Dale Tournemille

What is Google Engage? As an Internet marketer, I had the opportunity to find out at Google Canada’s recent launch of Google Engage in Vancouver.

In a nutshell, Google Engage is the name for a new support program designed to turn Internet marketers and SEO specialists into AdWords experts. Does it succeed? In a word, yes.

Google Engage offers in-depth training materials, online courses, and sales support materials all designed to get the Internet marketer — whom Google presumes isn’t yet up to speed on AdWords, which may or may not be the case — reselling AdWords as quickly as possible. In particular, Google wants these Internet marketers and SEO optimization specialists to branch out into selling AdWords for the small businesses market segment. Why? Because the small business market (in Canada at least) is an untapped gold mine of opportunity when it comes to Internet advertising.

Reasons Why Google is Targeting Small Business

Canadian small businesses are not embracing the web as much as other businesses. Google research estimates that 60% of Canadian small businesses do not have a website. Likewise, Google estimates that only 14% of small-to-medium-sized businesses have used search advertising in the past 12 months. Google believes that there are some key reasons for this lack of adoption, namely:

• Perceived technical barriers to entry
• Cost
• Access to support and training

Banking on Mobile

At Google Engage Vancouver, Google spent considerable time discussing the mobile market, in particular the impact it’s expected to have on search, shopping and e-commerce. In short, the expectations are large. Very. Here’s a look at some of Google’s predictions:

• The online shopping experience will eventually be better on mobile than it is on the desktop
• Within the next 18 months, up to 30% of all Internet traffic will be from mobile devices
• There are 6.7 billion mobile devices in use worldwide (that’s almost one mobile device for every person worldwide)
• Canadians love smartphones. One in 3 mobile devices used in Canada is a smartphone. Within three years, half of all Canadians will have a smartphone.
• Canadians are the world’s most avid users of Internet search. Each month, Canadians plug in 3.7 billion searches into Google.

Of particular interest was the announcement of AdWords click-to-call as a new AdWords ad extension. This is a new feature where a phone number can appear below your ad when viewed on a smartphone. Google tracks everything, and provides detailed call metrics. Because this is new, Google says the cost right now is very cheap. Google is also planning to offer this on Google Maps listings.

Why is Google Doing This?

It’s worthwhile exploring why Google hosted the Google Engage conference in the first place, because it has some parallels to other industries, such as financial services.

Google research estimates that about 60% of Canadian small business do not have a website. If you don’t have a website, you can’t advertise online, and if you can’t advertise online you can’t spend money with Google. So, in a nutshell Google sees an opportunity to get these businesses online and get them spending online ad dollars. This makes for smart strategy. To implement this, Google came up with a two-phased plan.

Phase 1 was launched a few months ago and was a program called Get Your Business Online. It works simply enough: Google provides you with a free domain, a website, and makes it super easy to establish an online presence.

Phase 2 is Google Engage. It’s designed to get these businesses advertising online. But instead of Google selling AdWords straight to this target market, it’s reaching out to third-parties, namely Internet marketers. These marketers -– both agencies and freelancers –- in turn resell Google AdWords. So, Google Engage is a education program designed to give Internet Marketers the skills and sales support materials they need to effectively resell AdWords, and thus tap into the 60% of Canadian businesses who are new to Internet advertising.

In the financial services industry, this model is similar to that of the financial advisor channel. Financial institutions, in particular the mutual fund companies AGF, CI, and Dynamic Funds, provided extended and in-depth training and sales support to financial advisors, who in turn resell the FI’s products. Many of these companies have dedicated sales support websites that try very hard to provide the reseller with all of the tools they need to sound and act like experts when talking about these products. For the most part, this is an excellent strategy that works well. There’s no reason to believe that it won’t work for Google, too.

If you’re an Internet marketer or digital strategist, and you’d like to get up-to-speed on Google AdWords, or perhaps you’d like to become Google AdWords Certified, visit the Google Engage website to get started.