Helping Small and Medium Businesses Achieve Their Full Marketing Potential | Digital Marketing Expert
The Ultimate Guide to Google Search Ads
Gone are the days of catalogues, coupons, flyers, and mail advertisements– well, sort of. Traditional forms of marketing are slowly retiring, taking a back seat as the modern world begins to digitise and turn towards online engagement.
Many marketers and businesses are veering towards platforms such as Google Ads. Using a platform like Google Ads, you can search, target and hone in on potential prospects with fine-tuned quantitative data and carefully planned strategies.
As one of the most powerful digital tools, Google Search Ads offers businesses the potential to directly connect with customers who are actively searching for products or services in their niche. In this guide, we’ll cover everything worth mentioning, helping you to understand the usefulness of running Google Ads.
How to Set Up Google Search Ads
It’s pretty easy to feel a little deterred when confronted by Google’s powerhouse of a platform, but on further inspection, you’ll find it’s pretty user-friendly and straightforward.
The setup process is simple; however, there are some steps you’ll need to follow to ensure your campaign gets off to a strong start.
Step 1: Creating Your Google Ads Account
Simply head over to Google Ads and sign up. You’ll be asked to provide your business details and billing information. Once you’ve set up your account, you can focus on building campaigns.
Step 2: Campaign Goals
Start to consider what you’re hoping to achieve by running your campaigns. Whether you’re looking to boost brand awareness, drive traffic to your website, or increase conversions, defining clear objectives and goals is crucial.
With Google ads, you can make it so your campaigns are tailored to reaching specific goals, gradually adjusting as needed.
Step 3: Choose Your Demographic
Before defining your target demographic, it would be best to learn about the potential prospects you’re aiming to reach. Google allows businesses to target audiences based on location, language, and device preferences.
Learning the ins and outs of your customer’s profile can help refine your ad strategy for a more profitable campaign.
Step 4: Create Your Budget
Something important to remember is that you control how much you spend on Google Ads. You can input your daily or monthly budget, adjusting it as KPIs and campaign goals evolve.
Plan your budget effectively. Ensure you’ve accounted for everything when setting it up.
Creating Campaigns & Ads
Okay, so now we’ve got your account all set up; the next step is to create your first campaign. This process includes selecting keywords, writing copy for your ad and setting up ad groups.
Conduct Keyword Research
Keywords are the backbone of all successful Google Ads campaigns. You can start by brainstorming keywords related to your business and highlighting your products/services. You can use Google Keyword Planner to find relevant terms that are synonymous with your business.
A good tip for keyword research is to investigate your competitors to broaden your understanding of what terms could prove beneficial. You’ll also want a mixture of specific and broad keywords to increase the chances of capturing all related searches.
Negative Word List
Negative keywords are equally as important as the ones you use to target. Let’s say the product you sell or service you provide could be described as ‘high-end’ or ‘premium’; you’ll most likely want to prevent your campaign from appearing in searches, including the keywords ‘free’ or ‘cheap’.
By introducing irrelevant keywords to your campaign, you can improve its efficiency when targeting your selected audience, saving you money in the long run.
Keep Your Ad Groups Organised
Ads can be bundled together into themed groups, with each focusing on related keywords. By organising your ad groups, you can ensure relevancy when users make their search queries.
Remember: The more relevant your ads are, the higher their Quality Score and the lower your cost-per-click.
Return On Investment
Right, so your ads are live and running. Great! Now, it’s time to start optimising. It should be noted that all campaigns, even the best, will benefit from a little optimise here and there.
As goalposts shift and objectives change, making regular adjustments and improvements will allow your campaigns to stay ahead of the curve.
Here are some ways to do just that:
Adjust Bids
Optimise your bids based on performance. For keywords that are performing well or beyond expectation, you might choose to increase your bids to enhance the ads visibility.
As for underperforming keywords, it would prove wise to either reduce your bids or remove the keywords from your campaign entirely.
A/B Testing
A/B testing is objectively one of the most useful methods to measure how well your campaign is performing. By testing different headlines, descriptions, and CTAs you can discover which ones are being engaged with the most.
Split-testing is an age-old way of refining an advertisement over time to maximise its impact.
Metrics You Should Watch
During the entire lifespan of your campaign, you’ll want to monitor specific key performance indicators (KPIs) to ensure you’re getting the best return of investment (ROI).
Conversion Rate
The conversion rate tracks how many clicks eventually lead to the desired action, such as purchases, sign-ups, or downloads.
Quality Score
Each Keyword is provided with something called a Quality Score. Google does this to measure your ad’s relevance to its users. The higher your Quality Score, the lower your cost-per-click will be, which can improve your ad’s overall ranking.
Cost-Per-Click
Unfortunately, you’ll have to pay each time a user clicks on your ad. It’s essential to keep an eye on your cost-per-click to ensure you’re not overspending on a campaign with underperforming keywords.
Return on Ad Spend (ROAS)
ROAS will help you in evaluating how profitable your ads are. To put it simply, the greater your ROAS, the more money you’re generating from your ad investment.
Extra Tips For Extra Success
With Google Search Ads changing and evolving, staying in the loop is essential. Here are some additional strategies you can consider when launching your campaign:
Use Ad Extensions
Did you know that extra information can equate to more visibility? Ad extensions can allow you to apply additional details to your ads, such as contact numbers, locations, or site links. By doing so, you may improve your click-through rate.
Dynamic Search Ads
By utilising your website’s content, Dynamic Search Ads can automatically create ads, ensuring you capture relevant searches you might have missed or overlooked during your keyword research.
To Wrap Things Up
Google Search Ads offer businesses, whether they’re huge corporations or independent brands, the opportunity to step up their marketing game and further their reach. It provides the potential to connect with customers at the exact moment they’re searching for products and services, which could lead to an instant conversion.
By following these steps and with careful strategising, you’ll be on your way toward launching successful campaigns that deliver.
Perhaps you’d prefer to partner with The Good Marketer? We’re a team of experts who can handle the Google Ads side of things whilst you sit back and enjoy sky-high results.
