Paid Search (PPC)

Appearing on the top of a SERP (Search Engine Result Page) is very important to attract lower funnel customer and drive quality traffic to your site.

Search engine marketing is a subset of digital marketing that targets users through search engines.

The technique of utilizing search engines to sell your products or services is known as search engine marketing (SEM).

The Search Engine Results Page (SERP) is the page that a search engine returns after a user submits a search query.
A website can appear on the SERP in 2 ways

• For Free (Organic Results): optimising your website to be ranked high by the search engine (SEO);
• By Paying (Paid Results): showing advertisements (Paid Search/PPC).

Both SEO and PPC are part of Search Engine Marketing (SEM). In other words, they are 2 ways to improve your presence on a search engine. As mentioned, Brands can pay to rank higher on the SERP each time a user clicks on their ads. Unlike other digital marketing channels such as Social or Video, Search Engines have users with higher intent to buy. Indeed while people watch Youtube for entertainment, they use search engines to find solutions to their problems. Consequently, many businesses allocate a significant % of their digital marketing expenses to SEM due to its lower funnel position.

PPC vs SEO

The other side of SEO is pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, sometimes known as

• Paid search advertising (PSA)
• Paid search
• Search engine advertising (SEA).

They all mean the same: pay each time someone clicks on your ad to rank higher on a specific search engine.

Differently from SEO, PPC advertising may help you reach your target audience more quickly, but paying each time someone clicks on your ad.

Google Ads is the most popular PPC network since it is the biggest search engine in the world. Consequently, it lets you display advertisements in Google Search Results, on Google properties (including YouTube and Gmail), and on websites that use Google AdSense.

The main difference between SEO and PPC is that

• SEO focuses on organic results
• PPC focuses on paid results.

These advertisements are particularly important since they often come before the organic (unpaid) results. Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is a popular kind of search engine marketing (SEM). To have adverts shown for specific keywords, companies in this model compete with one another by bidding on those terms. In exchange for a visitor’s click, Google Ads receives payment from the company. This is why the model is called Pay Per Click (PPC). When executed properly, PPC campaigns may be an excellent means of expanding a business’s customers and raising awareness in the market.

SEM = PPC + SEO

Since the biggest search engine is Google, we will use Google to refer to Paid Search however the same things are valid for Bing or other search engines.

Knowing how a search engine thinks and works helps you better understand PPC. Indeed a PPC strategy follows the same basic framework as an SEO initiative.

One key concept is ad auctions that provide the basis for this kind of marketing. Different businesses “bid” how much they are ready to pay for someone to click on their advertisement. After an ad is clicked, they pay for it.

Every time a user does a keyword search, an instantaneous auction is held for the placement of relevant ads. Google uses numerous criteria, including your maximum bid and your ad’s quality score, to select the winner of the ad auction.

Google Ads Process

To begin, you must determine which search terms your intended audience uses most often so you can target these keywords.

To start, you need to create a Google Ads account structure.

It’s important to have a full understanding of each component of account structure before even dreaming of getting started, so let’s quickly review the basics.

• Campaigns: These are your ad account’s top-level groupings. Every campaign has a goal, a bid strategy, a budget, and targeting options.
• Ad groups: There are ad groups inside campaigns. They enable you to categorize your campaigns according to various topics. For instance, you may create distinct ad groups for various product categories.
  Ad groups contain keywords (no more then 10-20 is recommended), these keywords will trigger your text ads (2-3 per ad group), and then direct to a relevant landing page.
• Keywords: Keywords will fall under each ad group, and are very important to controlling the way your ad is triggered. When someone types in the search box in Google, that search is called a “search query,” which is then matched with a keyword, which then triggers an ad. Each keyword will have a Max CPC, match type, and quality score tied to it. It’s critical to conduct thorough keyword research, gain a concrete understanding of match types, and spend time refining and optimizing your keyword strategy over time.
• Ads: This is the actual text that will appear when your ad is triggered. Each ad group should have 2-3 ads per ads per group directing to the same landing page. It’s important to follow Google Ads guidelines in order to get your ads approved, A/B test your ads over time, and really highlight the benefits of your offering to one-up your competition in the search results.
• Landing page: the destination where each ad will direct the searcher to (likely a page on your site with an offering or call-to-action).

Account Structure: Elements

It is typical practice to work from the top down while developing a campaign. I suggest starting with your campaign’s end goal and keyword research – knowing your keywords will help you better forecast the budget and plan the structure.

After keyword research, you can establish a budget limit and bidding strategies.

The next steps are to divide your campaigns into groups based on keywords and build the actual ads.

When your ads are live, you can use the Google Ads platform to monitor performance and optimise. You may gain additional in-depth information about the success of your advertising by linking your Google Ads and Google Analytics accounts.

Indeed, it is not just about driving traffic to your website but understanding what user’s do once there. This is why merging Google Analytics data can help you better understand the full customer journey.

It’s not hard to become a PPC specialist; enroll in one of the many available online courses and finish within a few months.

Obtaining a certificate does not automatically make one a competent digital marketing specialist. The best way to learn about PPC campaign management is to do it.

As a digital marketer, you are responsible for maximising your customers’ returns by integrating Pay-Per-Click (PPC) results with those from other channels (such as SEO, Video Ads or Social Media Marketing).

PPC Specialist Skills

You can advertise your company via Google and its partner sites through Google Ads, an online advertising network provided by Google. Whether searching for something or visiting one of your favourite websites, you have seen these advertisements. Because of Google’s enormous database and wide range of targeting choices, it’s simple to get your advertisements seen by the people you want. Google is the most popular search engine in the world, so if you want to promote your product/service online, this is one of the main channels you need to consider when planning your strategy.

Google provides a range of ad formats that may display in various locations:

• Search
• Display
• Shopping
• Video

Google Search Ads

For searches conducted via Google.com, search adverts are shown on the results page (SERP). They may also be seen on Google Shopping, Google Maps, and other websites affiliated with Google that shows text advertisements.

Google Display Ads

Gmail, YouTube, and other Google partner websites may display advertisements.

Google Shopping Ads

Google Shopping, a comparative shopping engine, and its search results include shopping adverts. They might potentially appear on Google’s affiliate websites.

Google Video Ads

Video advertising displays mainly on Youtube but also on Google’s affiliate websites and apps.

First, let’s go through the basics of how Google Ads work for advertisers (back-end) and users (front-end):

• Advertisers build advertising that targets a specific audience or topic. One way to target these users is to intercept their search behaviour. Since advertisements often appear in response to Google searches, this usually requires selecting the keyword corresponding to the searched term that you like your advertising to show.

Google shows these advertisements to interested people.

• When a user clicks on an advertisement, they are sent to the advertiser’s landing page.

If everything goes as planned, some of these visits will result in purchases. The ultimate intention is for these deals to generate more money than they cost to advertise. In other words the goal is to generate a positive ROAS (Return On Ad Spend).

Let’s take a more in-depth look at how all of this works. The following are the most important elements of Google Ads.

1. Auction System
2. Bidding Strategies
3. Account Structure
4. Campaign types
5. Ads
6. Keyword Types
7. Ad Extensions

Google Ads uses a pay-per-click (PPC) model – where the advertiser pays a fee each time one of their ads is clicked. Essentially, you’re paying for targeted visitors to your website (or landing page or app).

When PPC is working correctly, the cost is low because the click is worth more than what you pay for it. For example, if you pay $3 for a click, but the click results in a $300 sale, then you’ve made a good profit.

Google Ads Auction

When advertisers create an ad, they choose a set of keywords to target with that ad and place a bid on each keyword. So if you bid on the keyword “pet adoption,” you are telling Google you want your ad to appear for searches that match or are related to pet adoption.

Every time a user enters a query into Google’s search engine, an auction is held to determine the order in which all adverts (eligible for the given search) will appear. The top outcomes are then presented in sequence.

Google uses a metric called AdRank to determine the order in which ads appear.

Ad Rank Formula

Several factors might affect your AdRank, such as:

• Quality Score: a measure used to assess the effectiveness of your advertisements.
• Ad extensions: These extensions give your advertising new features. Google evaluates their impact on your ads’ performance.
• Search context: Google will consider the search’s context, including the query’s location, time, device, and other details.
• Bidding: The sum you’re willing to spend to have a user to click your advertisement (more on this later). Higher offers result in better rankings.

Ad Rank

A metric called quality score evaluates how well your adverts and keywords work. The score can be between 1 and 10. Your Quality Score is determined by three factors:

(1) Expected Clickthrough Rate
Google determines the click-through rate for your advertising based on the past success of your target keywords and the positioning of your ad. The click-through rate is the percentage of people that click on your advertising after seeing it. It can be scored as average, above average, or below average. This rating has a direct effect on your Quality Score. The higher the historical CTR, the higher the quality score.

(2) Ad Relevance
How closely your advertising aligns with a searcher’s intent is measured by ad relevance. It is based on the connections between your landing page, ad, and keywords. The higher the relevancy, the higher the quality score.

(3) Landing Page Experience
Visitors arrive at your landing page after clicking one of your advertisements. Google rates how well your website responds to visitors’ search engine queries. They do this using both automated and human assessment tools. The better the landing page, the higher the quality score.

Quality Score Components

Google Ads offers several bid strategies that are tailored to different types of campaigns. Depending on which networks your campaign is targeting, and whether you want to focus on getting clicks, impressions, conversions or views, you can determine which strategy is best for you.

Consider your goals

Each bid strategy is suited for different kinds of campaigns and advertising goals. For the purposes of bidding, you’ll want to consider five basic types of goals, along with your current campaign settings.

• If you want customers to take a direct action on your site, and you’re using conversion tracking, then it may be best to focus on conversions. Smart Bidding lets you do that.
• If you want to generate traffic to your website, focusing on clicks could be ideal for you. Cost-per-click (CPC) bidding may be right for your campaign.
• If you want to increase brand awareness focusing on impressions may be your strategy. You can use cost per thousand viewable impressions (vCPM) bidding to put your message in front of customers.
• If you run video ads and want to increase views or interactions with your ads, you can use cost per view (CPV) or cost per thousand impressions (CPM) bidding.
• If you run video ads and your goal is to increase product or brand consideration, you can use cost per view (CPV).

You have a choice between two configurations for your bids:

Manual Bidding: A bidding method that lets you set your own maximum cost per click (CPC) for your ads. This differs from automated bid strategies, which set bid amounts for you.

Automated Bidding: A bidding method that employs machine learning to optimize for specific objectives (i.e. clicks, conversions, ROAS…)

Manual vs Automated Bidding

Manual bidding is best if:

• You have a limited budget.
• You have a small amount of consumer data (e.g., less than 30 days’ worth).
• You want more control over your campaigns and ads, and to have the ability to make quick changes.
• You have a lot of time for campaign monitoring.

Smart bidding is best if:

• You have large PPC accounts.
• You have a lot of historical data.
• You want to reduce the time you spend on campaign monitoring.
• You have specific goals.
• You lack the expertise for manual bidding.

Automated bidding takes the heavy lifting and guesswork out of setting bids to meet your performance goals. Unlike Manual CPC bidding, there’s no need to update bids for specific ad groups or keywords manually. Google Ads automatically sets bids for your ads based on that ad’s likelihood to result in a click or conversion that helps you achieve a specific goal for your business.

Automated Bidding Strategies

Different types of automated bidding strategies can help you increase clicks, visibility and conversions. Automated bid strategies learn as they go, using information about a bid’s performance to inform future bids.

• Maximise clicks automatically sets your bids to help get as many clicks as possible within your budget.

Maximise clicks is available as either a standard strategy in a single campaign or portfolio bid strategy across multiple campaigns.

Goal: Increase site visits

• Target impression share automatically sets bids with the goal of showing your ad on the absolute top of the page, on the top of the page or anywhere on the page of Google search results.

Target impression share is available on the Search Network only, as either a standard strategy in a single campaign or portfolio bid strategy across multiple campaigns.

Goal: Increase visibility.

• Target CPA (Smart Bidding) automatically sets bids to help get as many conversions as possible at the target cost per action (CPA) that you’ve set. Some conversions may cost more or less than your target.

Target CPA is available as either a standard strategy in a single campaign or portfolio bid strategy across multiple campaigns. If Maximise conversions or Maximise conversion value is available for your campaign type, we recommend that you use that instead of target CPA. When you’re using Maximise conversion value without a target CPA set, we will aim to spend your budget to maximise conversion value for your campaigns. When you’re using Maximise conversion value with a target CPA set, we will help get as much conversion value as possible at the target return on ad spend (ROAS).

Goal: Get more conversions with your target CPA.

• Target ROAS (Smart Bidding) automatically sets bids to help get as much conversion value as possible at the target return on ad spend (ROAS) that you’ve set. Some conversions may have a higher or lower return than your target.

Target ROAS is available as either a standard strategy in a single campaign or portfolio bid strategy across multiple campaigns.
Goal: Meet a target return on ad spend (ROAS) when you value each conversion differently.

• Maximise conversions (Smart Bidding) bidding will help you optimise towards conversions.

You have the option to set a target CPA on your Maximise conversions bidding strategy, which means Smart Bidding will try to get as many conversions as possible at the target cost per action (CPA) that you’ve set. If the target CPA option is not set, then Maximise conversions will aim to spend your budget to get as many conversions as possible. Maximise conversion value bidding will help you optimise towards conversion values. You have the option to set a target ROAS on your Maximise conversion value bidding strategy, which means Smart Bidding will try to get the highest conversion value possible at the target return on ad spend (ROAS) that you set. If the target ROAS option is not set, then Maximise conversion value will aim to spend your budget to drive as much conversion value as possible.

Maximise conversion values emphasises the area that you want to maximise, but limits spending to your specified budget.

Goal: Get more conversions while spending your budget.

• Maximise conversion value (Smart Bidding) automatically sets bids to help you get the most conversion value for your campaign while spending your budget.

Maximise conversion values emphasises the area that you want to maximise, but limits spending to your specified budget. When you’re using Maximise conversion value without a target ROAS set, we will aim to spend your budget to maximise conversion value for your campaigns. When you’re using Maximise conversion value with a target ROAS set, we will help get as much conversion value as possible at the target return on ad spend (ROAS). When you create a Maximise conversion value bid strategy, you can set a target ROAS (return on ad spending).

Goal: Get more conversion value while spending your budget.

Smart Bidding is a set of conversion-based bid strategies, target CPA, target ROAS and Enhanced CPC that use advanced machine learning to help you tailor the right bid to each and every auction. It factors in a wide range of auction-time signals including device, location, time of day, remarketing list, language and operating system to capture the unique context of every search.

A) Focus on conversions with Smart Bidding

If you want to focus on conversions, consider using Smart Bidding to take much of the heavy lifting and guesswork out of setting bids. Smart Bidding is a set of automated bid strategies that uses machine learning to optimise for conversions or conversion value in each and every auction — a feature known as “auction-time bidding”. It also factors in a wide range of auction-time signals such as device, location, time of day, language and operating system to capture the unique context of every search.

Below are the five Smart Bidding strategies that you can use.

• Target cost per action (CPA): If you want to optimise for conversions, you can use Target CPA to help increase conversions while targeting a specific cost per action (CPA). Learn more About Target CPA bidding.
• Target return on ad spend (ROAS): If you want to optimise for conversion value, you can use Target ROAS to help increase conversion value while targeting a specific return on ad spend (ROAS). Learn more About Target ROAS bidding.
• Maximise Conversions: If you want to optimise for conversions, but just want to spend your entire budget instead of targeting a specific CPA, you can use Maximise Conversions. Learn more About Maximise Conversions bidding.
• Maximise Conversion Value: If you want to optimise for conversion value, but just want to spend your entire budget instead of targeting a specific ROAS, you can use Maximise Conversion Value. Learn more About Maximise Conversion Value bidding.
• Enhanced cost per click (ECPC): If you want to automatically adjust your manual bids to try to maximise conversions, you can use ECPC. It’s an optional feature that you can use with Manual CPC bidding. Learn more About ECPC.

B) Focus on clicks with CPC bidding

If you’re focusing on gaining clicks to generate traffic to your website, there are two cost-per-click bid strategies to consider:

• Maximise Clicks: This is an automated bid strategy. It’s the simplest way to bid for clicks. All you have to do is set an average daily budget, and the Google Ads system automatically manages your bids to bring you the most clicks possible within your budget. Learn more About Maximise Clicks bidding.
• Manual CPC bidding: This lets you manage your maximum CPC bids yourself. You can set different bids for each ad group in your campaign, or for individual keywords or placements. If you’ve found that certain keywords or placements are more profitable, you can use manual bidding to allocate more of your advertising budget to those keywords or placements. Learn more About Manual CPC bidding.

C) Focus on visibility

If you want to focus on visibility, you can try one of the following bid strategies to help maximize visibility.

• Target Impression Share: automatically sets bids with the goal of showing your ad on the absolute top of the page, on the top of the page or anywhere on the page of Google search results. Learn more About Target Impression Share.
• CPM: With this bid strategy, you’ll pay based on the number of impressions (times your ads are shown) that you receive on YouTube or the Google Display Network.
• tCPM: A bidding strategy where you set an average for how much you’re willing to pay for every thousand impressions. It optimises bids to maximise your campaign’s unique reach. With tCPM, you can keep your campaign’s average CPM lower or equal to the target that you set (although the cost of impressions may vary).
• vCPM: This is a manual bidding strategy you can use if your ads are designed to increase awareness, but not necessarily generate clicks or traffic. It lets you set the highest amount you want to pay for each 1,000 viewable ad impressions on the Google Display Network. Learn more About vCPM bidding.

D) Focus on views or interactions (for video ads only)

If you run video ads, you can use CPV bidding. With CPV bidding, you’ll pay for video views and other video interactions, such as clicks on the calls-to-action (CTA) overlay, cards and companion banners. You just enter the highest price that you want to pay for a view while setting up your TrueView video campaign. Learn more About CPV bidding.

Google Ads is organised into three layers: campaigns, ad groups and keywords (each keywords can drive to a different landing page).

An account in Google Ads may be easily managed because of its straightforward hierarchical structure.

The order is as follows:

• Campaign
• Ad group
• Keywords
• Landing page

Account Structure: Elements

Your campaigns make up the account’s highest level. A campaign contains all other components of Google Advertisements, including keywords, audiences, landing pages, ads, and Ad Groups.

Every campaign has its settings, such as:

• Budget

How much money you’re willing to spend every day while the campaign is live is set by your budget. Google will try to acquire as many clicks as possible within the allotted budget, but it will not go over.

It’s crucial to remember that the daily budget is, on average, determined over 30 days.

With this data, Google may allocate more funds on days with high search volume and reduce them on days with lower volumes.

For instance, if your daily budget is $10, it’s unlikely that you would get $10 worth of clicks daily. Days with $10, $7.50, and $12.50 are more common than days with other amounts.

• Devices

Adjust your advertising here depending on the kind of device your target audience is using. Devices are mobile, tablets, desktops and smart tv.

You can increase/decrease your presence on specific devices by increasing/decreasing your bids.

Bids for all device types may be modified by -100% to 900%. If you decrease your price by -100% for a specific device, you may prevent the ads from ever being shown on that device.

• Locations

With this option, you can choose precisely where geographically your advertisements will appear. Similarly to devices, you can increase your visibility on certain cities, regions, and nations by increasing your bids or eliminating them.

An ad group contains one or more ads that share similar targets. You set a bid, or price, to be used when an ad group’s keywords trigger an ad to appear.

Group ad groups by similar themes

Many advertisers find it helpful to base their ad groups on the sections or categories that appear on their website. For example, let’s say you sell desserts, beverages, and snacks on your website.

For example, in the table below, each ad group contains a keyword list focusing on a product you’d sell. The keyword list in each ad group tells our system to show ads for these products only on websites related to them.

Words or phrases describing your product or service that you choose to help determine when and where your ad can appear.

• The keywords you choose are used to show your ads to people.
• When someone searches on Google, your ad could be eligible to appear based on the similarity of your keywords to the person’s search terms, as well as your keyword match types.
• A great keyword list can help improve the performance of your ads and help you to avoid higher prices. Poor keywords can ultimately cause you to have higher prices and lower ad position.
• You can add match types to your keywords to help control which searches your ad can be matched with.

There are many different campaign types:

• Search
• Display
• Shopping
• Video
• App

They all change in placement (where the ad is showed), creatives (what the ad is showing), user’s intention and funnel’s phase.

Search Ad Example

Search campaigns are text ads on search results that let you reach people while they’re searching on Google for the products and services that you offer. It’s great for driving sales, leads or traffic to your website, as you can show your ads to people who are actively searching for your products and services. They appear above the organic search results in the top spot. Ads appearing in search results tend to perform exceptionally well since clients see them precisely when searching for the advertised product or service. It works well because the advertisements seem just like the other (organic) results and mix in seamlessly with the natural outcomes. Regarding the messaging both ad titles and descriptions are customised when a search campaign is made. You can also use responsive search ads where you provide various headlines and descriptions, and the search engine then displays a variety of these in response to each user’s query optimising them for each user. Gradually, Google will learn which combination provides the greatest results and use them exclusively.

Display campaigns let you reach a relevant audience with visually engaging ads as they browse millions of websites, apps and Google-owned properties, such as YouTube, to achieve your marketing objectives. Display campaigns are a great way to expand your reach and stay top of mind with an audience beyond just Google Search.

You can also create a Display campaign that uses your data segments to show ads to people who’ve visited your website or have used your app.

The Google Display Network helps you find the right audience with its targeting options that strategically show your message to potential customers at the right place and the right time.

Display network advertisements often combine text with images.

Types of Display Campaigns:

• Standard Display: Pick your campaign settings and targeting, and automate some aspects of your Display campaign.
• Smart Display: Simplify your campaign setup to save time and optimise for conversions.

Shopping campaigns are product listings that are ideal if you’re a retailer looking to sell your product inventory. Shop owners can also use local inventory ads to promote products available at their physical locations. Shopping campaigns may be seen at the top of the page or in the sidebar of the search engine results for targeted keywords. Additionally, you may see them by selecting the Shopping option next to the Google search box. Instead of using items from your eCommerce site, Google will create adverts for you when you utilize Shopping Ads. To achieve this, you must create a Google Merchant Center account. You utilize this system to control the Google Ads product listings. You may upload your items to Merchant Center using an XML file, an API, or a spreadsheet. After that, you may build a Shopping campaign by connecting your Merchant Center account to your Google Ads account. Instead of using ad groups and advertisements, shopping campaigns use product groups and items. Every item in your feed will automatically be included in your campaign. By creating various feeds or omitting more product groupings, you may improve your advertising. When configuring your feed, you must add custom fields to identify your items to achieve the latter.

Video campaigns let you show video ads on YouTube and other websites. Some Video campaign types can help you boost general awareness of your brand. Others are designed to drive conversions or get people to shop on your website. On YouTube, video advertising is shown at the start of each video. You’ll can utilise both keywords and audiences to determine who to target on Youtube since it’s built like a search engine like Google.

App campaigns help you find new app users and increase sales within your app. This campaign type uses information from your app to automatically optimise ads across Search, Play, YouTube, Discover and over three million sites and apps. Since you don’t manage it personally, the targeting is a bit different. Instead, you inform Google about your application and provide a budget and price. They will take a rest.

Types of apps campaigns:

If your account is eligible, you may notice three App campaign subtypes:

• App installs: Focus your ads on getting people to download your app.
• App engagement: Get existing users to take actions in your app.
• App pre-registration: Promote pre-registration for apps before they release on Google Play.

Performance Max is a new goal-based campaign type that allows performance advertisers to access all Google Ads inventory from a single campaign. Performance Max helps you drive performance based on your specified conversion goals, delivering more conversions and value by optimising performance in real-time and across channels using Smart Bidding.

You can use Discovery campaigns to help reach up to 3 billion customers across Google’s feeds to achieve your performance goals in Google Ads. Thanks to Google’s audience and customer intent signals, this campaign type helps you deliver highly visual, inspiring personalized ad experiences to people who are ready to discover and engage with your brand—all through a single Google Ads campaign.

You can use Discovery campaigns to help reach up to 3 billion customers across Google’s feeds to achieve your performance goals in Google Ads. Thanks to Google’s audience and customer intent signals, this campaign type helps you deliver highly visual, inspiring personalized ad experiences to people who are ready to discover and engage with your brand—all through a single Google Ads campaign.

Google Discovery ads are visually engaging, personalized ads that appear in Google’s feeds on the YouTube app, the Google app, and the Gmail app. They are meant to reach audiences in the moments when they’re ready to discover new products and services.

Discovery ads reach those exhibiting high-intent behavior, as determined by Google’s algorithms. For instance, they’re great for ecommerce businesses looking to acquire new consumers and introduce their audiences to products and/or services.

Display ads, on the other hand, are not always meant to drive this type of action. In addition, display ads deliver ads in the Google Display Network whereas Discovery ads are only on Google feeds.

This is what users see.

Text Ads Evolution

However, Ads change based on each campaign type.

In a search campaign, ads are text-based.

The copy is concise and uses limited space wisely to convey its message and connect with its target audience.

• ‍Final URL: The landing page you want the person to go to when they click your ad.‍
• Headline 1 (max 30 characters): You will want one variation that displays your company name. I recommend doing: “{{Business/Product Name}} – {{Keywords}}” You want to tell people immediately who you are and what you’re offering them. ‍
• Headline 2 and Headline 3 (max 30 characters): Displays directly after Headline 1 with a | separating them. This should be a major value prop or social proof. ‍
• Description 1 and 2 (max 90 characters): Longer form description of the product adjusted for ad group keywords. Can often be a variation of the main headline. For example, “A CRM that works in Gmail. Simple yet powerful. Try for free today.” or “Powerful yet easy to use. Try for free and get up and running within minutes.” Google will often show 2 descriptions simultaneously, so you’ll want each option to be different as much as possible (e.g. pitching different value props).‍
• Path 1 and 2 (max 15 characters): Add a lowercase re-use of the ad group or campaign name if it’s reasonable to do so (don’t put “competitors,” for example). Example: demandcurve.com/course

That’s the basic anatomy of a text ad.

In the past, you were allowed to build Expanded Text Ads where you could select only 3 headlines and 2 description lines.
Now with Responsive Search Ads, you’ll insert multiple headline variations (up to 15) and description lines (up to 4) and Google will dynamically test different combinations of those assets to find out which one performs best. In a shopping campaign, Online catalogue items are shown in shopping adverts. The price, description, photos, and product features will be listed. Shopping ads require minimal additional setup or management beyond the initial requirements. Like Dynamic ads, Google pulls all the product data it needs from your Google Merchant Center (GMC) account. GMC sits between your eCommerce platform (like Shopify) and Google Ads. It takes in all your product data, passes it through Google’s review process (to make sure you’re not selling drugs, promoting harm, or marketing scammy growth courses), and sends the data to Google Ads in a format it understands. Most of the work will be preparing and sending your product data to GMC. When you first add a new product, it takes 3-5 business days to have your products reviewed and approved by Google. Once these products are approved in GMC, you’re ready to go.

A search term is a word or set of words that a person enters when searching on Google or one of our Search Network sites. A keyword is a word or set of words that Google Ads advertisers can add to a given ad group so that your ads are targeting the right audience. When you add a keyword to your campaign, you have to choose a match type. As mentioned, Keywords are words or phrases that are used to match ads with the terms that people are searching for. The keyword match types dictate how closely the keyword needs to match with the user’s search query so that the ad can be considered for the auction. For example, you could use broad match to serve your ad on a wider variety of user searches or you could use exact match to hone in on specific user searches.

Keywords Match Types

To illustrate, let’s say you decide to build your campaign to bid on the term “shoes.”
Do you want your ads to appear only when users are searching for shoes?Alternatively, you may want to appear on broader keyword combinations such as “men’s shoes,” “size 11 shoes”, “trainers” and so on.

All you have to do is change the match type. You can choose from the following three kinds of matches:

1. Broad match

Ads may show on searches that are related to your keyword, which can include searches that don’t contain the keyword terms. This helps you attract more visitors to your website, spend less time building keyword lists and focus your spending on keywords that work. Broad match is the default match type that all your keywords are assigned, so that you don’t have to specify another match type (like exact match, phrase match or a negative match type).

The syntax for broad match is to simply input the keyword.

To deliver relevant matches, this match type may also take into account the following:

• The user’s recent search activities
• The content of the landing page
• Other keywords in an ad group to better understand keyword intent

2. Phrase match

Ads may show on searches that include the meaning of your keyword. The meaning of the keyword can be implied, and user searches can be a more specific form of the meaning. With phrase match, you can reach more searches than with exact match and fewer searches than with broad match, only showing your ads on the searches that include your product or service. The syntax for phrase match is to put quotes around your keyword, such as ‘tennis shoes’.

3. Exact match

Ads may show on searches that have the same meaning or same intent as the keyword. Of the three keyword matching options, exact match gives you the most control over who views your ad, but reaches fewer searches than both phrase and broad match. The syntax for exact match is to use square brackets, such as [red shoe]. Be aware that similar-sounding terms may appear in your advertisements. If you include the words [lawn mowing service] in your ad, it may also show up for “grass cutting service” queries. You might exclude some keywords from your advertising campaigns if you want. One term for this is “negative keywords.” Hypothetically, your business sells clothes, but you choose not to carry hoodies. To prevent your advertisements from showing up for searches related to “hoodies,” you may add the phrase as a “negative keyword.”

Ad extensions are a way to add extra information to your advertising that your target audience may find valuable.

Google Ads Extensions Example

They allow you to provide more information: Larger ad text lets you make a stronger case to targets about why they should click on your ad. They increase your visibility on SERPs: The larger size of extended ads makes them more impactful. Through these two factors alone, ad extensions can increase your clickthrough rate (CTR) significantly There are two general extensions categories: manual, which requires some setup, and automated. Most of the extensions discussed here are manual, though some of them can also be dynamically applied by Google when it predicts they will improve performance.

App

For mobile users, this extension includes a link to download an app.

Locations

This add-on enables companies with physical locations to incorporate their address and phone number in their advertisements.

Call

This enables you to include a phone number in your advertisement so that potential customers may call you right away with any inquiries.

Promotion

This add-on enables you to show promotional offers.

Sitelink

With this extension, you may provide a few more clickable links to your website under the body of your ad. They expand the scope of your site’s presentation, increasing the likelihood that searchers will locate and engage with your content.

Seller Ratings

Showcase your business’s reputation and build trust with seller ratings extensions.
Google gathers ratings from reputable business review sites and aggregates them into a single rating on a five-star scale.

Callout

25-character snippets used to highlight important selling points, sales or any other key points about your business, products, or services.

Structured Snippets

Useful for highlighting specific products, services, and features users may be looking for.

Affiliate Locations

Useful for companies that sell their products through third-party retailers. They help users find nearby stores that carry your items, helping them decide where and what to buy. These are commonly used by manufacturers who work with major retail chains, as they do not specify your own business’s location.

Price

Set cost expectations upfront, establishing transparency and helping build trust with searchers. As a result, users are more informed and more likely to buy by the time they hit your website. These extensions are useful for businesses that have variable pricing, sell service packages, or offer many different products.

Lead Form

eliminate the need for users to fill out a form on your landing page by allowing them to submit their contact information directly on the SERP. If the searcher is using their Google account, the relevant information can be pre-populated and can be submitted with a single click. This helps drive qualified leads into your marketing funnel and shortens the sales cycle.

Image

Let you use relevant visuals to complement their text ads, helping drive performance.

Your ability to advertise successfully depends on you measuring and improving the performance of your Google Ads by optimising.

When you know which areas produce the best results for your advertisements, you can adjust them accordingly.
So first of all, you need to know how to read the data (metrics) and secondly how to optimise. Your Google Ads account provides access to several useful performance metrics.

I have made a list of some of the most important Google Ads metrics, along with some related terms.

Impressions – The frequency your ad appears on Google or any of its partner sites is measured here. It gets one impression every time it is seen.

Cost – How much money has been put into a campaign may be determined using this measure. Total amount spent on all campaigns if evaluating overall performance.

Clicks – A click is created for your advertising each time a person clicks on one of its links.

Average CPC is the typical click fee you have paid throughout campaigns (Cost/Clicks = Average CPC).

Conversions – When someone does something that you consider very significant, you have a conversion. A conversion is anything from a purchase to an email subscription to a “add to cart” button click.

Conversion rate – In other words, this indicator tracks how many consumers in a given sample end up making a purchase. If you want your advertising efforts to be effective, this is one of the most crucial metrics to track.
When you narrow down the data on the Overview page of a campaign, you can see your conversion rate. It’s also possible to filter results by keyword or advertisement. The conversion rate is found by dividing the total number of persons by the number of converts. Let’s say your advertising effort brought in 100 visitors to your site, and 5 of them made a purchase. If you were to sell 5 items, your conversion rate would be 5% (5/100=0.05).

Return on ad spend (ROAS) – How much money is made for every dollar spent on marketing is what this statistic tracks. If a campaign costs you $1,000 and brings in $3,000, your return on investment (ROI) is 300%.

Considering the wide variety of individuals that use Google and its partner sites, Google Ads is an excellent method for reaching your intended demographic.

An auction mechanism is at the heart of how Google Ads works.
Google uses a near-instant auction to decide which advertisements to display in response to a user’s query.

The quality of your adverts, the search context, and bids all factor into the final results. It is at the campaign level that you will begin configuring your Google Ads account.

Campaigns include all elements such as keywords, ad groups, ads and landing pages.

The most fundamental aspects of your campaign are:

• Bid strategy
• Devices
• Location
• Budget

Google Ads supports five distinct kinds of advertising campaigns:

• Search
• App
• Video
• Display
• Shopping

The account structure is key. In Ad Groups, related advertising and keywords are stored together. It’s how you narrow on your intended audience.

Users are presented with advertisements rather than genuine content. The structure shifts from one kind of campaign to another.

Textual advertisements make up the majority of search ads. In contrast, text and images make up the majority of display ads, items make up shopping ads, and videos make up video commercials. Ads may only appear in response to certain search phrases or keywords.
Your advertising may appear in response to this search term typed into Google.

When managing Google Ads campaigns, it’s vital to keep an eye on several key indicators, such as:

• Impressions
• Clicks
• Conversions
• Conversion rate
• Click through rate
• Average Cost Per Click
• ROAS

This breakdown of Google Ads should be a starting point for developing successful advertising campaigns for your company.