Marketing for financial advisers cannot avoid Google, but it can be a fiddle to set up. Especially if you don’t know what you’re doing.
In this guide, we’re going to provide a simple, step-by-step guide to get you up and running with:
Google My Business
Tag Manager
Analytics
AdWords
These are the bare minimum tools you will need as an IFA launching into the world of digital marketing. Let’s look at each one in turn.
#1 Google My Business
When a potential client types your business name into Google Search, you ideally want your business profile to appear at the top.
If you can get some positive reviews underneath your business listing, even better. Glowing testimonials are gold dust in the world of financial adviser marketing.
To set your profile up, navigate to Google My Business and press “Start Now”. (If you already have a Google account, you can sign in and follow the process from there).
Enter your business name, office address, phone number and website URL.
Once you complete the signup process, you need to verify your business listing. To do this, Google will send out a letter to your address, with a unique verification number on it.
You normally get this within 14 working days. Once you have it, make sure you log back into your Google My Business profile and enter the number to complete the process.
From there, we recommend you ask clients for some positive reviews. This will help your click-through-rates when people see your business in the search results, as well as your local search engine rankings.
#2 Google Tag Manager
This is the really important one. Google Tag Manager (GTM) acts as the central “hub”, where most of your digital marketing tools will be managed.
Navigate to the GTM website, and sign in with your Google account.
From there, you need to set up an account and a “container”. The latter is where your digital marketing apps and tools will be housed and managed going forwards.
Make sure you select “Web” where it says “Where to Use This Container”.
To finish the process, accept Google’s terms and then press “OK” where all the scary GTM code appears on your screen:
From there, open your WordPress website, and log into the back end.
Navigate to the “Plugins” section, and then press “Add New”. You need to search for a plugin called DuracellTomi’s Google Tag Manager for WordPress.
Install and activate the plugin. Then, find the plugin in your plugins list and open the Settings.
In the General tab, add your Google Tag Manager ID. You’ll be able to find this by going to your GTM dashboard, and clicking on your business name on the top left.
Your code should appear in the drop down, like this.
Copy and paste this code into the plugin, and hit Save.
#3 Google Analytics
You’re doing great! Time now to add the Google tracking code to your financial website.
First of all, make sure you have your Google Analytics tracking code handy. If you don’t have one, then you may need to get set up with an Analytics account to retrieve one.
It should look something like this:
UA-XXXXXXX-XX
Once you have it, head over to your GTM account. Then, navigate to Workspace > Tags.
Press the red “+ New” button, and name the tag “GA – PageViews – All”.
Press on “Tag Type” and select “Universal Analytics” on the right.
Then, select “Page View” under the “Track Type” field. You then need to click on the drop down under “Google Analytics Settings”, and press “New Variable”.
In the new screen that appears, name the new variable “Google Analytics Code”. Then, drop your Google Analytics tracking code into the Tracking ID field, and press Save.
Back inside your Tag, press on where it says “Choose a trigger…” at the bottom. In the screen that appears, select “All Pages”. Press Save.
At the top right of your Workspace, press “Submit” and name your Version “Analytics”.
Your financial website should now be set up with Google Analytics, so you can track user engagement and behaviour!
#4 Google AdWords
At this point, it’s a good idea to got your AdWords account set up, so you can start pushing some traffic towards your IFA website.
Navigate to the AdWords login area, and press Start Now.
From there, follow the sign up process. If you have an existing Google account, you can use that to get up and running.
You’ll need to have your billing details handy, to complete the set up (although you do not have to start spending money straight away).
If you are asked to set up any campaigns, ad groups or ads, just create placeholder ones for now. Do not worry too much about the settings, as you can always change those later.
Once you’re through the sign up process, just make sure you have paused any campaigns you might have created during this stage. For now, you are just focusing on setting up your account.
Now that this is completed, you’ll need to link this AdWords account to your Analytics account.
Navigate to your Google Analytics account, and press on “Admin” on the bottom left.
Under the “Property” column, press on “AdWords Linking” and then “ + NEW LINK GROUP.”
You should see the AdWords account in the list, assuming you used the same Google account to set up Analytics and AdWords.
Select the AdWords account, and press Continue.
And you’re done!