For successful online business promotion, it’s crucial to have effective tools. Google Ads is one of them. This service allows advertisers not only to place ads but also to reach their target audience, find new customers, and grow their business.
But how does Google Ads do this?
What is Google Ads?
Google Ads is an advertising service that allows you to publish advertisements for various products and services in Google search results, on its partner sites, in mobile applications, etc. According to Gitnux, Google Ads is one of the most popular and powerful tools in the world of marketing: its ads are seen by billions of users every month, and about 246 million businesses use it.
Types of advertising campaigns in Google Ads
In total, there are over 20 types of advertising campaigns in Google Ads. I’ll look at the five most recognizable and effective.
1. Search campaigns
Search Network campaigns are one of the most commonly used types of advertising campaigns in Google Ads. This ad type appears in Google search results when users actively search for products or services using specific keywords or phrases. The advertiser selects the keywords during the campaign creation stage.
This type of campaign helps you quickly and effectively reach your target audience based on search queries.
Search Network Campaign Examples
2. Display campaigns
Display campaigns are a type of advertising campaign that allows you to publish ads outside of Google search results, such as on partner websites, in mobile apps, and more. Using banners, text ads, and other various advertising formats, display campaigns attract the attention of potential customers while they are browsing content on other websites or apps.
Such advertising material helps improve brand visibility and can be placed on websites visited by the target audience or that match their interests.
Examples of Display Network Campaigns
3. Video campaigns
Video campaigns place video ads across multiple platforms, including YouTube, partner websites, and mobile apps. With the growing popularity of TikTok, video is becoming an increasingly common advertising format, as it instantly and effectively captures the attention of internet users and allows for more interactive engagement with a brand.
Google Ads allows advertisers to choose when and where their ads appear. They can also choose the strategy used to display their ads: keywords, interests, demographics, and so on.
Examples of video campaigns
4. Shopping campaigns
Product or shopping campaigns are designed to promote specific products or product catalogs in Google search results, Google Shopping, and other partner websites. They are used by businesses with detailed product catalogs, such as online stores, retailers, and product aggregators.
The ad is seen by users searching for specific products or comparing prices. The ad displays a photo of the product, its name, and its price.
Examples of product campaigns
5. App campaigns
App campaigns are designed to promote mobile apps using Google properties (e.g., Google Search, Discover in Google Search, Google Play, the Display Network, and YouTube). This type of campaign allows you to reach a wide audience of mobile users and encourage them to download apps. Various ad formats are used, including text ads, banners, videos, and others.
These campaigns are based on interests, behavioral data, demographic characteristics, etc. to deliver app ads to the target audience.
App Campaign Examples
How does Google Ads work?
Now that we’ve covered campaign types, campaigns are managed from an advertising account, which can be created using a regular Google account. In the advertising account, advertisers create ads and:
- set up budgets and rates;
- view detailed analytics and reports on published ads;
- optimize campaigns to increase efficiency.
But before you get started with the settings, you need to understand the basic principles of Google Ads, including the auction, bids, audience targeting, keywords, and ad quality rating.
Auction
Google identifies and distributes ad space among advertisers who want to show ads to the same audience or for the same keywords. The entire process occurs in the following sequence:
- The user makes a search query or opens a web page with an advertisement.
- Google Ads instantly displays ads that match keywords to a user’s search query.
- The system removes unsuitable ads from the resulting list, such as those targeted to another country, those rejected for violating the rules, etc.
- The remaining advertisements are ranked by quality rating.
- The ad with the highest performance among other competitors is shown in the most prominent place or first position.
This process happens in a split second every time a user makes a search query or opens a web page.
Quality score
Ad Quality Rating is a metric Google Ads uses to determine how effective your ad and landing page are for users, on a scale of 1 to 10. It also helps determine the likelihood of an ad being shown and its placement on the page relative to other ads. The rating includes:
- bid;
- quality of landing page and ads;
- competition with other advertisers at the auction;
- Minimum Ad Rank (Google compliance);
- the user’s search context, namely their query, location, device type;
- additional parameters, such as the presence of a phone number in the ad or additional links to other pages of the advertiser’s website.
A high quality rating has a positive impact on the auction process and helps you achieve the top advertising position among competitors.
Google Ads bidding
There are several types of bids and their purposes in Google Ads.
A bid is the price an advertiser is willing to pay for each click, action, etc., for an ad displayed on Google platforms. In most cases, advertisers use the Pay-Per-Click (PPC) model, where the client pays for actual clicks on the ad, as this helps more accurately measure the effectiveness of the ad.
Types of bets
In general, there are 5 types of bets that are used to achieve different goals.
| Bet type |
Description |
Target |
| Cost per Click/CPC | Payment is made for each click on an advertisement. | Increasing website traffic. |
| Cost per Thousand Impressions (CPM) | Payment is made for every thousand impressions of an advertisement. | Increased advertising visibility and brand awareness. |
| Cost per Action/CPA | Payment is made for each completed target action. | Increase conversions. |
| Cost per View/CPV | Payment is made for each view of the advertiser’s video advertisement. | Increased video ad views. |
| Return on Ad Spend/ROAS | The ability to determine the desired level of income that an advertiser wants to receive depending on the amount spent on advertising. | Increasing the profitability of advertising costs. |
Bidding Strategies
There are two strategies you can use to set your bids in Google Ads:
- manual bidding, where the advertiser independently sets the price for each keyword, ad, or ad group that they are willing to pay for a specific action (e.g., a click, view, etc.);
- Automatic bids, which Google sets independently based on various factors (such as quality rating, competition, and others) and its own automatic bidding algorithms.
The choice of bidding strategy depends on your needs, resources, goals, and experience. To start, advertisers can choose automatic bidding, monitor results, and adjust them as needed. Manual bidding is best if you have experience, a clear strategy, and specific campaign goals.
Audience targeting
Google Ads allows you to define and fine-tune who and when to show your ads. By precisely targeting your audience, you’ll ensure greater campaign effectiveness. Targeting can take different forms:
Audience targeting. This allows you to reach users based on their specific interests or behavior patterns and is divided into two types:
- Interest audiences – reach of potential clients;
- Interested buyers – the reach of users who are searching for the products offered by the advertiser.
Email lists. This type of targeting focuses on sending advertising messages based on lists of customer email addresses that the advertiser can collect through a newsletter or registration form on their website.
Demographic targeting. Selecting target audience characteristics, such as gender, age, etc.
Remarketing. Targeted at users who have already interacted with the advertiser’s brand, it is used to maintain interest or encourage further action.
Targeted advertising: principles and setup rules. Essential targeting knowledge
Read about social media targeting in the article: “Targeted Advertising: What It Is, Settings, and How It Works.”
Keywords
A crucial step in any advertising campaign is carefully selecting keywords and phrases. Keywords determine the words or phrases that will trigger your ads on Google. They should be relevant to the products you’re advertising. For example, if you sell women’s clothing, keywords might include “women’s clothing,” “women’s clothing,” and so on.
Google Ads also offers different keyword match types. Choosing a specific match type affects how accurately your ads will appear for a specific search query.
| Match type | Description | Examples |
| Wide | The keyword matches any words in the query in any order. | Keyword: flowers – buy flowers, flowers for mom, etc. |
| Phrasal | The keyword matches the phrase, if it is in the query, in the order specified. | Keyword: “flowers for mom” — flowers for mom delivery, inexpensive flowers for mom, etc. |
| Accurate | The keyword exactly matches the phrase in the query, without any changes. | Keyword: [flowers for mom] – flowers for mom. |
Also, don’t forget about negative keywords, which you can use to prevent your ads from appearing for certain search queries. For example, if you sell luxury women’s clothing, it’s recommended to exclude phrases containing the words “cheap” and “used.”
Benefits of Google Ads
- Wide audience reach. Google is undoubtedly the most widely used search engine in the world. This can only mean one thing: your ads are likely to be shown to millions of users from all over the world, helping you reach more of your target audience.
- Geotargeting. Google Ads campaigns can pinpoint the precise geographic location of potential customers. Selecting a specific city, region, or country can help your business quickly expand in a local market or find potential customers in a specific location.
- Various advertising types. Google Ads offers a huge selection of campaigns, allowing every advertiser to find the best fit for their goals and the products/services they offer.
- Pay-per-Click (PPC) pricing. Google operates on a Pay-per-Click (PPC) model, which helps manage costs and measure the effectiveness of specific campaigns. With various bid types, settings, and strategies, advertisers can choose a specific goal for their ads and be confident of achieving the desired results.
How to evaluate the effectiveness of advertising in Google Ads?
Performance metrics can be divided into three types:
- final;
- indirect or intermediate;
- high quality.
Please note that some metrics require you to calculate them yourself. Google Ads also has a great “Custom Column” feature that allows you to create your own personalized metrics if they aren’t available on the platform itself.
How to find the “Custom Column” function. Step 1
How to find the “Custom Column” function. Step 2
The final metrics include:
- CPA (cost per conversion) and ROAS (return on ad spend) — cost per action and return on advertising spend;
- CPI (cost per install) is the cost per install of a mobile app.
Indirect/intermediate metrics include:
- CPC (cost per click/clicks) and CPM (cost per impression) — cost per click and cost per 1000 impressions;
- CTR (clicks/impressions) is the percentage ratio of the number of clicks on an advertisement to the number of impressions;
How to find an indirect/intermediate CTR metric
- Budget Lost Impression Share, BLIS ((total number of impressions lost due to budget/total number of possible impressions) x 100) and Rank Lost Impression Share, RLIS ((total number of impressions lost due to ranking/total number of possible impressions) x 100) — impressions lost due to budget and impressions lost due to ranking, respectively — the percentage of missed impressions of advertising campaigns due to insufficient budget or low ranking.
Quality metrics:
- Quality score — an assessment of the quality of advertising (its keywords, titles, etc.) on a scale from 1 to 10;
- Landing Page Experience (LPE) is the user’s impression of the advertiser’s landing page, i.e., the page that opens when they click on an ad. It is measured on a scale of 1 to 10.
- Expected CTR is the expected number of clicks on an advertisement;
- Ad relevance is the relevance of advertising to users. It is also measured on a scale of 1 to 10.
The above quality metrics are located in the “Search keywords” section.
The method for measuring the effectiveness of advertising campaigns depends on the advertiser’s specific goals and strategy. If the primary advertising goal is to increase website traffic, one can focus on metrics that measure the number of clicks or impressions, such as CTR or CPC.
If the main goal is to increase brand awareness, it is worth paying attention to the number of impressions or CPM, and if improving the quality of advertising is important, then Quality Score or Ad Relevance.
Therefore, in each specific case, it is important to select metrics that align with the advertiser’s goals and provide clear information about performance.
Conclusions
Google Ads is an advertising program that allows you to publish advertisements for various products and services in Google search results, on its partner sites, in mobile applications, etc.
There are over 20 types of advertising campaigns in Google Ads. The main ones are:
- search advertising;
- media advertising;
- video campaign;
- commodity company;
- app campaign.
The ad that a user sees is determined by an auction. The ad with the best bid and high quality rating will receive more impressions and higher positions.
The ad quality rating is based on the ad’s compliance with Google’s requirements, the bid, the ad’s relevance to the user’s query, and the campaign’s targeting.
The key advantages of Google Ads over other advertising services are its wide audience reach, geotargeting, various advertising types, and pay-per-results pricing.
FAQ
What is the difference between Google Ads and organic traffic?
Both types of traffic appear in search results, but the first is paid advertising, while the second is a result generated by Google’s algorithm.
How much does Google Ads advertising cost?
The price depends on many factors, such as competitors, budget, bids, ad quality, etc. Therefore, there is no definitive answer. The advertiser can set the budget and bids themselves, which greatly helps with financial control.
How long does it take for Google Ads to show results?
This depends on competitors, ad quality, bids, and many other factors. However, the first results are usually noticeable within a few days or a week.
Source: Netpeak
You can also read the articles:
- What are the three required parts of a text ad?
- Google Ads Advanced Conversion Tracking: How it Works and How to Set It Up
- What is contextual advertising? How much does it cost? How does it work?
