$378 million of economic activity Google helped provide for Oklahoma businesses, website publishers, and non-profits in 2016.
Braedon Kruse founded Sooner Marketing Solutions in 2012 to assist owners of small and medium-sized businesses with finding success and customers online. “We help frustrated business owners to expand and grow their companies, find better branding, and gain more awareness,” Braedon says. Their customers range from a window-tinting business and automotive repair companies, and consultants. They may need anything from a website upgrade to full digital services. “We want them to see our company as an all-around marketing department to devise creative solutions,” adds Justin Hernandez, Chief Operating Officer.
“We recently had someone find us online, and it was our biggest project ever.”
“We see a lot of great, awesome businesses start up and then fall through the cracks because nobody knows about them,” Braedon says. Sooner Marketing Solutions uses a wide variety of digital tools to help prevent that, particularly AdWords, Google’s advertising program, and Google Search Console. “By creating a well-performing AdWords campaign, we help our customers reach their sales goals in a very efficient timeframe,” Justin explains. Google Analytics helps Sooner track and improve the effectiveness of their clients’ websites, as well as their own. Google Trends keeps them abreast of what people are searching for online and Search Console helps them optimize their clients’ sites for maximum visibility. According to Braedon, “We are always engaged with what Google is doing so that we can not only adjust our marketing, but also our clients’.”
$2.15 million of free advertising was provided to Oklahoma non-profits through the Google Ad Grants program.
Sooner Marketing Solutions now has ten employees who annually serve 70 to 90 regional customers across Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, Missouri, and Kansas. The company routinely sees quarterly growth more than double, year-over-year. Their clients often report very strong growth themselves, thanks in part to their work with Sooner Marketing Solutions. “I was told I was crazy for saying that I wanted to triple our gross sales this year,” Braedon says. “But I believe it is going to happen. And every time we increase our sales, I think about all of our clients’ businesses, and how we are helping them increase their sales, too. When our clients grow, we grow with them.”
9,300 Oklahoma businesses, website publishers, and non-profits benefitted from using Google’s advertising tools, AdWords and AdSense, in 2016.
Check out Googles Economic Impact Report here
What’s the purpose of this report?
The purpose of the report is to highlight Google’s local economic impact in all 50 U.S. states, plus Washington, D.C. We’ve talked for years about the kind of economic impact that Google has, but we’ve often heard in response, “show us the data.” We heard that feedback, and we’re releasing that data for the seventh year in a row.
What are the topline results for 2015?
Google helped to provide more than $165 billion of economic activity for over 1.4 million American businesses and non-profit organizations in 2015.
Have you released this kind of report before?
Yes, this is actually the seventh annual Economic Impact Report that Google has produced. The first report was produced in 2009.
How did you come up with these estimates?
We draw from three data sources to derive a conservative estimate of Google’s economic impact:
- The revenue we received from AdWords on Google.com search results in 2015;
- The dollars we paid to our AdSense partners in 2015; and
- The in-kind donations we made to non-profits through Google Ad Grants in 2015.
Doesn’t $165 billion seem too low?
Our estimate is comprised of a limited part of our business and relies on conservative calculations. For example, it doesn’t include the economic benefits of search results for consumers, the impact of our hiring or employees, or the impact of products like Google Maps or YouTube. We hope to be able to include these sources in future reports.
How did Google determine that the value of AdWords is $2 for every $1 spent?
Our chief Economist Hal Varian based his estimate of the economic value provided by AdWords on observed cost-per-click activity across a large sample of our advertisers. Assuming advertisers are maximizing profits, Hal estimates the value enjoyed by advertisers is between 2 and 2.3 times their total expenditure on AdWords. We use the lower end of the estimate to be conservative. To learn more, you can download Hal’s study directly from www.google.com/economicimpact/methodology.html.
- The Economic Impact Report details Google’s economic impact across the U.S., including state-by-state numbers of advertisers, publishers, and non-profits who use Google everyday to grow their businesses.
- My business gives life to these numbers because the web is working for my business.
- Despite the fact that the economy can be challenging, my business is succeeding with the help of the Internet and tools from Google. I’m making the most of the Internet to find new customers, connect with existing customers, and grow my business.
- With the growth of mobile devices and Internet usage, more consumers are online today than ever before. I am online because our customers are there.
