Have you ever wondered exactly what Google Ads is and how this feature can benefit you and your business goals? Using Google Ads (which was formerly known as Google Adwords) can be the best, forward-thinking and luxurious decision you make for your business. Yes, that's not an exaggeration!
People all over the world use Google to search for all kinds of information over 3.5 billion times a day. Every search offers you opportunities to introduce your brand or business to more consumers and make them more recognizable and popular. In turn, this opens up many more and often lucrative opportunities for your business. It's great that we can take advantage of the features of the digital environment, but to explore its full potential, we first need to understand what Google Ads is.
This is where Google Ads comes in. Google Ads allows you to advertise and promote your products and services when users use the search engine with relevant keywords. When used in the right way, this opportunity provided by Google has the potential to drive potential customers to make purchases and significantly increase sales.
In this article from digital agency Grow Easy, let's take a look at what Google Ads is, how it works and how it can support the success of your business.
What is Google Ads?
The answer to the question of what is Google Ads is both short and long, but don't worry, we are here to explain everything to you in accessible and understandable language.
Google Ads is a paid online advertising platform offered by Google. Originally called Google Adwords, the search engine company rebranded the service to Google Ads in 2018. The way it works has remained essentially the same despite the name change. When users search for a keyword, they get the results of their query on a search engine results page (SERP). These results may include paid advertising targeting that keyword.
Take, for example, the results for the keyword "restaurants in Sofia". When you type that keyword into a search engine, many pages of results will come up that match your search. You can see that all the ads are at the top of the SERP. They also look almost identical to the organic search results, except additionally marked with the word "Ad" at the top of the post.
This is good for the advertiser, as the top results on Google typically receive the majority of search query traffic. However, purchasing a Google ad does not necessarily guarantee placement among the top spots on the results page. After all, you will likely have many other marketers competing for the same keyword through Google Ads.
To understand how these rankings are compiled and what determines the position of your ad, let's take a look at not only what Google Ads is, but also how exactly it works.
How does Google Ads work?
We can't answer the question of what Google Ads is without explaining exactly how the platform works.
Google Ads works on a pay-per-click (PPC) model. This means that marketers target a specific keyword on Google that best describes their business, the goods and services they offer, and bid on the keyword. In this way, marketers compete with each other when they are in the same line of business and target the same keyword.
The bids you make are "max bids" or the maximum you are willing to pay for advertising. Each bid is listed in US dollars.
For example, if your maximum bid is $4 and Google determines that your cost per click is $2, then you will get that ad placement! If Google determines that the cost per click is more than $4, you do not get the ad placement.
Alternatively, you can set a maximum daily budget for your ad. You will never spend more than a certain amount on this ad per day. This will help you get a better idea of how much you should budget and allocate for your digital ad campaign.
What is Google Ads - types of offers
Business owners who wish to advertise with Google Ads have three options when choosing their bids:
- Cost Per Click (CPC) - How much you pay when a user clicks on your ad.
- Cost per thousand (CPM) - How much you pay per 1,000 ad impressions.
- Cost Per Engagement (CPE) - How much you pay when a user takes a specific action through your ad (signs up to a list, watches a video, etc.).
Google then takes the bid amount and ties it to a score for your ad called a Quality Score. According to Google:
"Quality Score is an assessment of the quality of your ads, the keywords used and landing pages. Higher quality ads can lead to lower prices and better ad positions."
The score is between 1 and 10, with 10 being the highest score. The higher your score, the better you'll rank and the less you have to spend to convert.
Your quality score, combined with your bid amount, creates your ad rank - the position your ad will appear in the search results page. When a user sees the ad and clicks on it, the advertiser pays a small fee for that click (if pay-per-click is selected).
The idea is that the more users click on an advertiser's ad, the more likely they are to achieve the goals of the ad (e.g., visit the business's website, make a purchase).
Now that you know how Google ads work, let's take a look at the different types of Google ads you can use for your campaign.
What is Google Ads - ad types
Google offers a variety of different campaign types that you can use:
- Search Campaign
- Display campaign
- Shopping campaign
- Video campaign
- App campaign
What is Google Ads - how each type of advertising works
Search Campaign
Ads from a web search campaign appear as a text ad on the results page for the keyword. These are the ads you're probably most familiar with. They appear on the search results page with a black "Ad" symbol next to the URL. Text ads aren't the only type of ads on the search web. You can also make your ads appear in Google Shopping.
Shopping Campaign
Campaign Shopping allows you to advertise your products in a much more visual way. These ads can be displayed as images on the search results page, or they can be displayed in Google Shopping. If you offer a physical product, Google Shopping ads can attract targeted leads by presenting your product directly to customers.
Display campaign
Display takes advantage of Google's large network of partners to display your ad on various websites. There are many different ways that these ads appear. Your ad can appear on partner websites, such as video ads before YouTube videos. Google also allows you to advertise your ad on its Gmail email platform. You can make your ad appear in third-party apps on Google's app network.
Some benefits of using the display network are its reach. Google partners with more than two million websites and reaches more than 90% of all internet users. This ensures that your ad will appear in front of as many users as possible.
Video campaign
These are ads that appear before YouTube videos. Video campaign ads come in different forms. There are skippable video ads, non-skippable ads, discoverable ads that you can find on the search results page for specific keywords, various overlays and banners.
App Campaign
You don't have to design every single ad for an app. Instead, Google will take your text and images and deliver the ad for you. The algorithm tests different combinations and more often than not uses the one that performs the best.