What do Cristiano Ronaldo, Miley Cyrus, and Donald Trump have in common? They are all major influencers. Despite their involvement in totally different types of work, each has a massive following on various social media platforms. When they talk, tweet, post, or Instagram (now an official verb), millions pay attention.
Companies have taken advantage of this automatic audience to sell their products, which is why influencer marketing has become a standard option for many businesses. More than 75% of brand marketers plan to allocate funds for influencers in 2022, with a market size reaching $16.4 billion this year.
What Makes a Google Ad Influencer?
According to Malcolm Gladwell, there are three types of influencers:
- “Connectors”, who ‘know everybody’ and generate a lot of word-of-mouth publicity
- “Mavens” who foresee trends and have a firm grasp of relevant information
- “Salesmen” who rely on charisma and whom others like to imitate
You can find all of these characters among Google Ad influencers, along with an added quality: top-notch expertise in one of the planet’s essential advertising platforms. That means knowledge of internet technology, marketing and advertising, and the constant changes to and quirks of Google Ads (Google uses all kinds of influencers for other products, such as the Try Guys – with over 7.5 million subscribers – who evaluated various Google innovations).
How Marketers Benefit from Following Google Ads Influencers
Google Ads is an enigma. There are many options, features, and formats to keep track of and understand, which is not easy for marketers, who are already busy dealing with their own product. Some of the choices offered by Google seem like a great idea, but then you’ll read an article (for example, this one on automatic bidding) which gives you second thoughts.
And then there are the changes – FloC and responsive search ads are only the latest. Google doesn’t always explain how these updates will affect the how, why, what of your ad campaigns.
Influencers can steer you in the right direction in this mass of confusion. Some of them (as you will read below) have worked directly with the big G. They know the technology inside and out, and probably have a few connections who give them the lowdown. Many influencers are also constantly at conferences and hosting podcasts, where they get the latest on what works and what doesn’t, and they pass on the secrets to marketers like you and me.
Drumroll…Our Top 5 Google Ads Influencers
Anyword creates ad texts specifically for companies that use Google Ads, so we need to be at the top of our game. Along the way, we have been influenced by some of the names noted below. They work for some of the biggest PPC-related companies, are at many of the trade shows that we attend, and have authored books we read. In addition, these influencers have thousands of followers, won many awards, and appear on lists of industry luminaries like the PPC Hero Top 25 and the Search Engine Land Awards.
- Larry Kim
Larry Kim is one of the Net’s most notable tech experts. He founded WordStream, a popular site for small businesses looking for tools and advice about online advertising. He is currently a founder and CEO of Customers.ai, a messaging automation platform for sales and marketing. Larry was also recognized by the United States Senate and House of Representatives for helping to create technology-oriented jobs in the Boston area.
It’s obvious that search marketing is one of his fortes. He was awarded ‘Search Marketer of the Year’ four times. We at Anyword have even benefitted from Kim’s thoughts (for instance, we cited his ideas about keywords in a recent blog article on Google Ads headlines). Larry Kim has almost 750,000 followers on Twitter, 90,000 followers on LinkedIn, 50,000 followers on Instagram, and almost 200,000 on Medium.
- Aaron Levy
Aaron Levy is the VP of paid search at Tinuiti, a digital performance marketing consulting firm, with customers including Eddie Bauer, Ethan Allen, Etsy, Rite Aid, and the U.S. Polo Association. Aaron’s firm has even partnered with Google for a paid search project. Aaron is also an author with the Search Engine Journal and a PPC Hero. Aaron has almost 5,000 followers on LinkedIn and 7,000 on Twitter.
- Brad Geddes
Brad Geddes has been part of the Google Ads ecosystem for a very long time. He has led dozens of seminars, sponsored by Google itself, on the use of Google Ads. Brad is also a cofounder of award winning Adalysis, which automates paid search functions for Google and Microsoft ads. In addition, he is the author of Advanced Google AdWords, now in its third edition, which is one of the ‘bibles’ for companies that market on Google. Brad has almost 12,000 followers on LinkedIn and more than 21,000 followers on Twitter.
- Anu Adegbola
Anu is the paid media account director at Marin Software, used for optimizing search, ecommerce, and social ad spending. Anu’s clients include Sky News, Nissan, Reckitt Benckiser, and Sharper Image, while Marin Software manages $40 billion in ad spending. Anu is the host of the #PPCchat Roundup Podcast, a board member of the Paid Search Association, and is in the PPCHero Top 25. She has almost 6,000 followers on LinkedIn and 3,000 on Twitter.
- Frederick Vallaeys
Frederick was among the first 500 people hired by Google, and he spent 10 years there while building AdWords (now Google Ads). One of his roles at Google was as an evangelist for the service. After Google, Frederick went on to become a cofounder and the CEO of Optmyzer, one of the first PPC companies, and he remains there today. Frederick is part of the PPCHero Top 25, with almost 15,000 followers on Twitter and almost 4,000 on LinkedIn.
How to Get Great at Google Ads
Following influencers is only one way of optimizing your Google Ads spending. There are books to be read, conferences to attend, and experience to be gained. Plus, as mentioned above, Google Ads is a moving target. Keeping up to date with the latest changes – and how they might impact your advertising strategy – is yet another chore for the busy marketer.
But there is one aspect of Google Ads where you can take your hands off the wheel. Anyword’s copywriting platform has a specific function that builds optimized Google Ads headlines and descriptions. The text that Anyword generates is based on the analysis of:
- Millions of actual ad spots
- Language style
- Audience profile
- Conversion rate
Anyword tops this off with its proprietary Predictive Performance Score, which gives you an idea of the conversion potential of your Google Ad, even before it is posted. Anyword takes care of many ad text creation tasks so that you can spend more time becoming your own Google Ads expert.
