Trying to reach an online audience for your business? As the world’s most popular search engine, Google is one of the best places to get started advertising online. In this article, you’ll learn Google Ads best practices and tips for making your campaigns a success.
What is Google Ads?
Google contains its own huge advertising platform, Google Ads. One of its greatest benefits is its ability to target people who are already looking for the kind of product you’re selling, so you are not bothering them with irrelevant marketing.
How Does Google Ads Work?
There are two ways in which businesses use Google for marketing and advertising. One is SEO (search engine optimization), the practice of providing relevant and engaging content while strategically inserting keywords. This is usually done with the help of professional, paid-for tools, however, it is a free option that is less direct than paid ads.
Google Ads is the paid advertising service offered by Google. Simply put, businesses pay Google to have an ad page placed in an advertising slot on users’ browsers. How does Google decide which ads will get priority? Through a process in which advertisers place bids. Depending on the ad type, the winner’s ad will appear either on the search engine results page (known as a SERP), as a banner on the display network, or as a video ad on YouTube. However, to achieve any meaningful success with your ad budget, it’s important to implement a good Google Ads strategy.
Google Ads targets users searching for specific search phrases. Businesses can then fine-tune ads according to factors such as geographic location. Ad spend will affect the reach of ads and the amount of time they’ll be shown. The quality of the ads is a huge determining factor as to the success in attracting paying customers.
How Effective are Google Ads?
When implemented thoughtfully and professionally, Google ads are a highly-effective tool. There are a few reasons Google Ads is such a critical medium for online advertising.
First of all, Google is a behemoth. It is the most-used search engine, and First Site Guide reported that 3.5 billion google searches were performed daily as of October 2021. Google consistently receives 85% to 90% of desktop searches.
Since Google Ads is based on what people are searching for, it can help businesses better understand their customers and what they want. There is massive potential for businesses to profit thanks to the use of Google Ads since they can better understand exactly what their customers want.
Advertising influences purchasing decisions and in the case of Google, it provides customers with information. On average, 35% of users buy a product within 5 days of searching for it on Google, though this varies depending on the industry and can range from 1 to 30 days. 63% of people have clicked on a Google ad, and half of all users cannot differentiate between an ad and an organic search result.
To reiterate, Google Ads simply works because users who end up making purchases are already looking for what is being sold. There is no forced sale and the interest already exists, so it’s up to businesses and their marketing teams to come up with the Google Ads campaign strategy that will best bring those potential customers to a business. It’s also incredibly important to understand the target audience beforehand — every click costs money, so it’s not recommended to advertise to everyone.
Google Ads Tips
Testing is everything. You can always tweak your Google Ads campaigns and improve your results. Small changes to targeting, keywords, headlines, and copy can make huge differences. But you can’t find out what works best without testing. While you can wait and see how an ad performs, it’s best to use the experiments tool on Google Ads to statistically test different ads, landing pages, and more.
Maintain relevance everywhere. From your headline through to the landing page, you need to keep your message consistent.
Fill out all ad options. Try filling out all information fields when launching a campaign. They are placed there for a reason, so utilize them and try not to leave the extra headline fields empty.
Use different keyword match types. This point takes longer to figure out, but user intent is an important part of Google Ads, as they are based on the information you provide. There are many different tactics for when and why to use certain keywords, whether to use an exact keyword or a broad match.