two or more exchanges before a customer orders holiday dinner from your restaurant, you can set that as your conversion threshold.

“Using message extensions, we can offer fast assistance when our busy customers are looking for a style recommendation or opinion on fit, and can easily share images and links. Now, message reporting will help us analyze which parts of our campaigns are driving the most in-depth, valuable conversations with stylists, and where we can improve performance.” - Michaella Kurdziel, Director of Experience Excellence & Learning at MM.LaFleur

Take action on your data across online and offline channels

Most customer journeys still end in store, and 61% of shoppers would rather shop with brands that have a physical location than ones that are online only.¹ Businesses need to measure the offline impact of digital advertising in order to take action on omnichannel behavior: store visits measurement is one way to do that. As a reminder, store visits are estimates based on data from users that have turned on Location History. Only aggregated and anonymized data is reported to advertisers, and they aren’t able to see any store visits from individual website visits, ad clicks, viewable impressions, or people.

To help you take action on store visits, we're bringing these insights to data-driven attribution and Smart Bidding which use machine learning to help you improve performance. Data-driven attribution helps you understand which keywords, ads, ad groups, and campaigns have the greatest effect on your business goals. You can use this information to drive more conversions using Smart Bidding.

We’re also adding more ways to measure the full value of your marketing. In the coming weeks, Store Visits in Google Analytics will start rolling out to eligible advertisers to connect store visits to other marketing efforts that bring customers to your website and then to your store.

One example of a business measuring the online to offline impact of its marketing is department store JCPenney. JCPenney had long recognized that digital campaigns led to store visits but wasn’t able to attribute those visits to specific channels. With Store Visits in Google Analytics, JCPenney was able to look at store visits and visit rate by channel to understand which online marketing channels were most effective in driving in-store visits, and efficiently scale investment in those channels.

We hope these new products can simplify your day-to-day and improve performance across your Google Ads campaigns during the holiday season and beyond.

1. Google/Ipsos, “Shopping Tracker,” April - June 2018, Online survey, US, n=2703 adults 18+ who shopped in the past two days. Response based on top 3 box 7 pt scale.

Source: Google Ads

Marketing with podcasts

Reading time: 5 minutes

The podcast industry is booming, so it’s no wonder savvy marketers are weaving them into their content marketing plans. They are a great way to reach your audience, and podcast listeners are also a loyal bunch: 80% will listen to a full podcast once they’ve started it, and 45% will follow calls to action after hearing them.*

With the marketplace experiencing a growth spurt and over half a million podcasts to choose from, there are no signs of podcasts losing popularity. But, it takes more than a microphone and an idea to attract such a highly engaged crowd. So, here are some tips on creating a podcast that survives the marketing ecosystem and stands out from the crowd.

Be remarkable

It can be tempting to follow in the footsteps of the podcast greats, but if you want to generate interest and excitement, you should venture off the beaten path and find your niche topic. To do that, become the market and start researching what’s already out there. Start with something that interests you. Show up in the comments on some of the podcasts that you find useful, listen to what could be improved, and participate in the forums. Once you gather all your insights, sit down and deep-dive into your findings - an opportunity will be hiding in there, you just need to listen for it.

Be committed and consistent

Team up with like-minded people who enjoy the same type of content, to ensure you are all aligned on tone, topics and what you want to achieve. Building up interest and listenership takes time and effort, so having people pulling in the same direction is key to getting across the finish line. Consistency is key, so commit to a schedule you are comfortable with and stick with it. To set expectations, make sure you post regularly and at the same time.

Take risks

Don’t be afraid to amp up your promotions or content to be heard. Recycling is great, but reciting the same old repertoire will only get you so far. However, this doesn’t mean that to succeed you have to reinvent the wheel and come up with something completely original. Instead of thinking brand-new, think better-new. Take something that’s already out there and put a spin on it; introduce a new way of looking at the topic, mix it up with a twist on delivery, or delight with a surprising host choice.

For example, the gaming podcast What’s Good Games is hosted by four female experts who are taking the predominantly male gaming industry by storm. The topic itself isn’t new, but the hosts’ unique insights put them at the top of the leaderboard.

Reward your listeners

Making your audience feel special and appreciated is a great way to encourage your audience to tune in to your podcast. So, reach out to them on social channels, and reward your audience with exclusive offers, content, and freebies. Shout outs and special mentions at the end of each podcast can also be an excellent incentive for people to stay tuned in until the very end, and it can help you connect with your listeners on a more personal level. Let them know that you’re listening to their thoughts, suggestions, and concerns. Not listening to feedback is the fastest way to isolate your fans, so ensure you’re actively taking notes on what’s working and what could be amplified.

Podcast promotion

Be loud and proud about your podcast! Learn where your audience lives online, to know how to reach them on channels they love to follow. Make sure to create a call to action - what is it that you would like them to do after listening to your podcast? Visit your website, download your e-book, subscribe to your newsletter? Choose one and sprinkle it at the end of each episode.

Create a buzz around upcoming episodes by teasing your audience with a short audio snippet, sharing fun facts about the topic, and what they will learn if they tune in. Harness the power and reach of social media to let your followers know about your podcast. Don’t be shy about sharing your podcast more than once - the social media landscaping is overflowing with content, and it is more than likely that some people will have missed your original post.

A podcast should be like a pop song - it should be playing on all stations. Make your podcast available on all main directories, such as Google Podcasts, iTunes, Spotify, SoundCloud, Stitcher, TuneIn, Podbay and Podtail to make it easier to find for your audience.

Repurpose podcast content

It takes a lot of time and effort to record a podcast. Repurpose that content and publish it across different mediums to make the most of it. Write a blog post using key takeaways from your podcast, publish videos of your podcast recordings on YouTube, create social media posts using quotes from guests, and promote your other content within your podcast. Look at your content marketing engine as an ecosystem that supports each other and helps it thrive.

Starting a podcast is no easy feat - it requires a lot of time to build up your audience, and hard work to cut through the white noise. But with a little planning, commitment, and research, this could become your path to a regular, highly engaged audience. Check out the video below for more tips on podcasts that resonate, and the Google Partners Podcast for more marketing insights and these tips in action.

*Source: Podcast Insights

Source: AdWords Agency Blog

The new and improved Google Partners experience

The Google Partners program was built to offer our advertising partners access to industry events, trainings and tools to help boost their skill set. Now, all these benefits will be front and center in your Google Ads experience so you can easily access your company’s badge, specialization status and promotional offers right where you create and manage campaigns for your clients.

Your company’s Partners details can be found in the Google Ads manager account that was associated with your company’s Partners profile. There, you’ll find these three features:

Badge status: All the information about your badge status, company specializations and certifications can be found here. You can also access badge assets and the new public company profile. Find out more about the Google Partner badges here.
Promotional offers: This feature provides promotional offers for your eligible Google Ads accounts, and these can now be automatically applied. Select the auto-apply promotional offers option to take advantage of this feature. You can view all available promotional offers, and see what’s been applied in the last 90 days.
Company details: Check this section to ensure company details like name and location are up-to-date.

Explore and familiarize yourself with the new Partners program section in your Google Ads account and find more information about the changes here.

Source: AdWords Agency Blog

From discovery to click, new YouTube ads capabilities for more effective video storytelling

The heightened role of video throughout today’s consumer journey is an exciting opportunity for marketers to build connections that drive better business outcomes. At Advertising Week New York, we’re announcing new ways for marketers to become more effective full-funnel storytellers using the combined power of YouTube’s creative canvas with Google’s machine learning and measurement solutions.

Help viewers take action with extensions

Soon you’ll be able to make your video ads more actionable with a greater variety of ad extensions. Similar to extensions on Search ads, extensions on YouTube enhance your video ad with additional useful information—giving consumers more reasons to take action. You can already add location and form extensions (currently in beta) to your TrueView in-stream ads. Now we’re exploring additional use cases that encourage viewers to complete lower-funnel actions like finding the next movie showtime, downloading an app or booking a trip.

Brands like Vodafone, Chili’s, 20th Century Fox, Headspace and Maybelline are already using extensions for video ads to bring more relevance to their mobile ads and drive impact on the metrics that matter most. Using extensions, Vodafone drove a 2.3x incremental lift in Ad Recall and a 3.5 percent CTR—a 785 percent increase over their regional benchmark.

Measure the full impact of your video campaign

Video storytelling isn’t just about driving short-term campaign wins—it’s also about driving measurable results at every stage of the consumer journey. We know this is easier said than done, which is why we’re evolving our Brand Liftsolution and partnering with IRI to make it simpler for advertisers to measure and act upon upper- and lower-funnel metrics.

Based on your feedback, soon you’ll be able to set up Brand Lift studies directly in Google Ads or Display & Video 360 and conveniently view reporting alongside your other ad metrics. We’ve also started sending Brand Lift surveys continuously throughout the duration of your campaign so you can understand how your video ads are influencing viewer perceptions in near real time. Additionally, we’ve introduced two new metrics: lifted users, the number of people who were influenced by your ad, and cost-per-lifted-user to make it easier for you to optimize your campaign’s effectiveness and cost-efficiency. To get the most out of these new measurement tools, we recommend using Maximize Lift bidding.

We're also ramping up our investments in Google Measurement Partners to ensure our advertisers can measure YouTube media with measurement solutions that meet rigorous, verified standards. We work closely with partners to ensure their solutions respect user privacy. In addition to Nielsen Catalina Solutions (NCS) and Oracle Data Cloud, soon CPG advertisers will have the option to measure their YouTube media using IRI. These offerings complement geo experiments with Nielsen MPA, giving advertisers a variety of options for seeing the offline impact of their video ads. Last week we also announced expanded integrations for brand suitability and reach reporting, continuing our commitment to providing both quality and choice when it comes to helping marketers better understand their media investments.

We’re excited about how these capabilities can help take your campaigns to the next level, driving real business impact all along the customer journey.

Source: Google Ads

The future is diverse

Our lives are more connected and intertwined than ever before. Togetherness, inclusion, and emphasis on equality for all are paramount, and the workplace is no exception.

Although many organizations are championing inclusion and diversity in the workplace, the numbers show that only 11% of Creative Directors are female, less than 6% of the advertising industry is black, and the number is actually declining (Think with Google).

Promoting diversity in the workplace isn’t just the right thing to do, it’s also good for business. Diverse teams are proven to be more innovative and creative, not to mention the tangible financial benefits it brings. Despite the clear benefits, the industry still has a long way to go.

So what can you do to ensure you’re promoting diversity in your agency too?

Build a diverse team

The first step is to seek out different mindsets. To create advertising that resonates with the vast diversity in the marketplace, we need to seek out and hire talent that truly understands different cultures. So, we asked our partners how they ensure diversity in their agencies and found that 31% focus on embracing diverse voices and leadership. After all, agencies with diverse talent can generate around 30% higher revenue per employee (Deloitte Insights).

Diversity is not just about being colorblind or gender neutral - agencies need to start looking beyond educational backgrounds, age, and portfolios too. The focus should be on the raw talent in front of them instead.

It’s important to work on creating an industry that nurtures a culture of voice, where everyone feels comfortable speaking up. There’s little point in hiring diverse talent and then asking them to act like everyone else. By embracing different backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives, marketers are in a better position to gain valuable insights that can help them tell more inclusive stories.

The hiring process is just the beginning. Far too often the boardroom chairs are occupied by men, and we need to start asking what we can do to change that. It is on us to always ask questions and ensure that we are striving for equality for all, at all levels.

Culture of empathy, not sympathy

Inclusion and diversity have to be more than just a once-a-year initiative. Diversity is an action, but inclusivity is a culture, and an agency’s culture is shaped by the people at the top. It’s important to strive for diversity across all levels, especially leadership. Having different experiences and ideas in the room naturally leads to more creative and diverse solutions, and a culture of empathy and inclusion.

A culture of empathy is the ultimate goal, and the company’s culture is defined by its leadership. It is therefore paramount to have diverse leaders and mentors for people to turn to for guidance. Agencies must strive to create a sense of belonging and an environment where everyone feels comfortable. That’s the only way to truly embrace different ways of thinking, and understand the value of the insights that brings to the table.

Make diversity an integral part of your business and create actionable, good habits to harness the power of diversity. Make it a habit to show your employees you appreciate their efforts, and that their ideas are valued. This will help transform your workforce into an environment where everyone respects and appreciates the different styles, mindsets, and ideas. After all, a culture where diverse thinking is celebrated attracts talent, improves team morale and employee retention.

Tell relatable stories

We care about stories that represent who we are and where we come from more than ever before. 85% of women say that ads don’t represent their real lives because more often than not, they are portrayed in stereotypical roles. To create stories that tap into this underrepresented culture, agencies need to have a deeper understanding and empathy for the audiences they are trying to reach. Brands that represent different kinds of people in a realistic way can make meaningful connections with people that rarely feel a campaign has been made for them.

Hold yourself accountable

If truly multicultural marketing is our goal, agencies have to hold themselves accountable. As you continue to work towards a more inclusive culture, here are three tenets to help you stay on track:

Commit - Diversity of talent must be at the core of everything you do. You must commit to striving for diversity every single day, and when your efforts fall short -- ask why. Not only is diversity in the workplace a moral obligation, it also has immense economic value to businesses (McKinsey).

Measure - Data speaks louder than words, so be loud and proud about how diversity is making a positive difference in your agency. Once others see tangible proof and the impact diverse talent can have, they’ll follow suit.

Talk - Diversity must be at the core of every hiring decision. Keep the conversation going about your efforts across all levels, and keep asking if you’re hiring talent that will push your creative talent to the next level.

Most importantly, agencies must be upfront when they’ve made a mistake and learn from it. Diversity is more than just an HR function, so agencies must take time to analyze their mistakes, so they know what they need to do moving forward.

Marketers are in a unique position to reshape the way we think and create positive change. The change won’t happen overnight, but every little step towards where we want to be is a step in the right direction.

Check out the video below to find out what other steps you can take to begin your journey to a more inclusive and diverse agency culture.

Source: AdWords Agency Blog

How to help shoppers looking for inspiration this holiday

Gone are the days where shoppers had one specific gift in mind. Today, they’re asking brands to help inspire them. Our research also shows that 61 percent of shoppers are open to buying from new retailers during the holiday season—and in the 2017 holiday season 46 percent of them actually did.

That’s a huge number of consumers looking to uncover new brands and products or re-discover old favorites. But with so much choice at their fingertips, shoppers need help cutting through the clutter and feeling confident in their choices.

A recent study shows that Google is the first place US shoppers go to discover or find a new brand or product. That’s why we’re continuing to invest in solutions to drive inspiration and discovery, capture intent, and amplify your message to customers, wherever they’re shopping across Google and the web. So lean back, grab an eggnog (it’s never too early), and learn about how consumers plan to shop this holiday—and how Google can help.

Helping shoppers discover with video in Showcase Shopping Ads

When it comes to finding new products and narrowing down their choices, nearly two-thirds of shoppers say online video has given them ideas for their next purchases, and over 90 percent of these folks say that they’ve discovered new products and brands via YouTube.

Video to Showcase Shopping ads helps shoppers more deeply engage with your products. This is our first retail search ad unit to feature video, designed to help you provide a more immersive, contextual experience for shoppers.

Video in Showcase Shopping ads is the next addition to the Showcase Shopping ads we launched last year, which let you upload multiple images to a single ad and promote your products through beautiful imagery, descriptions, products, and relevant promotions. Since launch, we’ve seen that the top Showcase slot drives 3.6X higher than average CTR, and Showcase receives 20 percent more conversion credit with first-click attribution. And retailers like Venus Fashion are seeing success with acquiring new customers: 68% of purchases from shoppers who engage with Venus Showcase ads are new.

This format is available to advertisers already running Showcase Shopping ads.

Inspire undecided shoppers with Shoppable Image ads

Curious consumers aren’t just finding inspiration through video. Did you know that more than one-third of holiday shoppers said they searched for images before they went in store to shop? The growth of “street style” and online influencers all show the movement towards looking at lifestyle images for visual inspiration.

Shoppable Images enable you to highlight your shopping ads on curated, published content from our publisher partners. For publishers, it’s a chance for shoppers to be able to purchase seamlessly. For example, a shopper might visit her favorite blog like This Time Tomorrow, and see a selection of visually similar offers after clicking the tag icon in the image. Over the next year, we will continue to roll out this experience to more publishers, as well as pilot new surfaces like Google Image Search, where we also know shoppers go to look for inspiration.

We hope these updates help you stand out from the crowd and capture undecided shoppers' attention with inspirational imagery and video. For a look into more consumer trends this season, check out our Think With Google article on holiday 2018 insights.

^{1 Google/Ipsos, “Shopping Tracker”, April - June 2018, Online survey, US, n=2703 adults 18+ who shopped in the past two days}

^{2 Google internal data, 2018}

Source: Google Ads

Building better client relationships

Strong client relationships can’t be built overnight; it takes time, effort, and dedication to develop them. But they’re also the cornerstone of any great agency.

Happy clients help you to:

Reduce churn - it’s far cheaper and easier to retain existing customers than it is to find new ones.
Improve loyalty - attract new clients organically through positive testimonials.
Reduce negative sentiment - unhappy clients are perfectly willing to share their poor experiences, and bad news travels fast.

In short, the more you put into your relationships, the more you’ll get out of them. But every client has their own unique needs, so one size never fits all. Luckily, there’s a few universal truths when it comes to strong communication. So follow these five steps to give yourself a solid foundation to build upon.
Be engaged
When you first meet with a prospective client, take the time to hear and understand what they’re hoping to achieve. Painting a complete picture of their goals and KPIs will help you offer a curated service that’s fully geared towards their needs.
Be responsive
Communicate openly, honestly, and quickly. Set an agency-wide target response time for all queries, to make sure each of your clients feels respected and valued. Avoid radio silence at all costs - even if you can’t give a detailed response immediately, get in touch to let them know you’re working on it.
Seek to understand
It’s difficult to juggle multiple clients, especially when you’re dealing with conflict. But in stressful situations, it pays to put yourself in their shoes to better understand their point of view. Ask questions about their business, and when you’re sending on reports make sure they have a strong emphasis on metrics they’ve identified as important.
Follow up
After every email exchange, phone call, or face-to-face meeting, make sure you follow up with a list of actionable points that you’ll be implementing going forward. This helps to set realistic and achievable results within an agreed-upon timeframe, and reduces the risk of crossed wires affecting your relationship. After every project, you should also follow up with a discussion on what went well, and what didn’t. These insights can then be applied to future projects to make sure you’re always delivering what your client wants.
Follow through
A missed deadline can have a severe impact on an agency / client relationship, so never make a promise you can’t keep. Push back on unrealistic asks, with valid reasons for why it can’t be done and an alternative solution. You always want to be accommodating, but work suffers when you’re in a race against the clock, and it’s important you always retain your client’s trust.

This honesty and openness can sometimes lead to short-term conflict, but the best agencies realize that conflict is forgotten quicker than disappointment. We even have stats to back it up! In a recent poll on Twitter, 39% of Google Partner agencies said that the key to strong customer relationships is to be engaged and follow up, while 32% highlighted delivering on commitments as their main priority.
We all have multiple clients, and it’s easy to forget sometimes that, very often, you’re their only agency. In giving you control of their online advertising, they’re trusting you with the keys to their business growth and development. If they’re confident in your ability to perform, that job gets an awful lot easier.

Take a look at the video below for more advice on building thriving relationships with your clients:

Source: AdWords Agency Blog

Restricting ads in third-party tech support services

One of our top priorities is to maintain a healthy advertising ecosystem, and that means protecting people from misleading, inappropriate and harmful ads. We have teams of engineers, policy experts, product managers and others who wage a daily fight against bad actors. Over the years, this commitment has made the web a better place for our users—and a worse place for those who seek to abuse advertising systems for their own gain. Just last year alone, we took down more than 3.2 billion ads that violated our advertising policies—that’s more than 100 bad ads per second.

When we see an increase in misleading or predatory behaviors in specific categories, we take additional action. For example, we’ve banned ads for payday loans and bail bonds services—and developed advanced verification programs to fight fraud in areas like local locksmith services and addiction treatment centers.

Today, we’re taking another step. We’ve seen a rise in misleading ad experiences stemming from third-party technical support providers and have decided to beginrestricting ads in this category globally. For many years, we’ve consulted and worked with law enforcement and government agencies to address abuse in this area. As the fraudulent activity takes place off our platform, it’s increasingly difficult to separate the bad actors from the legitimate providers. That’s why in the coming months, we will roll out a verification program to ensure that only legitimate providers of third-party tech support can use our platform to reach consumers.

These efforts alone won’t stop all bad actors trying to game our advertising systems, but it will make it a lot harder. There’s more to do, and we’ll continue committing the resources necessary to keep the online advertising ecosystem a safe place for everyone.

Source: Google Ads

Create more effective ads for today’s consumer

Consumers are more curious and more demanding than ever before. They expect to get things done faster–engaging with ads that are uniquely relevant to them. In fact, 91 percent of mobile users bought or plan to buy something after seeing an ad they described as relevant.¹ That means it’s critical for marketers to create a wider variety of ads that are diverse.

By creating more diverse ads and utilizing Google’s machine learning, your ads will be more helpful, more personalized, and relevant to more people. This means your ads can show more often, reaching potential customers when they're looking for what you have to offer. We know this kind of optimization works: On average, advertisers that combine Google’s machine learning with multiple creatives see up to 15 percent more clicks.²

Creating relevant ads at scale can be a challenge, and products like responsive search ads, responsive display ads, and Universal App campaigns can help. That’s why we’re introducing new insights to make it easy for you to create the ad experiences your customers expect.

Get more out of your responsive search ads

Responsive search ads combine your creativity with the power of Google’s machine learning to help you deliver relevant, valuable ads.

To make it easier for you to create more effective responsive search ads, you’ll now be able to preview ad combinations as you build them. This shows you what your ads might look like, and you can even browse through them to double-check your work.
You can also view reporting for headlines, descriptions, and top combinations to help you see what’s showing up most often on the search results page.

RSA Best Practice — New best practices for Search ad groups

Apartments.com is a leading online resource for home and apartment rentals. Using responsive search ads, the brand was able to create ads that were more relevant to people at key moments in the rental process. As a result, Apartments.com saw a 10 percent lift in clicks. ForRent.com, another brand in the Apartments.com network of sites, saw a 16 percent lift in clicks with a similar strategy.

Measure the strength of your ads

Innovations like responsive search ads can help you create relevant, personalized ads at scale. However, it can be a challenge to know when these ads have the right amount of information. That’s why we’re introducing ad strength.

You’ll see ad strength both when you write a responsive search ad and as a column in Google Ads. Ranging from “Poor” to “Excellent,” this metric measures the relevance, quantity, and diversity of your ad copy. Combined with actionable feedback, ad strength makes it easy for you to improve the effectiveness of your ads.

Ad Strength UI — Use ad strength to create more effective responsive search ads

Ad strength will be available as a column starting in early September, and in the responsive search ad creation interface over the next several weeks. Support for responsive display ads will follow in the coming months.

To get started with ad strength, we recommend providing as many distinct headlines, descriptions, and other assets as possible. This will help Google's machine learning generate a larger number of relevant, effective ad combinations.

For a responsive search ad, provide as many headlines and descriptions as makes sense for your business. If you’re having trouble getting started, we recommend focusing on creating at least five headlines.
For a responsive display ad, provide up to 15 images and five logos, headlines, and descriptions per ad.

Promote your app at scale

App marketers are also making the shift to more diverse creative. With Universal App campaigns, Google’s machine learning automatically combines your creative assets with content from your app store page to create personalized, relevant ads at scale.

We recommend providing at least four to five text, video and image assets in varying lengths and sizes. If you’re looking for more guidance, we have an online course to help you design and optimize your creative for a Universal App campaign. If you want to learn more about promoting your mobile app in Google Ads, you can view the other courses at g.co/learnappads.

^{1. Google / Purchased, April 2017}

^{2. Google internal data}

Source: Google Ads

How to grow a small business

The spark that starts the journey

Every business has to begin somewhere. Where do you go for inspiration, and how do you find the right way to establish a viable new venture? How will you get from those first stages, huddled around notepads with coffee and dreams, to something more tangible on the road to profit?

The answer is, you can learn from those who have gone before. We’ve crowd-sourced advice from Google Partner agencies, ‘get up and go’ entrepreneurs and online experts, who’ve gone from ideation to setting up their businesses for real. What are some of the themes they keep coming back to?

Believe in yourself and don't overthink

Take the first step and go for it. Like Colonel Sanders, you just have to keep believing, taking your own ‘chicken recipe’ around the country until you succeed. As Shanee Kirk, of Shanee Kirk Marketing, puts it: “Be brave, be fearless as often as you can. Get used to hearing “no” and keep pushing forward anyway. Don’t give up!”

Be flexible to go with the times

You do need to have a plan and stick to it and this will involve discipline and noting down your goals. However, in this digital/mobile age, businesses that succeed need to be able to change course and respond to new practices.

According to Joel Crump, via LinkedIn: “Make a plan but don’t be afraid to stray from it. These days, it’s helpful to be agile and reactive, as technology continues to change our ways of doing business.”

Quick tips that linger

Our network of supporters at Google Partners also note apparent quick wins that can make a huge difference. Like making sure you have a good accountant and researching your target market. Sweat the small things, but dream big.

Get your business online with Google My Business