Welcome to your beginners guide to Google Ads. This will be a look at the reasons why google ads and then understanding where to go next from there. The benefits you receive from Google Ads are going to far outweigh most other digital marketing tactics, purely because of the enormous reach and influence Google has. With over two trillion searches completed every year by this tech giant, it is not wonder people are obsessed and seeing the benefits of advertising with Google Ads.
An important thing to bear in mind about Google Ads, is that it surrounds itself with three major principles for its advertising. Relevance, control, and results are the three pillars that is behind the success of Google Ads.
Relevance is about making sure that Google is getting to the right audiences at the right times. It is all about having your ad be in front of people at the most important moments to make sure that you get a great outcome for the spend you have in your budget. Ads appear on Google, YouTube, and more. Relevance is about getting the most relevant information, to the most relevant buyer. This is done by customising keywords, location, and more. You also have access to the data on your Google Ads manager to make further adjustments to ads, if they are becoming less relevant over time.
Control is about having one hand on the wheel with you Google Ads campaign. It is about being able to have control over the amount of money you spend. You can choose how much money you spend per month. Google ads uses an auction to determine which ads it will show. Having adjustments in your strategy as a result of poor performance can be a good thing, this can mean going higher in your budget, for a couple of months, adjusting your ad groups to better suit your most effective audiences and even adjusting keywords that are more competitive too.
Results is exactly what it sounds like, you will only pay if you get results. A click, a conversion, a call are all examples of someone taking action on your ads, and that will be factored in by where that person landed on the SERP (search engine results page) when being hit by your Google Ad. Once you have been at your same strategy for a month, check out your collected data and you can make adjustments to the campaign based off of those insights.
Google Ads is more than just a one-trick-pony. An important understanding you will need to have when approaching your campaign, is knowing your goal with Google Ads, and matching that goal with one of the types of ads you can run with Google. Your options are search ads, (the most common ads), display ads, video ads, shopping ads, and app ads.
With a search campaign you are targeting people who are searching for keywords. The idea here is to broaden your brand’s identity and get people to notice you when they search for relevant keywords. It is important to be a player in the lot of businesses that service the same keywords that someone is Googling. By using search campaigns, people will more likely consider your products, and take action as you will be one of the first results on the first page of Google.
Display campaigns are about increasing your exposure. These types of Ads are very visual and will show up on websites, YouTube and more. These display ads need to be eye-catching and are best done if you have really good images to work with for a particular product you want to advertise.
Video campaigns take a bit more effort to get started, but have great returns if done well. They are a great communication tool, and the first 5 seconds are going to be the most important. These campaigns are great at engaging people in different ways, like showing your ad before they watch a trailer or a music video. There is a high likelihood of positive associations with these ads, should the video they’re watching bring them joy. Other good things to bear in mind is that YouTube is a place where people watch thousands of hours of reviews. Better still if your ad shows up relating to items that they are looking for too.
Shopping campaigns are great to advertise your inventory. These can boost traffic to your online store and can find you better qualified leads. This strategy does cost a bit more to get you some of the top results though. Having said that, it shows people the items, the price and gives a mini description straight up to peak their interests. Having a shopping campaign is great if you have a large inventory, and competitive prices.
App campaigns are there to increase your engagement and drive app installs. These are great if you have developed an entertaining app and are looking to get some more downloads so that customers can engage with what you’ve created. These campaigns can also target in app actions too, like signing up for a newsletter, or ordering a product if that’s your goal.
Overall, these are some basic principles and introductions to the types of Google ads there are. This is a great way to assist you in understanding how to approach ads, and how to decide on how you will achieve your goals.