Google Ads? I Thought It Was AdWords?

The official rebranding happened on July 24th, 2018 and Google AdWords became Google Ads.

To be honest, nothing much has changed in terms of the core functionality. To some digital advertisers familiar with the ad platform, it may just seem like a name and logo change.

google adwords tO google ads

Some things to note however, I do see Google aggressively promoting their smart campaign features, and we as advertisers or brands, have to adapt to it and also accept that we do not and will not have 100% control of every aspect of the campaign all the time. Not always a bad thing though.

Terminology

The new Google Ads brand represents the full range of campaign types available today, including Search, Display and Video, App and more. 

It is important at this point to note that many people use the terms PPC, Google Ads, AdWords, and SEM synonymously. The industry use of these expressions have also changed to accommodate the consensus of the majority. That is also why people commonly associate Google Ads with only search ads, however that is not always the case.

Google Ads actually refers to the entire online advertising platform developed by Google, to display adverts of products and services through the different channels within Google’s Ad Network. It encompasses different channels of advertising (including YouTube) that venture beyond search pay-per-click ads.

Because of this ability to reach your customers through a multi-channel approach, the Google Ads platform, in my opinion, has stood the test of time (vs other early search engines) and evolved to become one of the essentials for digital marketing professionals and consultants marketing online.

Without deep diving into the history of Google Ads now (maybe next time), let’s go straight into how advertising via Google Ads can benefit your business.

Data Is Key, Use It To Your Advantage

Data is the new oil in the era of the digital economy and Google has data of its users.

Lots of it.

How do they acquire the data? In a nutshell,

• Google collects the data by making their products and services free for everyone.
• Examples of such products are the Google search engine, Google Maps, Google Play Store and many more.
• When people use these products, previous information of their searches on Google, the device location, websites they have visited and apps that they’ve used are collected and stored.
• This also extends to videos and ads that people have seen, and basic information regarding their age range and gender.

Google then uses this data to serve relevant and useful ads on their own ad platforms, including Google Ads. (That is why some of the ads you see are so relevant and personalised, it may be creepy at times)

All of us exist in audience segments in the advertising platform, thus making it easier for advertisers to target people based on their demographics, interests and search intent. More on the application of this down below.

Build Campaigns Based On Industry Vertical

Depending on the business and industry vertical you are in, you may want to set up certain campaign types that are more likely suitable than others.

Unknown to many, paid search advertising (or PPC) as some people call it, is actually more than 2 decades old, and is the linchpin to Google’s accumulation of $134 billion U.S. dollars revenue in 2019.

Most service based and direct response businesses consider paid search to be their top priority for capturing customers with purchase intent.

You might have seen or even clicked on one of these ads before.

These ads do not appear by coincidence, they appear based on the keyword queries you type into Google, your device location, device type, previous browsing history and other factors.

For new websites or startups that do not have a long term SEO strategy in place, Google search campaigns can be a quick solution to appearing in front of potential customers, and thus is one of the more popular (or effective) types of campaigns small businesses run.

Below are examples of other types of ads you can run on Google’s ad network.

A popular option to drive awareness if through the Google Display Network, Google’s hub of more than 2 million websites, videos and apps.

Ads that run on the Google Display Network are applicable to almost all types of businesses including brick and mortar stores looking to increase awareness, footfall or offline redemptions.

Gmails ads are not everyone’s favourite, but could convert well for certain businesses in the IT or web solutions sector for example.

Have a video you would like to promote? YouTube ads may be the way to go. The second largest search engine in the world has over 2 billion logged in users each month on its platform, with over a billion hours of watch time a day. Impressive numbers and these are definitely engaged consumers of video content you can target.

Ecommerce is booming and Google knows it. Introducing Google Shopping Ads (formerly known as product listing ads). Set up a Google Merchant Center account and get your products in front of customers with high purchase intent.

Google is also launching image extension beta where an image shows along side responsive search ads and expanded text ads, an exciting feature for retailers in particular I feel.

Define Success With Campaign Goals

With Google Ads, you build and run campaigns to target prospects with your ads. As mentioned earlier, there are different types of campaigns you can set up based on your campaign goal.

Your campaign goal is actually one of the most important things to get right first because it helps to define what a successful campaign is to the business.

Examples of goals include:

• Sales
• Leads
• Website Traffic
• Product & Brand Consideration
• Brand Awareness & Reach
• App Promotion
• Sales

With the goal in mind, you can then decide how and where to advertise.

Below are some examples of the goals and channels small businesses can use on Google Ads.

Example 1: 

You have an ecommerce store selling bespoke jewellery and you want to increase sales of a new line of products.

→ You could use sales and revenue as a key performance indicator and promote your products with Google Shopping Ads.

Example 2:

If you run a music school and you want to get more students to sign up for your advanced piano classes.

→ You could use leads and signups as your key performance indicator and run Google Search campaigns to reach users interested in the service you are providing.

Example 3:

You own a real estate business where you promote new property launches online, and you want to get more awareness of your website for interested buyers.

→ You may decide to use the Google Display Network to seek out relevant placements which you think your prospects may visit regularly, insert your creatives on those websites and monitor your impressions and CPM to evaluate brand awareness.

Example 4: 

You have a personal training and fitness business, and one of your clients has had a very successful body transformation through your coaching. You may want to feature him as your testimonial video.

→ Well, after getting in touch with a video production company or a freelance videographer to produce a high quality video, you could use YouTube to show your ad to people who are looking to join gyms or fitness classes using data from what they had been actively researching or browsing. You can then use metrics like views, view rate, watch time etc to compare the type of content your viewers like to see.

Stay Local Or Go Global

You do not have to advertise to everyone. Unlike traditional OOH advertising (out of home advertising) that focuses on billboards and street furniture that aim to reach as many people as possible, it is best practice for small businesses with limited budgets to target only people whom you know might be interested in your services.

If your services are limited by geographical distance, the good news is that you can even show your ads only to people in your vicinity or city, aka geotargeting / location targeting. Combine this with well planned local SEO strategies and you will be receiving plenty of enquiries for your services in time to come.

Set Your Budget & Track Monthly Advertising Costs

Google Search ads run on the PPC model, where you only pay each time the ad is clicked.

These campaigns run on a daily budget. Have a monthly budget in mind? Divide that by the number of days in a month or by 365/12 = 30.4 days to get the daily spend target you are looking for.

Take note that if you run search ads or SEM campaigns, your advertising costs may exceed your average daily budget by up to 2 times, depending on your bidding strategy and the daily fluctuations in search traffic volume. Proper PPC budget management is therefore, central, in governing the volatility of search based advertising traffic.

Not sure what your budget should be? There are also a few ways of determining your budget, more on that next time.

Useful tip: Google rewards advertisers who create highly relevant ads that have a high click through rate and better landing page experience by charging them a lower cost per click.

If you advertise via Display or YouTube, you may opt for other cost models, but the key benefit is your advertising costs can be tracked and monitored on the platform every month. If you want to be granular with the spend of each campaign and keyword, go to the reports sections to download the relevant report in CSV or Google Sheets and you will be able to see the breakdown even more clearly.

Finalise & Go Live As Soon As Possible

If you are trying to go with display ads, you don’t have to wait for weeks to get the final design, to wait for the printing vendor to respond, to wait for the date of collection, and to subsequently distribute and set up the billboards before the campaign is officially launched.

Conversely, with digital advertising, once your display campaign set up is ready and the creatives or ad copy is finalised, most campaigns can start serving impressions in a couple of hours, at most a few days unless there are issues with disapproved ads.

Measurable Returns And Flexible Strategies

One of the main advantages that online marketing has over traditional marketing channels, like TV or print, is that it’s much easier to measure certain performance metrics besides advertising spend.

You can view how many times your ad was shown, clicked on, converted on, and you will soon start to get a sense of what is working and what is not.  Adjust daily budgets, targeting and messaging along the way to optimize performance and scale what works best for your business.

Note: When reviewing conversions and results, It is also important to understand the different types of attribution models and the limitations of attribution under Google ads as you work within the Google Ad stack and ecosystem.

Google Ads Provide Results…But Of Course With Exceptions

Effective advertising can help any business, but the extent of the returns depends on various factors. Is it B2B, B2C? Does the business model work on lead generation, ecommerce, or is it an offline retail store etc? Some people think that Facebook Ads Vs Google Ads are more effective for their company.

It remains a hypothesis that only through experimentation and extensive testing with significant data, can we determine whether to accept or reject this assumption.

If you are not sure, let the insights guide you into making data-driven decisions.

Ultimately, there might be some things Google ads can do very well and some they cannot do.

For one, if you are trying to rank for certain keywords, Google Ads search campaigns can definitely bring in results faster than SEO, but it cannot and should not replace SEO as a long term search marketing strategy. In fact, the efforts of both should be synergised to achieve maximum online real estate in the search engine results page.

Proper PPC Management of the campaigns is also crucial, efficient use of the budget, targeting the right keywords and testing and optimizing for the right metrics are just some of the tasks that have to be handled very carefully. That is why many business owners find experienced Google Ads agencies or PPC and SEM freelancers to manage their advertising campaigns.

Not sure where to start?

Google Ads management can be complex for small business owners and busy entrepreneurs, if you would like to learn more about how Google Ads can be tailored for your business or startup, feel free to drop us a message or contact us to schedule a complimentary consultation call.