Getting to Know Google Ads

It's hard to imagine our lives without Google. It's a search engine, it's a verb, and it is so much more. Packed in with everything else are a killer office suite and a business platform that can take your marketing to the next level. This platform is Google Ads. Google Ads was created barely two years after Google.com, which has since become the most famous website on the planet. The advertising platform was first launched in October 2000 as Google AdWords. However, it was rebranded as Google Ads in 2018. With 259 million unique visits and 4.8 billion daily interactions, there's a good chance you've seen a Google ad and likely clicked on it. Your potential clients have as well.

Google Adverts can place advertisements on non-search websites, mobile applications, multimedia, and search engine results like Google Search (the Google Search Network). Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is used to pay for the services. The Google Ads system is partly based on cookies and partly on terms chosen by advertisers. These criteria are used by Google to insert advertising material on pages where they believe it is relevant. Advertisers are compensated when consumers redirect their browsing to click on the ad copy. Local, national, and worldwide advertisements are all possible.

When consumers search online for the items and services you offer, Google Ads will display your ad. Google Ads helps you get your ads in front of potential customers at the exact moment they're ready to act by employing clever technologies.

Begin by deciding on a goal, such as increasing website traffic or increasing phone calls to your company. Next, choose the geographic area in which your ad should appear. It can range in size from a few miles around your company to entire towns, nations, or continents. Finally, create your advertisement and determine your monthly spending limit. When your ad is approved, it will appear whenever people in your target area search for a specific product or service that is comparable to yours.You only pay when users engage with your ad, like clicking your ad or calling your business.

Why Use Google Ads

Grain A Massive Reach

Google has a vast audience. Google has now become a verb rather than just a brand. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary even defines the term "Google"! People looking for answers to problems that your company can solve are among them. If they've ever used the web, they've probably Googled a solution to a problem. When you can help them find the answer, even if it's through an ad, they're highly likely to choose you over your competitors.

Generate Leads with Sophisticated Targeting

One of the most effective lead generation methods is Google Ads. If you build up your campaigns correctly, you may deliver highly focused leads to your website, opt-in form, or another online asset. Google Ads lets you target people that are looking for what your company has to offer. This means you may keep refining your searches so that only people interested in buying your products or services are directed to your websites via this network. You have the option of bidding on certain long-tail keywords or shorter keywords. While the former allows you to target high-intent customers, the latter may allow you to obtain more traction with fewer leads.

When you first start using Google Ads, you'll notice that you may even target people who use specific devices. Google will then show advertising based on the user's device, such as a desktop, smartphone, or tablet. If you're just getting started, device targeting isn't a good idea. This is useful once you've been running your campaigns for a while and have enough data to examine how your advertising performs on various devices. You can focus your adverts on devices that perform faster than others based on their performance.

Get a High Return on Investment

Unlike other marketing tactics, Google Advertising only charges you when people click on your ads. You can receive a high return on investment by optimizing Google Ads campaigns, which may not be attainable with other marketing tactics.

However, this takes time, and you must determine which technique is best for you and your company. You must routinely check and track your campaigns to gain a clearer understanding of what will yield the best outcomes. Google Ads is ideal for this because it is quite clear and provides all of the information you require.

You should focus your attention and cash on parts of your campaign that provide a solid return on investment. Eliminate any campaigns or elements of campaigns that are losing you money. Invest those savings in successful campaigns and upcoming campaigns that you will evaluate.

Types of Google Ads

Search Campaigns

These ads, which are primarily text-based, might appear on Google Search results pages whenever anyone searches for a service or product that is comparable to yours. You may show your advertising to people who are actively searching for your products and services, which is fantastic for boosting sales, leads, or traffic to your website.

Display Campaigns

Display campaigns are adverts that appear on your customers' favorite websites or apps in the form of images. Consumers see display adverts when they read articles, watch videos, or visit websites. You may use Google Advertising to deliver your ads on the Google Display Network, which includes over two million web pages and reaches over 90% of Internet users around the world. People see display adverts while visiting sites on the Google Display Network.

When running Display advertisements, you may miss out on those who are actively looking for what you have to offer. Nonetheless, you're presenting your company to a specific target demographic that is likely to be interested in your products or services. This could help you reach a larger or entirely new audience than you could through search alone.

You have two types of display advertisements to choose from: responsive display ads, Gmail ads, and uploaded image ads. While all three ad forms are efficient and may be used to support various marketing initiatives, Google claims that responsive display advertisements have the greatest reach of all. That is why we advise allocating additional funds to them.

Responsive Display Ads

The style, size, and format of responsive display advertising are automatically modified to meet all of the available locations on the Google Display Network.

Uploaded Image Ads

Published image ads are developed outside of Google Ads with a program like Google Web Designer and then uploaded to Google Ads as a.zip file, GIF, JPG, or PNG. You have complete creative control over your Display Network campaigns when you create and submit your own picture advertising.

Image (e.g., GIF, JPG, PNG), AMP HTML, and HTML5 are all supported ad kinds in Google Ads. You must re-upload an old HTML5 ad as a new advert with its own collection of analytics if you need to make changes to it.

Shopping Campaigns

Shopping ads offer detailed product information such as product image, price, and merchant name. They're made up of data attributes from the product information you supply in your Merchant Center data feed, and they're displayed to consumers who are already looking for the things you're selling. With extensive analytics and performance tools, you can create your ad content, set a budget and pricing that works for you, and simply assess the impact of your advertising.

There are two main types of shopping campaigns that can be found below.

Shoppable Image Ad

In shopping campaigns, an ad structure that incorporates links to products. The advertisement is displayed as tags within photographs on third-party websites. A snapshot of someone wearing a t-shirt, pants, and shoes, for example, may be used in a blog post. After that, each item may be tagged and linked to products that can be purchased.

Showcase Shopping Ad

For broad search phrases, an ad structure for shopping campaigns allows you to incorporate numerous related products in a single ad. When someone searches for a "tablet bag," a showcase ad can offer various bags.

Video Campaigns

Video campaigns Are often six or 15-second videos that play either during or following YouTube content. Video advertising may appear complicated, but they are simple to set up and administer. You can also use videos from your personal YouTube channel. You'll be able to track the effectiveness of your video ads and make adjustments to how you target your consumers, just like you can with other Google Ads campaigns.

There are five types of video ads that can be found below.

Bumper Ads

Bumper Ads are a type of short video ad. They're made for companies who want to reach a larger audience and raise brand awareness. Bumper advertising lasts no more than 6 seconds.

In-Feed Video Adverts

In-Feed Video Adverts are video ads that only appear on YouTube or in Google partners' content discovery areas. Their appearance changes based on the size and type of the advertisement.

Non-Skippable Businesses

Businesses can use in-stream ads to reach customers with a complete message that is unzippable. These videos are under 15 seconds long.

Outstream

Outstream advertising appears on mobile and tablet devices. They're made to make it easy for people to tap and watch your videos. They can expand your brand's reach beyond YouTube, enhancing brand exposure.

Bidding Strategies

CPA Targeting

You can specify the exact amount to pay for a conversion using this cost-per-action bid approach. Depending on this figure, the algorithm will then try to execute your campaigns to meet the CPA (Cost-Per-Action) set at the campaign or ad group level. It will look like this in practice: Some conversions may be more expensive than expected, while others may be less. On average, however, the goal is to achieve the set CPA objective. The best approach to figure it out is to look at the data from an ongoing campaign and calculate an estimated CPA. The more conversions you have, the more precisely you can establish your desired CPA.

Maximizing Clicks

If you want to increase the volume of visitors to your website, this bidding approach is the way to go. This algorithm, which follows the mantra "quantity above quality," seeks to produce as many clicks as possible based on the budget you've set without setting an explicit conversion target. Your ad will eventually appear for the search terms that are most likely to result in a click. This method can be used to join a campaign in order to collect data for later conversion as well as to raise brand recognition. Google Search Network and Google Display Network campaigns are especially well-suited for this. You can also use this bidding approach for conventional shopping campaigns as well.

With the maximum CPC bid (which operates the same as manual CPC), you can keep a tight watch on your costs while collecting as many clicks as possible. However, conversions are not the main focus here since, as previously stated, the emphasis is on quantity, not quality.

Maximize Conversions

Maximize Conversions is one of Google Ads' most straightforward bidding methods. Google will automatically bid for you based on your maximum daily budget to get you the greatest conversions for your investment.

If your daily budget is $100, for example, Google will allocate it intelligently to find the greatest conversions. Google will not bid on a single conversion that costs $100. Before you use this bidding strategy, make sure that you've established your daily budget at a level that you're comfortable with. Check your return on investment at the conclusion of a campaign to evaluate if optimizing conversions lead to lucrative sales. You won't have to submit any information during setup if you use this technique. All you need to do is set your daily budget.

Maximize Conversion Value

Not to be confused with Maximize Conversions, with Maximize Conversion Value, the emphasis is on the sales that your efforts produce. This implies that your bids will be optimized in real-time. It necessitates active conversion tracking, as well as the assignment of distinct values to the conversions you've made. It should be emphasized that the maximum CPC cannot be controlled. Furthermore, you should maintain a constant check on your budget and make adjustments as needed. Otherwise, your CPCs may spiral out of control when the program tries to spend the daily budget you established. This bid technique is especially beneficial for e-commerce businesses and campaigns with a variety of conversion kinds.

The benefit is that your conversions will be prioritized based on their importance, and all relevant data will be used for improvement. However, you will need to describe several conversions. Else this technique would lack a solid foundation.

Target Impression Share

If you opt to use this automatic technique, you'll be aiming for a specific position on the Google search results page — usually the first. This implies that depending on when, where, and how consumers search for your brand, your adverts will display more or less frequently. This method works best for brand marketing and boosting brand recognition. The bidding limit is determined by the maximum CPC bid; you should not set your limit too low to attain the desired effect.

Finally, you may use this method to improve your Google search ranking and leave your competitors in the dust. However, you should be aware that the emphasis is not on conversions and that top spots can rapidly become prohibitively expensive.

Target ROAS

Target ROAS is a bidding method in which Google Ads adjusts your bids to optimize conversion value depending on the amount of money you wish to spend on ads. This indicates that the algorithm will try to keep the ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) within the budget and will set bids accordingly. To properly set the ROAS, it's best to first collect the relevant data via another technique (for example, target CPA, conversion maximization) and then make the proper decision. The target ROAS technique can be used for practically any sort of campaign (excluding video), but it requires value-based web tracking to be installed.

This is only one example. You aim to make $15 for every $4 spent on your next Google Ads campaign. To solve the problem, use the following formula:

Target ROAS = Sales ad spend multiplied by 100%

Using the arithmetic in the example above, the Target ROAS would be as follows:

$15 in revenues from the campaign x 100% ad cost (clicks) Equals 375 percent target ROAS

Google Ads Features

Keyword Planner

To aid in the planning of advertising campaigns, the Keyword Planner gives data on Google searches and other resources.

AdWords Express

AdWords Express (formerly "Google Boost") is a service for small businesses that aim to make managing ad campaigns easier by automating keyword management and ad placement.

Google Advertising Editor

Google Advertising Editor is a downloadable tool that allows users to alter ads in mass and in real-time. Like the dashboard, it also allows consumers to see campaign performance.

Ads Manager Accounts

Users can manage several accounts from one login and dashboard with Google Ads Manager Accounts (formerly "My Client Center (MCC)"). Marketing and advertising organizations that manage a wide portfolio of client accounts frequently utilize this method.

Reach Planner

Users can use the Reach Planner to estimate the reach and scope of their video ads across YouTube and Google's video partners. The application allows users to select their target audience, then suggests a mixture of video advertising that will help them achieve their goals, as well as track the reach of their ads. Advertisers can omit Internet Protocol (IP) addresses in addition to location and language personalization. Each campaign allows advertisers to exclude up to 500 IP address ranges.

Google Academy for Ads

Users who pass a Google Ads Fundamentals exam and one Advanced AdWords exam on search, display, video, shopping, mobile advertising, or Google Analytics receive a credential from Google Academy for Ads (previously "Google Partners," "Google AdWords Certification Program," and "Google AdWords Certification"). Google Partners must spend a minimum of $10,000 in 90 days, with Google Premier Partners having a greater spend threshold. [

Placement-Targeted Advertisements

Ads are placed based on keywords, domain names, subjects, and demographic targeting preferences given by the marketer in placement-targeted advertisements (previously Site-Targeted Advertisements). Google also provides a list of comparable sites for placement if domain names are targeted. For site targeting, advertisers bid on a cost-per-impression (CPI/CPM) or cost-per-click (CPC) basis. For placement-targeted ads, the minimal cost-per-thousand-impressions bid is 25 cents. No minimum CMC is required.

Remarketing

Marketers can use remarketing to show adverts to people who have already visited their website, as well as develop alternative audience groups based on website visitor behavior. Beginning in June 2015, Google Advertisements added Remarketing Lists for Search (RLSA) via Google Analytics, enabling users to plan traditional text search ads using regular GA remarketing lists. Dynamic remarketing might display past visitors' favorite goods or services. While overt use is frequent, some users may find it bothersome.

Expansions of Google Ads

Advertisers can provide more information in their advertising, such as a business address, phone number, connections to a website or app, prices, or offers and promotions. When the system anticipates that automated extensions such as consumer ratings will boost performance, Google Ads may display them. Google Ads was launched. Improved conversion for more precise conversion measurement

Grants from Google Ads

Since 2003, the Google Ad Grants program has provided more than $10 billion in free advertising to over 115,000 NGOs in 51 countries. Each month, the Google Ad Grants program provides up to $10,000 USD in in-kind search advertising.

Smart Campaigns

Smart campaigns are an internet advertising tool for small businesses to market their goods and services. Advertisers can choose their business goals and where they wish to advertise using smart campaigns. The results are then adjusted to those aims using machine learning. These initiatives use smart technology to continuously monitor and enhance the success of your ads, allowing you to focus on other business activities.

Other Useful Terms

A/B Split Testing

The process of comparing two versions of a landing page, site, application, ad, or other piece of content to evaluate which one performed best. Both editions of the object under test are used at the same time, and the variation is usually insignificant.

Ad Auction

The ad auction determines how much you'll pay for a click on Google and is used to choose which ads will appear on Google's search engine results pages, search partner sites, and Display Network sites.

Ad Copy

Any ad's advertising copy is called ad copy. It consists of three pieces in Google Ads: headlines, display path, and descriptions.

Ad Extensions

Additional features that you can add to your advertising to display more information about your brand or business, such as a phone number and connections to related pages.

Ad Group

An ad group in Google Ads is a collection of one or more ads. The keywords that the ads within the ad group will appear for are controlled by the ad group itself. There are one or more ad groups in each campaign.

Ad Placement

This is where you specify whether or not you want your display or video advertising to appear on the Google Display Network, YouTube, or Google video partner sites. A complete website, a YouTube channel, a mobile app, a single web page, and so on are all examples of ad placement.

Ad Preview and Diagnosis

Ad Preview and Diagnosis is a function in Google Ads that allows you to examine what serving issues your ad is having. It helps you to determine why your ad may not be showing up or why extensions are missing.

Ad Request

Client-side code (such as GPT on a webpage) sends an ad request to an ad server. Ad requests are normally sent to the host in the manner of an HTTP or HTTPS request. The initial step in ad serving is the request.

Ad Serving

Ad Manager selects the best ads to deliver in response to an ad request and then returns the matching creative code.

Ad Slot

The HTML markup (typically between tags) defines where an ad display is known as an ad slot. Ad slots can pertain to either distinct ad units or the same ad unit if they are on the same page.

AdSense

AdSense is a Google initiative that pays website publishers to display Google Ads on their pages.

Assist Clicks and Impressions

Assist Clicks and Impressions: Any clicks or impressions that have aided users in reaching the final click that led to a conversion.

Assisted Conversions

Conversions that were aided through interactions resulted in the ultimate conversion click.

Attribution

Within google ads, attribution allows you to manage how much credit is given to the campaign, ad group, keyword, match type, and device for conversions.

The credit for a conversion is given entirely to the first ad click attribution in the conversion path. The amount of historical data utilized for attribution models is limited to 30 days, although it can be extended to 60 or 90 days. Even if the user previously clicked on another ad, the last click receives all of the credit for the conversion. Linear attribution within Google Ads is the default attribution approach. The last click that led to the conversion gets the most credit, while clicks that helped the conversion get cascading credit using a Time decay attribution method. Position-based attribution assigns 40% of the conversion credit to the last click and 40% to the initial click and evenly distributes the remaining credit among the other clicks in the conversion path.

Audiences

You can target people based on their previous actions. People who have previously visited your website (website visitors), used your mobile app (mobile app users), submitted their email address (customer emails), or engaged with your content on YouTube are included in audience databases for remarketing (YouTube users). Affinity audiences and in-market audiences are two types of audiences that can be targeted based on Google's understanding of user activity.

Broad Match Modifier

Allows you to target a specific word (or words) inside a broad match keyword by guaranteeing that the provided word or similar variants are included in the web searches used to display your advertising. To apply a broad match modifier, precede the word(s) with a plus sign.

Call-Only Ad

An ad type that appears on mobile devices and contains the phone number as the headline. People can phone you immediately instead of going to your site when they click on the ad.

Campaign

Campaigns can be thought of as folders within your account's top-level structure. Depending on your advertising goals, you can establish one or more campaigns within your account. You can use campaigns for a variety of purposes, including different types of targeting (search vs. display), keyword architecture, budget allocation, and more. To establish a more granular structure within your account, each campaign has one or more ad groups.

Conversion

Any action that is beneficial to your company. Conversion monitoring helps in tracking how many people visit critical pages of the website (such as thank you pages), call a Google forwarding number, download apps, do actions within an app, and convert offline. You can utilize specific conversion tracking in Google Ads or import conversion data from Google Analytics.

Google Merchant Center

Google's shopping campaign tool for entering product inventory from your website. Google Merchant Center receives inventory as a feed, which is subsequently utilized to run campaigns in Google Ads. Also, check out the shopping promotion.

Google Search Network

The ad network allows you to display ads to people who are searching. You can target people who are looking on Google as well as Google Search Partners, which include third-party websites, using the Google Search Network.

Google Search Partners

Included are third-party search websites, such as Yahoo, which is now a partner. Other Google-owned services, such as Google Maps, are also included in Google Search Partners.

Keyword

A keyword is an order to Google (decided by the keyword content and match type) about when to display advertisements from the keyword's ad group. It is the most common targeting approach for search campaigns.

Keyword Planner

This Google tool will assist you in finding keywords for your search marketing. The tool can help you uncover keyword ideas, ad group ideas, and estimates for search volume, clicks, and cost. For accounts with active campaigns, the Keyword Planner is more accurate.

Label

Short descriptions can be added to campaigns, ad groups, ads, and other elements to aid in the interpretation and reporting of campaigns.

Narrow Targeting

In a display campaign, a setting is applied to the targeting technique. When you choose 'Narrow Targeting,' all of the targets must match in order for the ad to appear. For example, if you use remarketing with a subject as a target, someone must be on your remarketing list and browsing content related to the topic target in order for the ads to appear. It's the equivalent of saying 'and' for the ad group targeting tactics. Add observation as well.

Pay-Per-Click (PPC)

Pay-per-click (PPC) is the sport of Google Ads, often known as Paid Search, Search Engine Marketing (SEM), or just paid ads. Advertisers pay a network a fee when their ad is clicked in this advertising arrangement.

Phrase Match Keyword

Phrase Match Keyword It used to only show your ad when the term was searched using words in the order they appeared in your keyword. Ads also would show up in searches that included your key phrase and any phrases that came before or after it. Comparable to the capabilities of the (now gone) broad match modified keyword, the phrase match type has been broadened to enable searches with greater variance to trigger your phrase keywords.

Programmatic Direct

Programmatic direct allows you to negotiate Preferred Deal (non-guaranteed, unreserved inventory) and Programmatic Guaranteed (guaranteed, reserved inventory) campaigns in Ad Manager.

Within the Ad Manager, you may renegotiate campaign conditions and finalize details with a customer. During the negotiation, buyers can accept or suggest changes to the agreements. Ad Manager creates a campaign for delivery once both parties have agreed on conditions. Buyers host and manage creatives in their system, which decreases the overhead of creative management. Ad Manager also handles all impression tracking, billing, and payments, avoiding potential inconsistencies and reducing reconciliation overhead.

Programmatic Guaranteed

The buyer buys inventory directly from the publisher in a programmatic guaranteed arrangement. The buyer agrees to purchase a specific number of impressions, and the publisher promises to supply that number of impressions at a specific price. A warranty is provided by both the sellers and buyers.

Programmatic Preferred Deal

You and the buyer agree on rates and terms for merchandise the buyer can choose to purchase. When an ad request for the inventory is made, the buyer has an initial, or "preferred," chance to bid at the agreed price. Because the inventory negotiated isn't reserved for the customer, Preferred Deals are non-guaranteed; however, you can secure it in a guaranteed campaign for a cheaper rate. Buyers are also not obligated to purchase the inventory.

ROAS

ROAS stands for return on advertising spend and is calculated by dividing total revenue by total advertising spend. Your ROAS would be 200 percent of your total income from Google Advertisements was $10,000, and you spent $5,000 on your ads.

Script

Script allows you to use JavaScript to control your profile. You could, for example, change your bids using data from an external system.

Search Query

The text that someone typed into a search engine. Because of keyword match types, the search query someone enters could not be just like the keyword you're bidding on.

Segment

Inside your account, you may view a comprehensive analysis of metrics. You may separate your data by time, conversions, click type, devices, and other factors.

Value Track

Allows you to send information to your landing page about how people found and interacted with your ad. You can include information such as keyword match type, targeting, and device kind. Third-party analytics tools generally use Value Track. If you utilize Google Analytics, you don't need to use Value Track because these details are immediately delivered to your reports whenever you integrate Google Ads and Google Analytics.

Viewable CPM

Viewable CPM (Cost Per Thousand Impressions) bidding is when you set a budget for 1,000 viewable impressions, regardless of how many clicks they generate. When at least 50% of the ad is visible on display for at least one second, it is considered a viewable impression (this is two seconds for video ads).

View-Through Conversion

A metric for display ads that evaluates visitors who see an ad but don't engage it but convert on your site later on.