Why use Google Ads?

There’s a quick and easy solution to driving traffic towards your website, and it comes in the form of Google Ads. With options available to suit every budget, it’s a surefire way of getting relevant ads in front of your target audience. 

Google Ads operates on a pay-per-click (PPC) model and is the single most popular PPC advertising system across the globe. The Ads platform allows users to create ads that appear on Google’s search engine, as well as other Google properties. 

In the first instance, let's look at PPC more closely. 

What is PPC Marketing? 

With PPC marketing, you only pay when a user clicks on your ad. Each click is documented and reported, which enables you to keep on top of overall ad performances. This offers huge benefits, as you can adjust your ads following their user interaction and potential ROI. 

The majority of high-performing websites have their own PPC marketing option, but none come close to Google Ads’; the biggest of its kind! It is currently the largest provider of search advertising on the market used by more than 7 million people worldwide. 

If you consider that approximately 6.5 billion Google searches are made every day, further imagine the potential of advertising on every single one of those searches. Okay, that’s a lot of advertising, but it certainly gives you an insight into your available audience. 

Google is also kind enough to offer customers the opportunity to advertise on YouTube and its partner external websites that encompass a grand 90% of the internet as a whole. 

You’ve no doubt got the gist of the vast number of benefits available to you by using Google Ads, but do you know how they work? 

If the answer is no, fear not!

How do Google Ads work? 

Simply put, Google Ads work by providing greater visibility for your business. Each time a user searches for something, Google delves into its vast pool of Ad advertisers and selects a group of ‘winners’ to appear in its valuable ad space on search results pages. Winners are selected based on several factors including the quality and relevance of their keywords and ads, and the size of their keyword bids. 

Broken down, you have the choice of three primary options that look like this: 

Search Ads – Your ads will be displayed at the top of Google searches, thus making them the first thing seen by users. 

Display Ads – Google will show your image ad across its network of external partner websites.

Video Ads – visibility on YouTube (which currently has a following of more than 2 billion monthly users). 

Identify Target Audience 

PPC targeting settings can make or break marketing campaigns, so you must determine your demographic for your ads to be effective. However, with Google Ad’s advanced targeting features, you can fine-tune your ads to ensure that they display only to your target audience. It just means that you need to know your target audience. 

To simplify your demographic, filtering options include gender, age, level of education, occupation, geographical location and interests. It’s always useful to visualise your ideal customer as a means of establishing the overall demographic, it can help narrow things down as well as eliminate the less suitable. 

When creating ads, you can specify keywords that will trigger your ad when someone does a Google search. If you sell green rowing boats, you can trigger ads to be shown when someone searches for green rowing boats. With your video and display ads, you would target websites that relate to rowing, boats and sports (for example) as a whole for greater capture. 

Research Keywords 

This is a big must! You need to make sure that your keywords match your offering as specifically as possible. The most successful Google advertisers continually update their keywords based on intricate research, so you don’t want to fall behind. As the concept of PPC is built entirely around keywords, you must do a great deal of initial (and continual) research. 

Ensure that your keywords are relevant. Paying for web traffic that has nothing to do with your business offering is futile. High-quality, specific keywords that match your offering will lead to a higher click-through rate and increased sales. 

Make your keyword research exhaustive. That means that aside from popular and frequently searched terms, you should also consider long-tail keywords. These are keywords that are more likely to be used when customers are nearing point-pf-purchase, and though they’re not always obvious, they can work wonders when used correctly. 

Make your keyword research extensive. Allow your business to evolve with continual refining and updating of keywords. As we mentioned earlier, successful advertisers never stop researching their keywords, so any lacking on your part will simply leave you behind your competitors. 

Remarketing

Google remarketing is the incredible technology that enables Google Ads to follow potential customers as they surf the net. Have you ever glanced at a website, only to find that ads from the very same company continue to pop up for days/weeks afterwards? That’s remarketing! 

Freaky, isn’t it?! 

Remarketing is a great way of gently nudging people back to your website; a reminder that they really do want to buy that product/service that they keep thinking about! 

How do Google Ads charge? 

With options for small-to-large businesses, you have no fear of being tied into something unaffordable that’s out of your budget. 

There are 3 ways to pay for Google Ads: 

Impressions – You will be charged each time your ad is shown to someone who is browsing the web. 

Clicks – Google charges a small fee each time someone clicks on your ad. 

Conversions – You will only be charged if the user takes action i.e., making a purchase or submitting a form.  

Your choice from the above is dependent upon your overall requirements. If you want customers to take direct action on your site, conversion tracking is more suitable. It is, however, the most expensive ad type to run. If you’re looking to drive traffic towards your site, clicks are the best choice. For brand awareness, impressions are a great way of getting your brand name in front of the masses. 

Reporting 

Google Ads' in-depth reporting is a God-given must for assessing the success of your ads and monies spent. Transparent reporting allows you to see the bare bones of your PPC campaign, particularly information on those who are high and low performers.  

If your ad isn’t performing well, you can discontinue and focus on those that are. In fact, you can alter anything that isn’t working and simply refine the information to suit. 

What else…? 

Google Ads is an incredibly useful sales tool that can undoubtedly drive traffic and sales towards your website. Once you know your demographic and end goal, you can co-ordinate your PPC strategy accordingly and begin to generate leads. 

If you need some help with Google Ads, or would simply like help boosting your online visibility, reach out and we’ll happily have a chat. Drop us a message at hello@theunderdogagency.co.uk