Google Ads is a product that has made it quicker and easier than ever to attain valuable results for your business through a simple, online portal. It is an accessible tool that businesses can use to help drive an increased amount of traffic to their website to sell more products and services, raise brand awareness and promote their business. Well-targeted advertisements (ads) are a powerful tool for driving conversions, and this handy tool can help businesses achieve their desired results through their marketing efforts.
Sound like a lot? Don’t worry, this blog is here to explain all about Google Ads and why you need them for your business.
WHAT ARE GOOGLE ADS?
Google Ads is an online, pay-per-click, advertising platform that was developed by Google to help businesses gain more visibility online across Google’s properties. On this platform, advertisers bid to display brief advertisements, product listings, service offerings and videos to web users.
Whilst the most common type of Google Ads are search ads, businesses can also use it to place ads on non-search websites such as mobile apps.
A Google Ads account is managed online where businesses can create, edit, and change their ad campaigns at any time. It allows businesses to create and publish well-timed ads among their target audience. As a result, the business’ website will show up on the search engine results page (SERPs) at the moment when ideal customers are looking for products and services like theirs.
Types of Google Ads:
- Search ads: these are the ads that appear at the top of SERPs.
- Display ads: these appear on the Google Display Network. They can be in text, video or rich media format but are typically image-based.
- Shopping ads: these appear in the regular SERPs and the shopping tab on Google. They operate slightly differently from regular search ads as you are unable to target keywords. Instead, Google will search through detailed, online catalogues of products and show results that are the most relevant to the user’s search.
- YouTube: this type of ad targeting operates in a similar way to display ad targeting. Since Google owns YouTube, YouTube advertising is done via Google Ads. Businesses can create video, text or display ads that appear before and during videos as well as elsewhere on the platform.
- App campaigns: Google will use images, videos, ad text ideas and assets from an app’s store listings to design a variety of ads across several networks.
HOW DID GOOGLE ADS EVOLVE FROM GOOGLE ADWORDS?
Google Adwords was launched in October 2000 and the world has evolved immensely ever since, especially the technology world. Mobile is now a huge part of everyday life; products are available at the click of a button and the whole of the high street can be browsed from the comfort of your own sofa by simply clicking from tab to tab.
These shifts in an ever-changing society led to the rebranding of Google Adwords to be replaced by Google Ads in July 2018. The new brand improved the work of Google Adwords and introduced added features such as a full range of campaign types that included Search, Display and Video ads.
HOW DO GOOGLE ADS WORK?
Google Ads is focused on keywords. These are the words that potential customers are most likely to type in when searching for a particular product or service.
It is a pay-per-click platform which essentially means that advertisers will only pay if their ad gets clicked on.
When creating ads, businesses will choose a list of keywords that are relevant to that specific ad campaign.
Once a customer searches a query on Google, the search engines will go through and see if any advertisers are bidding on the keywords that are relevant to that search.
The search engines will then go through and look at different websites to gather intel about which one is most relevant to the user’s search.
Once the search engines have decided which ads are most relevant, they will appear on the SERPs.
How do search engines choose?
- Quality score
This is a score from 1-10 and is based on three things; relevance, expected click-through rate and user experience.
Relevance: this looks at how relevant the ad is compared to the user’s search intent.
Expected click-through rate: this examines how likely it is that the ad will be clicked on if shown, taking into consideration historical performance in relation to competitors.
User experience: this determines how relevant the landing page is to the ad and how useful the overall experience is.
- Ad Rank
This is worked out by multiplying the quality score with the maximum bid amount. The higher the ad rank, the more likely that the ad will appear in the SERPs. The key here is to not focus on a high maximum bid but to ensure that the quality score is high.
For example, one business may choose a maximum bid amount of £2 and their quality score might be a 10. This gives them an Ad Rank of 20.
Another business may choose a £5 maximum bid amount, but their quality score may only be a 2, giving them an Ad Rank of 10. This means that their website will lose out on that top spot despite selecting a higher maximum bid amount.
- Cost per click
Advertisers will only pay when their ad is clicked on. This is worked out by the formula below.
The lower the cost per click, the higher the website will appear on the SERPs.
- Location
When setting up a Google ad, advertisers will set a geographical location for their ad to be shown. If a potential customer searches for a product/service in the set geographical location, the ad is more likely to be shown.
Bidding Strategies
There are two options when bidding on keywords: automated and manual.
- Automated bidding is where Google is put in control and adjusts bids based on competitors. Businesses can still set a maximum budget and Google will then work within that range to give the best chance of winning the bid.
- Manual bidding puts control over bids in the advertiser’s hands. This allows businesses to reduce spending on low-performing ads or increase spend on high-performing ads.
HOW MUCH DO GOOGLE ADS COST?
The cost of Google Ads varies based on several factors:
- The quality of the advertising campaign
- Geographical location
- How competitive the keywords used are
- The competitiveness of the industry
- Ad Rank
- Budget
- Maximum bid amount
The global average of cost-per-click is between £0.48 and £1.95, but a business’ specific cost-per-click is determined by the factors mentioned above.
WHY SHOULD A BUSINESS USE GOOGLE ADS?
The Google Ads platform has been around for over two decades. It is a trusted, high-performing marketing tool that has a high level of authority in paid advertising.
Hundreds of thousands of businesses utilise Google Ads, including competitors. Those making use of the platform will be ranked higher on the SERPs, making their websites and content more visible in comparison to those in the organic results section of the SERPs.
Google Ads will allow businesses to filter out any customers whom they do not want their content to be shown to and will specifically target ideal customers instead. This ensures businesses are spending their advertising money on worthwhile audiences and will increase the chances of conversions.