Google Ads 101 – The Guide That Takes You From Zero to Hero.
Google Ads help your business bring in new customers or leads through search ads, display network ads, and YouTube ads.
And it seems pretty simple…
But Google Ads can be tough to navigate.
And if you’re not up to date on the platform? If you don’t take advantage of all the new features and strategies?
Your success can turn into a costly nightmare.
That’s why we constantly update our Google Ads 101 guide: the resource that takes you from zero to hero in no time.
Google Ads launched in 2000, back when Google was handling a meager 20 million searches every day.
Now they handle billions, and Google Ads has millions of advertisers using their ad networks to turn searchers and internet users into leads and sales.
It’s estimated that in 2020, 36 cents of every digital advertising dollar will be spent on Google Ads.
But Google Ads is one of the most challenging platforms when it comes to monitoring your success. You can quickly spend hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars and see little to no return on investment.
The metrics are tricky to establish, and you could find yourself with $0 fast. So, how do you know if Google Ads are right for you? What are Google Ads and how do they work?
This guide will take you some time. It’s so packed with info that you can’t just browse through it, you need to read it.
Google Ads: What Is It?
Simply put, Google Ads comprise Google’s advertising networks – the search network, the display network, and YouTube.
For instance, here’s what a Google search ad looks like for a given search:
Here’s what a Google display ad looks like on CNN.com:
And here’s what a YouTube ad looks like, showing a movie trailer ad before a movie trailer video:
Companies pay money to Google based on clicks to show up, in hopes of capturing interested buyers and generating leads or sales.
Google makes money from the advertiser every time someone clicks on an ad.
Pretty simple right?
The New Google Ads User Interface (and what it brings to the table)
For those of you just dipping your toe into Google Ads, you’re in luck. They released a new update just recently, and it’s a hell of an improvement.
The new interface is more user-friendly, and offers superior analytic reporting:
The new interface makes it easier for advertisers to create ad groups and access and cycle through their campaigns from one dashboard.
It offers campaign snapshots, advanced insights, and the new overview page (which shows your whole advertising account as soon as you log in).
What is The Quality Score and How Does it Work?
The quality score is a crucial component of running a successful Google Ads campaign.
It’s made up of three main factors:
Your ad campaign’s landing page: How quick does your landing page load? What’s the conversion rate? What’s the bounce rate? In short, is Google sending the people who click to a website that seems to address their needs?
Expected CTR: How do your ad campaigns typically perform? Is your click-through rate better or worse than the average?
Ad Relevance: How specific is your ad in relation to the search?
Why is quality score important beyond ad rank?
AdEspresso found that higher quality and relevance scores result in higher CTRs and massively decreased costs per click:
Improving your quality score is a great way to rank higher with your ads without having to bid higher. You can reduce CPCs and improve your performance by focusing on those three factors that make up the quality score.
Is Advertising on Google right for me?
I hear this question a lot: Is Google Ads right for my business? I just don’t think it will work for me.
Or even more common: Google Ads doesn’t work for me.
To figure out if Google Ads is right for your business, you need to ask yourself one crucial question: Do you have a budget to spare?
If you’ve got some money to spare and don’t mind potentially losing that money, Google Ads is right for you. As the old saying goes, you never know if you don’t try.
Google Ads can work for almost any business. It’s just a matter of trial and error. According to Ads:
Companies will, on average, double their return on investment on the platform”.
Meaning the majority of users will most likely find success on Google Ads. Check this post if you still have doubts.
You just have to be willing to roll the dice and test the waters. Even if you’ve got $50 to spare, it’s a great way to test the market and see if Ads can be good for your business.
But if you want something more concrete, let’s talk about average industry data concerning cost per click.
Cost per click is the money that you will owe Google for each and every click on your ads.
The average cost per click on Google Ads across all industries is $2.69 on the search network, and it’s $0.58 on the display network. Knowing this data, you can expect to pay a few bucks per click depending on your niche and industry. Next, you can take a look at the average conversion rate for your industry. With this data along with average costs per click, you can start to calculate how much it’s going to cost you to land one conversion.
For example, if your industry is automotive, your average CPC is $1.43, and your average conversion rate is 2.27%. That means to get a single conversion, you need about 45 visits, and you’ll pay around $64.35 for a conversion.
Do this simple calculation on your own by finding your average conversion rate and cost per click. Then, see how many clicks it will take to drive a conversion and how much you’ll end up paying for it.
If the costs exceed your margins, then selling that specific product directly with Google Ads isn’t a viable option.
Remember that the entire goal of Ads is to make money, not just drive sales.
You don’t want sales that break even. You want to drive sales and results for your business with a positive ROI.
Types of Advertising on Google Ads
Google Ads offers a few different types of advertising for companies.
You can choose between four different ways to be found by a given searcher:
Currently, you can show up on display ads, video ads, search network ads, and application-based ads.
The search network is the most popular of all.
Search network ads show up as a text ad for a given Google search.
For example, let’s say someone needs plumbing nearby and they search for a plumber. You can show up as an ad on Google for the search on the search network:
The search network works by targeting specific keywords that you want to show up for.
You bid on them to show up higher and get a better chance at capturing visitors and converting paid traffic.
Next, we have the display network.
Display ads work as text or banner ads and can show up on Gmail and various websites within the display network.
Businesses commonly use them for remarketing to bring back site visitors who didn’t convert.
If you’ve ever noticed an ad on a website, it was likely from the display network.
Video-based ads allow you to create a video ad that will show up on YouTube videos.
Lastly, you’ve got the App Ads that allow you to advertise on popular Google network-based applications.
With new additions, you can also implement Google Shopping if you run an e-commerce website, allowing you to advertise products directly on Google through your online store:
Currently, the most popular forms of advertising tend to be: search network and display-based.
They are easy to set up with a relatively little amount of work and no video production required.
If you are interested in showing up for popular searches in your industry and getting new consultations or sales, the search network is a great place to do it.
How To Use Google Ads
Ready to get started with Google Ads?
Well, there are a few things you should know before you follow Google’s setup protocol.
They often lead users astray in the setup process, making it much easier to spend money without seeing a return.
If you want to quickly go from zero to hero, follow this easy Google Ads tutorial, and you’ll be up and running in no time.
To get started, head to Ads and create a new account.
Click “Start Now” to create your free Google Ads account.
How To Pick A Budget
For daily budgets, there is no “one size fits all” standard.
Essentially, you want to select a number you feel comfortable spending daily and adjust from there.
Remember that you can always change this number later.
How To Choose A Target Audience
Next, choose your audience location for advertising:
If you sell only in the United States or Canada, be sure to select that.
You don’t want to waste your money on clicks that won’t buy from you or that you can’t sell to.
How To Create Custom Audiences
On top of location targeting and demographics, Ads packs some powerful custom audience methods that rival the likes of Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.
To create custom audiences, head to the Audience Manager in your Ads Dashboard:
Here you can create custom audiences based on both affinity groups and intent:
With affinity audiences, you can create a new custom cohort based on interests, URLs, places or mobile applications:
For example, if you want to target people interested in marathon running, you simply type that interest into the bar and hit enter. Next, you can start to add more interests that are directly related to refine the audience:
With custom intent audiences, you can base your list off of what users are searching for:
For instance, if you are selling e-commerce products like TVs or basketball shoes, you could enter a URL of a comparison article. This would signal a high intent to purchase as people viewing comparison reviews are close to converting and making a purchase decision.
Intent audiences pack powerful tools to help you capture users at any stage of the funnel. So you can create multiple campaigns and change your offer for each custom intent audience!
How To Create a Remarketing List
After creating custom audiences and bringing in traffic with Ads, you can create remarketing lists.
What are they? Remarketing is the act of sending more marketing messages to people who you have marketed to before.
For instance, if someone visited your website but left without buying from you, you can easily run a remarketing campaign to bring them back.
Why would you? Because 98% of people don’t convert on their first visit to your site!
To create a remarketing list, head to your audience manager and create a new one based on website visitors, app users, YouTube or your own customer list:
This will allow you to target people who visited your website or saw your ad but didn’t buy.
Latest studies show that remarketing campaigns have a 22% cheaper cost per click and 25% lower costs per conversion than standard campaigns.
Remarketing is both cost-effective and conversion producing.
How To Select A Network
Now, you can select the networks you want to advertise on:
Remember: the search network allows you to bid on keywords, aka “search queries,” that real users are searching for online.
For example, if someone searches for “basketball shoes,” you can bid on that term to show up in the top search results like this:
Spy on Competitors to Get Campaign Ideas
After you select the network that you want to advertise on, it’s always a great idea to spy on your competitors.
Before diving into ads that cost money, research should be your go-to next move.
It can help you assess the current market when it comes to everything from ad text to value propositions and keywords to target.
Plus, it shows you what works and what doesn’t and can spark great ideas for writing your own Ads ads or developing creative for YouTube and Display Ads.
The simplest way to research is by heading to Google and searching for keywords in your industry to see what ads show up:
You can analyze what their offers are and how they structure their ads.
For instance, each uses different ad extensions and calls to action, like a free PPC audit.
The key here is to expand on what your competitors are doing. Use these as your base-level and focus on creating better ads.
Using a tool like SEMRush, you can analyze the exact keywords that your competitors are using, too:
This list will show you what terms they bid on, their landing pages for each one and how they rank, giving you the perfect data to create your next campaign to outrank them.
Most companies using Ads will also have their ads on display with SEMRush, allowing you to generate instant ad copy ideas that can normally take hours of time to brainstorm:
Never start a new campaign without doing competitor research. You’ll save time and money by finding the best keywords and benchmarking their current ads as your baseline.
How To Improve Your Ad CTR With Ad Extensions
After you’ve written your basic ads on Ads, you can vastly improve their performance using ad extensions.
Ad extensions are tools that literally extend the length and depth of your ads by including various features like phone numbers, addresses, and more.
And according to Google, they have the power to increase your CTR by at least 10%.
Google currently has multiple extension types to choose from depending on your business type and campaign goals:
Location Extensions:
these can showcase your address, business details, and even local directions integrated with Google Maps. These are great for driving local foot traffic to your business.
Affiliate Location Extensions:
show searchers where they can find your products in local retail shops. For instance, if your products are carried in larger retail stores.
Callout Extensions:
add more text to your ads like unique offers and CTAs.
Message Extensions:
drive text message conversations with customers directly from your ad.
Sitelink Extensions:
encourage people to visit specific landing pages on your website related to your original offer:
These are the most popular ad extensions that Google Ads currently offers.
Make use of these for your next campaign to make your ads more detailed and improve your click-through rates.
How To Schedule Ads in Google Ads
When writing your Google Ads ads, you might be thinking: how can I showcase them only during business hours?
If you are using phone numbers and addresses to drive local visits or phone calls, you only want to run ads during prime hours.
If you don’t, you will be paying for phone calls that simply go unanswered.
To schedule ads, head to the “Ad schedule” section of your dashboard:'
Here you can edit the day and specific hour that you want your ads to run. Customize a schedule that matches your business hours to ensure that your money isn’t wasted:
How To Create Mobile-Specific Ads
With mobile traffic surpassing desktop traffic, now is the time to put more stock into mobile ads.
Thankfully, Ads has great mobile-specific ad types to take advantage of:
Search network mobile-only ads
Display network mobile-only ads
Mobile app ads
Call-only ads
Each of these ad types will help you capture more mobile traffic.
When creating a new ad, you can create mobile-specific variants by restricting your targeting and selecting phone calls or app downloads from the campaign goal section:
Conclusion
Google Ads is no joke when it comes to driving easy, fast, and cheap sales.
You can quickly make a killing on Google Ads, but you can also quickly lose money.
The platform is very complex and challenging to navigate, especially if you’ve got no history using PPC platforms.
Follow this Google Ads 101 guide, and you’ll be on your way to driving tons of new sales fast.
Now, what are you waiting for?
Article From:
https://adespresso.com/
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