Businesses can no longer depend solely upon organic reach with the level of competition in today’s digital marketplace. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and content marketing are great and necessary, but paid advertising is a necessary marketing component to contacts now. Out there, I can find countless tools for online marketing and advertising, and very few tools are as effective and powerful as Google Ads. It is a big place, with a lot of reach, and it enables you to target and connect with potential customers in real-time, at the right time, and ultimately at the right place.
To generate maximum impact with Google Ads, businesses need to do more than just run a campaign. Advertising intelligently requires knowing strategy, optimization, and how these things work. This guide will show you how to effectively harness Google Ads and create campaigns that generate real measurable results.
Learning the Fundamentals of Google Ads
Google Ads is a PPC platform wherein advertisers bid on certain keywords so that their clickable ads may appear in the Google search result pages. Additionally, ads can get displayed across the Google Display Network, YouTube, Gmail, and partner websites. Advertisers are charged whenever the ads get clicked by users; hence the name pay-per-click.
Google Ads holds intent-driven targeting power. Social media ads usually interrupt a user. With Google Ads, however, people are reached while searching for something, usually the intent to buy.
Why Google Ads is Effective
Here are some reasons that businesses of all sizes are using Google Ads: Massive Reach: There are over 8.5 billion searches conducted by Google each day. If you are using Google Ads, the chances are that your potential audience is infinite. Immediate Results: SEO takes time to take off, however, using a fully optimized Google Ads account, you can generate immediate traffic and conversions. Targeted Audience: Google Ads allows targeting of users by keywords, demographics, location, device type, interests, and behaviors. Budget Control and Scalability: You fo have total control over what you want to spend. You can spend $10 per day, or $1000 per day, Google Ads will work
Ad Groups: Ad Groups belong to Campaigns and can help you to group your ads either by theme or product.
Keywords: Keywords are the words, or phrases, that Users input into Google to make your ads work.
Ads: Ads are the text, image or video creatives that Users see.
Landing Pages: Landing Pages are the web pages the Users visit after they click on your ad. The landing pages should be well-optimized for conversion.
Every part of your campaign matters! Each part makes a contribution to whether your campaign is successful!
Tips for Better Google Ads Campaigns Now, we will review some strategies to make your campaigns as effective and efficient as possible:
1. Have a Clear Goal Do not run a campaign just to “get traffic”? Are you looking for leads? Online sales? Phone calls? App downloads? Knowing your clear goals will help you decide on keywords, ad copy, and landing page.
2. Keyword Research Use tools, such as Google Keyword Planner or Ubersuggest, to discover relevant keywords. You will want to create a mix of high intent keyword phrases and long-tail keywords that your target customers would be likely to type into a search engine. You do not want to be too broad, which can lead to your budget depleting quickly without conversions.
3. Create Good Ad Copy Ad Copy should be clear, concise and aimed at your target audience. The call to actions (CTA) should be strong, such as “Get a Free Quote”, “Shop Now” or “Book Today”. Obviously, you want to include your differentiating factors as well.
4. Ad Extensions Ad extensions help increase the size of your ad, link and contact information can be added, etc. Ad extensions will not only make your ad bigger, but it will increase engagement and can improve your click–through rate (CTR).
5. Creation Landing Pages Don’t waste a good ad with a poor landing page. Your landing page should meet expectations.
6. Tracking and Optimizing It’s critical to closely track your Google Ads campaigns – you can never just “set it and forget it”. You should regularly monitor key performance indicators such as click–through–rate (CTR), conversion rate, cost–per–click (CPC), return on ad spend (ROAS), etc., to identify opportunities to optimize performance.
7. Negative Keywords Not all traffic is good traffic! Negative keywords prevent unwanted impressions and clicks from searches that are unrelated to your campaign. For example, if you sell premium, one–of–a–kind or custom luxury watches, you would add cheap and any variation thereof as a negative keyword.
This will help prevent bargain-basement customers from clicking on your ads! Advanced Functionality Now that you know more about the basics and how to optimize them, or want to jump ahead and look at more advanced options, below is a list of some features that could help add even more sophistication to your Google advertising plan.
Remarketing: To show your ads to customers who visited your site but did not convert. Smart Campaigns: Selected smart campaigns and let Google use machine learning to determine the best targeting and spend! Cost Tracking: To understand the engagements on your site after the customer clicks your ad was it a form submission?