Grow Your Business Digitally with Google Ads.. What is Google Ads?


What is Google AdWord?


When I was first asked to run Google AdWords campaigns 6 years ago, I had the same question on my mind. It was my first job, and I had joined for a role in Market Research. Google Ads was a concept that seemed completely new.

I know, I know…now it’s everywhere – digital marketing is taught as a course in MBA programs, there are multiple certification programs, several tutorials available for self-starters, and people are overall more informed about it as an advertising option, and as a lead generation channel.  But, that wasn’t the case then.
So, when I was asked to run these campaigns, I started doing some reading to get started. That’s when I realized that I have already seen and interacted with these ads for a long time, just that I didn’t think of them as ads. Anyway, long story short, that’s how I began, and have now run and experimented with all possible types of ads on Google AdWords.
Let's start Google AdWords
Image Source: Google
To give you the dictionary definition, Google AdWords is an online advertising service developed by Google to help marketers reach their customers instantly.
When someone searches on Google for a particular term, say ‘travel packages’, Google would throw a list of searches for you. But if you look closely, you will notice that the top and the bottom results are generally ads.
And, my intent of writing this guide is to help clueless beginners who are just getting started with AdWords. Because believe me, even after you have learned all the theory that you possibly can, you’ll still need several rounds of testing different things to get AdWords right – and even then, there’ll always be room for improvement.
Now, let us look at each of these ad types in detail.
Types of Google Ads

A) Search ads
Like my travel example earlier, when a user searches for something on Google, the list of ads that appear above the organic listing are called search ads.  
Important factors in search ads
  1. Targeting – For instance, your ads will be shown in the geography that you choose (you can go as specific as the ZIP code)
  2. Search term and keyword – What is being searched for by the user + the keyword that you optimize the ad for.
  3. Ad copy relevance – Ads that appear for a specific search term should be relevant. A search for colleges should not throw results for travel packages.
  4. Landing page experience – How relevant is the landing page to what the searcher wanted? Did he get what he was looking for?
  5. Conversion rate – This is again controlled by relevance, landing page quality, and experience.
  6. Bids – If 2 advertisers have perfect ads and landing pages, the higher bid will get preference over the lower one.
  7. Quality score: Quality score again depends on all of the other factors mentioned above.
Image Source: Google

In addition to the standard search ads, you can also run these special ads in search network. 
  1. Call-only ads – This ad is available only on call enabled mobile devices. After clicking the ad, instead of taking you to a landing page, you make a call directly.
  2. Dynamic ads– This ad type is more suitable for businesses who have a well-managed website. This is because the content of the ad as well as the landing pages is taken dynamically from the website. They are very similar to text ads, except that no keywords are involved here. For example: a training institute is running dynamic search ads. A user searches for “java courses”. Google displays a list of ads. But dynamic ads would automatically replace the ad headline with “java course” (the search query) and the ad text with the relevant website content and landing page”.
  3. Mobile app promotion- These ads are suitable for businesses with mobile applications. The goal of this ad is to encourage users to download your app or take a desired action within the app.

B) Display ads

Have you ever noticed them? While you are reading a post or viewing a video on some random website, you see ads in a lot of different places on the page, and in different dimensions. These are display ads.
Here the searcher is not explicitly looking for what is ad offers. But, based on a number of factors like keywords, audience interest, managed placements etc, Google decides to show them to you. These display ads only appear on advertising-supported websites.

Image Source: Google
Below are the targeting criteria, based on which Google selects the websites to place the banner ads.
  1. Keywords – The ads are displayed based on the keywords that they are optimized for. Let’s say the keyword for the ad is “Social Media Marketing”, then Google would choose websites that have content on the topic.
  2. Placements – Placements are nothing but the websites on which you want your ad to appear. Just add the websites where you want to show the ads, instead of keywords. For example, if you want to show your ads only on travel related websites, then look for advertising supported travel sites and add them to your targeting.
  3. Remarketing – This helps you reconnect with your existing website visitors. Using this, you can target visitors who have come to your website but have not taken any action.
  4. Topic – There are specific topics in AdWords, under which all websites are grouped. It will be easier for the advertisers to choose topics related to the businesses. For example, websites related to travel will be listed under the topic ‘travel.’
Image Source: Google

C) Shopping ads

If you are a retailer, this campaign type would make more sense for you. This ad type boosts traffic to your website and helps in generating quality leads as well as increasing your conversions.
This is how shopping ads would appear on the search network.

Image Source: Google
Requirements for running shopping ads:
  1. Setup an account with Google Merchant Center (It is a platform that helps retailers to upload all their product listings in a specific format).
  2. Setup an account with Google AdWords & link them together.
  3. Submit updated product data every 30 days to Google Merchant Center.
Since both the tools are linked together, shopping ads take all the product details from Google Merchant Center, matches the search query and displays relevant ads to the user.
Image Source: Google

D) Video ads

This ad type lets advertisers run video ads on YouTube and other Google Display Networks.The 3 main benefits of running video ads are:
  1. Better targeting – This ad type has demographic, location, interest, keyword and device targeting which helps you reach the right audience on YouTube and Google Display Network.
  2. More reach – As of January 2017, YouTube is the 3rd most visited website and has 30 million visitors every day. Additionally, video ads are also available on Google Display Network. This means that you have access to a wider audience.
  3. Measurable – Unlike advertising on TV, YouTube ads let you know all the necessary metrics like views, view rate, clicks, reach and frequency, engagement, performance etc.  This helps you measure the success of video ads.

Image Source: Google

E) Universal app campaign

This campaign is helpful for businesses with a mobile app. Here, the advertiser can promote the mobile app across search, PlayStore, Display & YouTube. AdWords uses ad text ideas and other assets right from your app store listings. All you need to do is provide some text, a budget. and a starting bid. Also, don’t forget to set languages and locations for the ad.

By utilizing all this information, AdWords itself designs a variety of ads in different formats. Google will automatically test different ad combinations and display the one that performs the best.




Image Source: Google

Benefits of Google AdWords



Now after understanding Google Ads, let’s discuss the benefits of Google Adwords as an advertising platform.
While the prospect of investing money on Adwords might seem like a daunting task, the results that come in are almost instantaneous and transparent. Which is why it is worth every penny that you spend on it.

Image Source: Think with Google


1) Adwords works faster than SEO

The topmost benefit of Google AdWords is that it works faster than SEO. Both SEO and Google AdWords are search engine marketing strategies to generate more traffic and leads. But, a well optimized AdWords campaign can work much faster for a business to get the much coveted first spot in search.
Here are some reasons why it’s faster and more effective
  • You can focus on multiple keywords at a time.
  • You can turn the campaign on or off whenever you want to.
  • Ads which appears on the top of the page get immediate visibility.
er of your brand name searches and its variations. That’s another reason you should aim to increase brand awareness through search, as well as display ads.

3) Reach more customers through their Gmail Inbox 

One of the most used marketing strategies in every business is email marketing, which is why gmail ads can be helpful as well. In September 2015, Google integrated native Gmail ads with Google AdWords and made it available to all advertisers, which means you can reach more prospects through their gmail inbox.

4) Reconnect with visitors of your website

One of the coolest benefits of  Google AdWords is reconnecting with your website visitors. Let me elaborate.
You might have window shoppers on your website. These are people who have visited all the pages on your website but haven’t taken any action. How do you remind them of you and what you could do for them? Enter Display Remarketing and RLSA campaigns.

a) Remarketing on display network:
This helps advertisers target visitors on different advertising-supported websites using banner images. Assume you run a travel business and a visitor is looking for Thailand packages. But for some reason, he decides to leave without purchasing. You can just create a remarketing list like the one below to target him.Similar to remarketing lists, you can create suppression lists as well (as shown above). These suppression lists ensure that you target new leads and not run ads for those who have already converted.
b) Remarketing on search network:
RLSA stands for Remarketing Lists for Search Ads. As the name indicates, it runs remarketing campaigns on the search network, much like display remarketing. Additionally, the advertiser needs to add keywords in this campaign. By doing so, Google ads can match the user’s search query with the keyword and remarketing list. This will help Google to show relevant ads for each search query.
5) Measure your performance consistently
It is very difficult to measure the outcome of traditional advertisements like newspapers, radio, broadcast television, cable television, outdoor billboards, brochures etc. Also, they are much more expensive than Google AdWords. You can’t control your own budget and spend. Additionally, you wouldn’t know the source of the leads coming from these media, unless your customer chooses to divulge it. As a result, it would be very difficult to calculate ROI from traditional media.
But, AdWords, on the other hand, would tell you exactly what happened with the campaign. You would know:
  • Who clicked on your ad.
  • How many leads have been generated.
  • How much traffic you have got from AdWords to your website.
  • Which keyword generated the most traffic and leads.
  • How much does it cost you per lead.

6) Explore more using your ads

Confused with the title?  As I said, there is a lot more to explore when you link your Google AdWords account with your Google Analytics account. AdWords is a great platform but it won’t let you know what people do after clicking the ads. But, Google analytics would help you understand. Google Analytics lets you measure your advertising ROI as well as track your Flash, video, and social networking sites and applications.

Image Source: ThinkWithGoogle
  • How long a visitor stayed on a page
  • How many pages have been visited
  • Bounce rate of your landing page
  • Details about new visitors and returning visitors and much more.
By linking them together, you will have a lot more data in your hand.  An advertiser can measure the complete performance of the Google ads. 

7) Tackle your competition better

When someone searches for something related to your product/services online, and you aren’t running ads, but your competitors are, then that means trouble for you. You’ll lose business almost instantly.
You need to keep an eye on them to see how they are promoting their business, what kinds of ads they run etc. The transparent system of Google AdWords helps you do this. Grab the opportunities that come your way and make yourself stand out from your competition.

Now you have reasons to advertise on Google AdWords. But let’s discuss if this platform makes sense for you at all.

Bonus: Who can use Google AdWords?

You shouldn’t start using Google AdWords just because your friend found success with it. You need to know first if it makes senses for you and your business, and if it does, what types of ads would work best for you.
Google AdWords would be the answer for your business only if you meet these criteria:
    1. Is your audience online?
    2. Are the keywords related to your business being searched online? Use Google’s Keyword Planner to research this. On a personal note, I would prefer bidding on keywords when the minimum search volume is more than 500 per month, and this search volume shows an upward trend.
    3. Are online magazines and bloggers publishing articles related to your industry or service?
    4. Search for your keyword online to see if Google throws relevant answers.
    5. Are your competitors investing online (paid or unpaid channels)?
    6. Use keyword tools like Adword Keyword Planner, Wordstream, MOZ, Keyword Planner and many more to gauge the traffic & bid for your keyword. These tools would also suggest other related keywords which would help you experiment more.
The world is going Digital. To make your presence felt online and generate business be creative and digital. In this phase of lock down, utilize your time to update and save your businesses from the upcoming economic hardships. 

I hope this will be helpful to understand Google Ads and use the same to grow your business online.



Image Source: ThinkWithGoogle

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