Google Ads – The most important in a nutshell |
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Google offers you, as a business, the opportunity to advertise your own website. With the help of Google Ads, your website can be placed in the search results and in the Google advertising network. You can find out all the relevant information about Google Ads, which advertising options are available and much more in this blog post.
Google Ads is an online tool that can be used to place advertisements in Google search and in Google’s advertising network. It is therefore search engine advertising (SEA). Strictly speaking, search engine advertising also includes other search engines such as Bing or Yahoo. However, since Google is the most used search engine with a market share of almost 90%, SEA is often directly associated with Google Ads.
With Google Ads, you as a company have the opportunity to address potential customers who are searching for companies or certain services on the Internet or on Google. You reach customers at exactly the right moment. This is because, in contrast to classic advertising, a need does not first have to be created in the customer, as there is already interest or possibly even an intention to buy, and all that remains is to search for the right provider. The advantage for you is that you can win new customers relatively easily with the help of a professional presentation in the search ad.
When using Google Ads, you only incur costs when a user clicks on your ad. The advertising potential with Google Ads is enormous, since the tool is additionally integrated on the YouTube video platform and thus achieves even more reach. Therefore, you should definitely think about using Google Ads if you want to successfully advertise with your company. Especially small and medium-sized companies benefit from the many advantages of placing Google Ads.
Google Advertising or Google Ads offers website owners and businesses various advantages. In contrast to search engine optimization, which requires long-term investments and a lot of time, you can have your website with all products and services immediately placed on the top ranks in Google search results. Accordingly, this form of advertising allows you to generate a great deal of attention and achieve direct results through website clicks.
Google offers various advertising options that can be used by companies to achieve the desired goals.
This is the search results page on Google. When a user enters a search term in the search bar, ten results appear on the first page. Above these results are the paid ads, which are marked accordingly. In addition, there are further paid advertisements below the search hits.
Advertising in Google Search
A maximum of seven of these text-only ads are displayed on the first search results page. Google advertising increases the chance of attracting potential customers, as billions of search queries are launched via Google every day, which means that quite a few users can become aware of your ad.
With Google’s Display Network, various campaign types can be played out. These include text ads, image ads (banners), combinations of text and image ads and video ads (GIFs possible). The responsive ad is played out to the user on Google partner websites. Additionally, it can be displayed in apps, on YouTube or in the Gmail section. Compared to text ads in search results, banner ads often turn out to be a cheaper option.
Google Ads in the Display Network
The use of banner ads generates an enormous reach and increases product/brand awareness, which can lead to the generation of leads and an increase in sales. Due to Google’s diverse design options, ads can be personalized and delivered in specific contexts. In this way, specific target groups can be reached even better.
In addition, display marketing offers the possibility of retargeting. Users who have already visited your website or viewed your product are targeted again with individual ads and referred to you.
Google Ads also offers the option of video ads. In various video formats, companies can advertise their products and services. With this type of ads, potential customers can be reached, for example, on YouTube, the second largest search engine in the world, as well as on websites of video partners and in apps in the Google display network.
Possible YouTube video ads include skippable and non-skippable in-stream ads, in-feed video ads, bumper ads, out-stream ads, and masthead ads. Depending on the advertising goal, one or another ad format is more suitable.
In general, YouTube ads make sense, for example, if you want to promote online streaming events. But also if you are looking for new employees in the form of a recruiting video, or want to introduce a new product, this ad format is recommended. The costs for ads on YouTube are comparatively low and videos offer the additional advantage of staying in the memory longer than an image or a text ad.
With Google Ads, businesses can also be placed above local hits on Google Maps. This means that when a local search is made for businesses in your industry, you will appear at the top of the normal search results. For you as a company, this has the advantage of generating new inquiries and increasing both the number of website visits and further contacts. The prerequisite for being able to place such an ad is a Google Ads account as well as a business directory entry on Google My Business.
When using Google Shopping Ads, users see your product images in Google Search, matching the search query. As with Google Search, there are different placement options for Shopping Ads. The ads appear above or to the right of the organic search results. One advantage compared to the text-only ad is the pictorial representation of your product, which helps to draw attention to your business and stand out from the competition.
Another difference from the normal search network ads is the lack of ad text. The ad’s information is based on a product data feed, from which Google pulls the necessary data (product title, description, price, etc.). No keywords are booked, which makes it all the more important to provide a well-maintained data feed. For users, this ad form is interesting not only because of the preview image, but because of the transparency provided by direct price and provider information.
Especially for e-commerce merchants, Google Shopping Ads are an excellent way to advertise their products. In addition, they have the opportunity to run campaigns seasonally and adapt them to specific target groups.
Google Ads can be used to run various campaigns that can be used to achieve different advertising goals. Depending on the goal of the campaign, certain KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) should therefore be looked at more closely:
The different campaigns can be selected depending on the advertising goal. Each type of campaign brings different advantages.
To run a successful campaign with Google Ads, it is important for you as a business to know your relevant target audience and tailor your campaign to that audience. Google Ads offers two options for this. On the one hand, very comprehensive target group targeting is possible. For this, Google uses signals from Google Search as well as from YouTube, Google Maps or certain app downloads to assign people to the various target groups. Google offers the following options in the area of target group targeting:
Google Ads also gives you, as a business, the ability to retarget customers based on data collected on the website. We are talking about retargeting or remarketing here. This means that customers who have seen your product or service will be referred to you again, this time in a more targeted way, with the help of retargeting. The cost of retargeting is relatively low and therefore such a retargeting campaign is usually very profitable, especially since people from retargeting target groups are more likely to complete a purchase.
The Google Ads Manager is a tool that allows you to manage your ads in an optimal way. In addition, the manager helps you increase your sales, protect your brand and reach the right target audience. If you want to exploit the full potential in the area of Google Ads, the Google Ads Manager is the best choice. The tool can be used regardless of industry and offers especially growing companies excellent opportunities to achieve success.
The cost of running ads with Google Ads depends on many factors. Just creating and using a Google Ads account is free. Costs only arise when an ad is placed. These vary depending on the advertising budget chosen, the clicks achieved and the click prices set for them. In the case of display or video ads, for example, costs are also incurred for impressions or views. However, the fact that a company can set a daily or monthly budget with Google Ads means that the costs incurred can be easily controlled.
As already mentioned, Google Ads allows you to set an individual budget for advertisements. An ad can be placed with a runtime budget or a continuous daily budget. With the runtime budget, the set budget is distributed over the entire period of the campaign and is not exceeded. With a daily budget, the maximum amount of money that can be spent per day is specified. This variant is very suitable for the placement of branding campaigns or own keywords, such as the company name. However, it should be noted that if there are fewer search queries and clicks on the keyword, it is quite possible that the amount spent per day or in the entire term is less than specified.
When planning the budget, it can be helpful to look at the prices for keywords in advance. These can be found out with various tools. A well-known tool is, for example, the Google Keyword Planner. However, there are also many other free and paid tools that show the average CPC.
The costs of a campaign can easily be paid by bank card or credit card. The invoices as well as all transactions made can be found directly on the Google Ads platform under the “Billing and Payments” section. In the case of automatic payments, Google will bill you either 30 days after the last billing, or when the set billing threshold amount is reached.
Placing ads on Google is simple and achieves quick success. Google Ads help businesses attract potential customers and achieve an increase in sales. As a business, you have great opportunities to increase your reach, as ads appear not only in Google search results, but also on websites, in apps, and on YouTube. Thanks to custom budgeting, you enjoy full cost control and can make adjustments to your ads at any time. Due to the many advantages of Google Ads, especially for small and medium-sized businesses, it is definitely worth considering using it.