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THE MARKETING CORNER
Google Ads: What is it and How to Use it?
Ilaria Paolomelo
eos Mktg&Communication Srl info@eosmarketing.it
Google Ads is Google’s advertising platform designed to help brands promote their products and services on the SERP and other services offered by Google by reaching a specific target of users.
Google Ads (formerly known as Google AdWords) is the advertising platform developed by Google to manage advertisements within the most used search engine in the world, its services, including Gmail and YouTube, or on partner sites. Launched on the market in 2000, Google Ads offers a wide variety of formats and types of advertisement, giving companies the opportunity to promote their services and products in the best possible way to a specific target of users. Through Google Ads, companies can create relevant ads by offering users what they are looking for at a given time or based on the interests or recent searches carried out by them. As the example shows, when a user searches for a keyword (in this case an iPhone), they will see a series of relevant ads before the organic results. In its first twenty years, Google Ads has made great strides, becoming the main source of revenue for Google as well as the world’s leading platform with the largest number of advertisers. In fact, any business, regardless of its size or budget, has the opportunity to take advantage of this platform1 .
How the Google Ads auction works
When we create an advertising campaign, it is up to Google Ads to determine when and according to which ranking to show our ad. The
1 https://www.statista.com/statistics/266249/advertising-revenue-of-google/
Example of a search by a user. Google’s ad revenue from 2001 to 2020.
platform is based, in fact, on an automatic system similar to a real auction: whenever a user searches on Google or visits a website where ads are shown, Google Ads decides which ads should be shown to that user and their placement. The three factors on which the auction is based are: • Budget: when we set up an ad, Google Ads asks us to select the maximum amount we are willing to spend per campaign. • Quality: Google Ads takes into account the relevance and usefulness of our ad and the website it links to. The quality rating of our campaign can be monitored in the “quality score” section of the platform. • The expected impact of ad extensions: when we create an ad, we have the ability to add extensions, i.e., additional information, such as phone number, or other links to specific pages on our site. Google Ads evaluates the impact that the extensions inserted will have on users, deciding where to show our campaign. Therefore, it is essential to create an effective and relevant ad, capable of capturing the attention of our target.
Creating an advertising campaign with Google Ads is a very easy and intuitive process, as the platform allows us to design an ad following a guided path. This includes choosing the goal we want to achieve, the type of campaign to carry out, the most appropriate format for the message we want to convey, the keywords for which we want our ads to appear, as well as the most appropriate budget for individual needs. Let’s see step by step how to create an advertising campaign.
Select the goal
The first step to creating an ad on Google Ads is to identify our goal. This way the platform will personalize the ads to help us achieve the desired results. The selectable objectives are: • Receive calls, for example to book appointments or obtain further information; • Increase shop visits; • Call to action on the website (subscription to the newsletter, e-commerce, fill out a form, etc…); • Increase sales; • Increase leads; • Increase the traffic on the website; • Increase brand awareness.
Choose the ad coverage
In order for our campaign to be successful, it is advisable to select the right target of users, who may be interested in our products and services. Google Ads offers companies to choose the place in which to show our ad: we can set the distance radius from our store if we want, for example, to attract a greater number of potential customers, or a wider geographical area, or select entire countries.
Example of personalized ad according to the selected goal.
Keyword match types.
Example of a search with sponsored and organic results. Choose the right keywords
This is one of the basic steps in creating an effective ad. Often, the success or failure of a campaign depends on the keywords we have chosen and their relevance to our business and the selected target. To create a successful campaign, the keywords must match the terms that potential customers might use when searching for the products or services offered. Identifying with the customer is the main step to take to understand the terms and phrases that our customers could type in the search bar. If our company sells women’s sports shoes, we will need to identify all the expressions that users might be looking for. We will then choose generic categories such as “women’s shoes” and “women’s sports shoes” and then move on to more specific word strings. An example, along the lines of the previous one, could be “casual shoes for women”, reaching a more targeted audience. It is a good rule to find the right balance between the two types of categories: choosing very generic keywords could make it difficult to intercept our potential customers, as the ad could be shown in searches not related to our business. Furthermore, the more general keywords are often the most competitive and therefore have a higher cost. At the same time, using only extremely specific and niche keywords could be counterproductive, as the user does not always start with such a specific search intent or type in the exact keywords we have chosen for our ad. Google also offers several match options, determining how well the keyword must match the user’s search query in order for the ad to be considered for auction. Broad match is when ads are shown for searches that are related to our keywords, but which may not include those terms. This type is set by default and is designed to show the ad to a larger number of people with the aim of increasing the traffic on the landing page as much as possible.
Using phrase match, the ad will be displayed when searches include the meaning of the keyword. With this type of match we can achieve fewer searches than with broad match. However, these will be more relevant to what we offer. With exact match, ads that have the identical meaning to one of our keywords will be shown. Exact match gives us the most control over who sees our ad, but reaches fewer users than previous matches. Google also offers the ability to spot negative keywords match. When we choose to use this type of keyword, we tell Google to exclude the terms or phrases that we do not want to associate with our ads. Returning to the previous example, if we sell women’s sports shoes, we may not be interested in showing our ad to those looking for “men’s sports shoes”. Finally, we further complete our keyword list by entering the names of our brands and products. A common practice among companies, but often frowned upon, is also to insert the name of the brand or the products of the competitors.
Choose the right advertising format
Google Ads allows us to create effective advertising texts and eye-catching images, supporting us in creating the best possible advertisement based on our advertising and marketing goals. Here are the main types of Google Ads campaigns:
Search campaigns These are only-text advertising campaigns, which appear at the top of the SERP (Search Engine Result Page). To differentiate sponsored content from organic results, the former features the “ad” label. Therefore, when a user searches on Google, if there are active advertising campaigns with keywords related to what the user is looking for, the sponsored results will be shown first, followed by the organic ones. This type of text ad consists of a maximum of 3 lines and a clearly visible URL that shows the domain of our site. In the short teaser it is advisable to insert the most relevant keywords in order to increase the quality and ranking of our ad. It is also possible to insert a call to action to invite the user to perform a certain action.
Display campaigns Display ads are another type of advertising campaign that is very popular among advertisers as they reach 90% of Internet users worldwide2. This type of ad is displayed on affiliate portals through the Google AdSense program and its services (for example, Gmail and YouTube).
2 https://ads.google.com/home/campaigns/display-ads/
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