Always ensure that your ad spend is being invested in the right place. Somewhere like Google.
Google Ads is an advertising platform that was establish in October 2000 as Google Adwords and was rebranded as Google Ads in 2018.
In this guide, you’ll get an overview on how to begin advertising on Google.
What Is Google AdWords?
Basically, Google Ads is paid advertising platform where businesses can do PPC or pay-per-click on any given ads. It’s one of the most effective strategy to drive web traffic, receiving more phone calls and increasing in-store visits for your business and services.
Google Ads is such a very flexible tool for reaching targeted audiences as it can accommodate any budget and platform whether its mobile or desktop. But, let’s get to know more about your goals and the target audiences for this platform.
Why Advertise On Google?
Google receives 5 billion search queries in a day. And not mention, the platform has already been around for two decades which gives it some seniority in the area of paid advertising.
Google, as a search engine, is being used by plenty of people around the world in order to ask questions which are answered with a combination of paid advertisements and the organic results.
And of course, Google Adwords wouldn’t become so popular unless users had experienced plenty of successful and healthy ROIs. According to Google, each advertisers earns $8 back from just a $1 investment.
READ ALSO: How To Create Social Media Ads for Facebook
But How Do Google Ads Work?
Google Ads will allow you to display or who up in front of your targeted customers every time they might be interested in your service or product.
Your advertisers will bid on search terms, keywords, and geographical locations to participate in an automatic auction that is the best ad position for you.
You Ad position can be determined by different factors which includes your:
- Bid Amount
- Ad Relevance
- Keyword Relevance
- Landing Page Experience and others.
And depending on the type of campaign that is being promoted, your ads can even appear on YouTube videos or any number of relevant sites that Google has access to.
Google Ads Best Practices
Now, you might have tried unsuccessfully to advertise on Google before, but don’t give up. Just take a look at some of these common Google Ads best practices in order to improve any of your underperforming Ads.
1. Avoid broad keyword terms.
When it comes to your keywords, always hit the nail on the head. If your keywords are too broad, Google will be placing your ads in front of the wrong audience which means you could have a higher ad spend (for showing up in the results) but receive fewer clicks.
This is why you’ll need to review and test out what’s working and adjust them to match your ads with your target audience. Although you won’t likely get the right mix the first time but you can always add, remove or tweak the keywords until you do.
2. Don’t run irrelevant ads.
If your ads doesn’t match the searcher’s intent, you just won’t receive enough clicks that;ll justify your ads spend. Your headline and ad copy must match the keywords that you are bidding on and the solution to that is to marketing their pain points and solve whatever it is the searcher is experiencing.
3. Improve Your Quality Score (QS).
Quality Score refers to how Google your advertisements should be ranked. The higher your rank is, the better your placements are. But it is also the same with low quality scores, you’ll have fewer eyeballs for your ads and have lesser chances to convert.
4. Optimize your ad landing page.
Your efforts don’t stop from users clicking on your ads, but rather it starts there.
Think about it, when the users have clicked your links. What is the first thing, website page, or platform do they see? Is your landing page optimized to generate conversions and does it use the same keywords that you’ve presented in your ads?
Always strive for that seamless user experience in order to avoid distractions for your buyers and lead them through a successful conversion.
Google Ad Terms To Know
In order to help you set up and manage your Google Ads. Here are some terms that you’ll need to know in order to run an effective campaign.
1. Ad Rank
Ad Rank determines your ad placement. The higher the value, the better you’ll be able to show your advertisements in front of people. Ad Rank is determined by your maximum bid multiplied by the QS or Quality Score.
2. Bidding
Google Ads uses a bidding system. This means the advertiser will select the maximum bid amount of how much they are willing to pay for a click on your ads. And the higher the bid, the better your placements. You have three options for the bidding:
- Cost-Per-Click (CPC) – the amount you pay for each click you get from your ad.
- Cost-Per-Mile (CPM) – the amount you pay for one thousand ad impressions or whenever the ad has been shown in front of a thousand people.
- Cost-Per-Engagement (CPE) – the amount you pay whenever someone takes a predetermined action with your ads.
3. Campaign Type
Before you can start your paid campaigns on Google Ads, you’ll need to select between three types of campaign.
- Search Ads – Text ads that are displayed among the search results on Google results page.
- Display Ads – Typically image-based and are shown on web pages in the Google Display Network,
- Video Ads – Are ads between six to 15 seconds and appear on YouTube.
4. Click-Through Rate (CTR)
The CTR is the number of click you were able to get on your ads in proportion to the number of views that your ads have gotten. A higher CTR indicate that your ad has matched with the search intents and targets relevant keywords.
5. Conversion Rate (CVR)
CVR is about checking the total action done or conversions done to the total visits of your landing page. A high CVR means that your landing page presents a seamless user experience that matches the promise of the ads you’ve run.
6. Display Network
Google Ads can be shown on SERPs or a web page within Google’s Display Network (GDN) which is a network of websites that allow space on their webpages for Google Ads.
And these ads can be text-based or images which can be displayed beside a content that’s relevant to your targeted keywords.
7. Extensions
Ad Extensions are means to supplement your ads with some addition information without additional cost. They can be Sitelinks, Call, Location, Offer, or App.
8. Keywords
Whenever a Google user types a question on their search field, Google returns a range of results that’ll match with the searcher’s intent.
And these keywords or phrases that aligns with what the searcher is looking for get selected to be displayed.
9. PPC
Pay-per-click is a type of advertising where the advertiser pays PER Click on the ad. Although this isn’t something that is unique to Google Ads, but its the most common type of paid campaign. But it is important to understand the ins and outs of PPC before you can launch your first Google Ads campaign.
10. QS (Quality Score)
The Quality Score measures the overall quality of your ads by your click-through rate (CTR), your keyword relevance, the quality of your landing page and the past performance of your SERPs. QS is a determining factor to help you get a better ad placements.