What is Google Ads?
Creating campaigns on Google Ads is one of the essential web marketing levers today. Indeed, when you master the optimization of an advertisement, like the consultants of a paid advertising agency, you can have very good results from your first campaign and from the launch of your activity. Your marketing goals can vary from acquiring traffic to getting new customers. But what is Google Ads? Related to paid search, also known as SEA (for Search Engine Advertising), it is a tool that allows you to highlight your website on Google search results following payment from advertisers.
From Adwords to Google Ads: paid referencing and advertising by Google
Creation of Google Ads
Google Adwords was created in the 2000s and became Google Ads in 2018. An advertising agency of the search engine Google, the tool has continued to develop since then to suit the new needs of its customers. Other search engines have also followed the trend by creating their own advertising network such as Bing with Bing Ads.
Paid advertising management tool
Any company that wants to increase its results quickly and has a budget to spend can create Google Ads. Indeed, paid advertising on Google can be very profitable as long as the campaign is well defined. To get new customers, improve traffic, gain visibility, awareness or increase sales in record time, advertisements are the best way to achieve your goals quickly. It is also an essential tool to face a strong competition also present on Google Ads or on the contrary to precede it if it does not use this superb tool yet!
Ads and sponsored links
Paid referencing SEA is not to be confused with natural referencing SEO. The latter involves writing content on targeted keywords with the aim of enriching your website and appearing in the natural search results. It is a strategy that is built over the long term. As for SEA, you pay for a keyword to obtain a place in the Google ads, linking to the page of your choice on your site. It therefore responds to an immediate need and intervenes over a short period of time, whether or not it is recurrent. In both cases, the aim is to position yourself on keywords in order to appear in the top positions of Google search results (the SERP). By using SEA with keyword buying via Google Ads, you will get an advertisement that will necessarily appear before the SEO part also called natural results.
Targeting keywords
Your potential customers are searching for keywords on Google. In order for them to come across one of your sponsored links on the first page, it is essential to position yourself on the right keywords. In order to know if the choice of keywords is relevant or not, you will have to analyse the competition, know your customers’ queries and define landing pages appropriate to the chosen keywords. There is no point in accumulating keyword purchases to be sure of appearing as much as possible on the results pages, as this will put you at a disadvantage and make you lose money. On the contrary, positioning yourself on a few more specific keywords called “long tail” can be a more effective strategy depending on your activity. This is why it may be wise to call on an agency specialising in Google Ads to define a list of relevant words, to assist you in writing the ads and to set up a profitable campaign.
Google Ads bidding system
Your sponsored ad will appear on Google thanks to a bidding system. Each advertiser will define a daily or monthly budget for a given keyword. But the Google algorithm does not only take your budget into account to define the ads that will be best positioned! The quality of your website and landing page will also be evaluated, as well as whether the chosen keyword is relevant and whether the ad has been well written. So, even if your competitor has paid more than you for their campaign, it is possible that your ads will still appear before theirs if they are more relevant to Google. This is why it is more than essential to work on the optimisation of your ads to improve the quality score. Obtaining a high quality level allows you to have effective ads and to gain visibility while saving money. Finally, you should know that there are several ways of bidding on your commercial links. The most common is to perform manual cost per click (CPC) bidding. In this way, you choose the maximum budget that you wish to pay as soon as a user clicks on your ad. This way, you only pay when your ad is clicked on and not when it is simply shown and seen per impression on the search results.
Google Ads account: what is it and what is it for?
Campaign management interface
It is on the interface of your Google Ads account that you will be able to manage your advertising campaigns. Between the creation, the parameter setting and the statistical follow-up of your ads, everything is gathered on the same tool to facilitate your whole campaign management universe. It is also via your Google Ads account that you will be able to analyse the search terms of Internet users and define the most relevant keyword on which to position your ad before launching a campaign. You should know that it is also possible to manage not only several campaigns via your Google Ads account, but also several client accounts! Thus, you can share your Google Ads campaign with the account of an agency specialised in paid search in order to optimise and entrust the management of your ads to webmarketing experts!
What is a Google Ads campaign?
Ads campaign: definition
A Google Ads campaign corresponds to the grouping of several groups of ads. These ads are grouped around similar parameters according to the type of campaign defined: same targeting, same budget, same geographical area, etc. It is also at the time of creating a campaign that you will be able to choose its type: Google shopping, text ads on the search network, banners in display campaigns, videos etc. The idea is therefore to bring together all your advertisements that contain similar characteristics in a single “campaign” area. You can have only one ad group within a campaign, just as you can create several Ads campaigns on the same account to achieve your different objectives!
Ad group
Within your campaign, you will have access to ad groups. These group together several ads with similar targets and the same defined keywords. It is wise to classify your ad groups by category (services, type of products…).
Objectives and interests
The performance of your campaigns will be different according to the defined objective. Indeed, each campaign must have a very specific objective that will meet your digital marketing strategy. Thus, you can choose to directly increase your sales, but also to gain traffic or visibility. The Google Ads campaign is adapted according to the objective you have chosen. Once you have selected your objectives, remember to define quantified objectives before broadcasting your ads and to always analyse your results both on Google Ads and on Google Analytics. To ensure that your campaigns are as optimised as possible, it is always advisable to work with a Google Ads expert to obtain the best results at the lowest cost.
Traffic
Do you want to get more visits from audiences that are likely to convert on your site? The “traffic to the website” objective will meet all your expectations. Google Ads offers you the possibility to create dynamic ads, extensions and bidding strategies that will allow you to generate qualified traffic.
Conversion and lead
To sell your products or services, the “sales” objective will be your ally! Google Ads will tailor your ads to reach users who are likely to buy from you. Google also has the ability to show your advert again to users who have already been interested in your service or product in the past: this is called remarketing. With this objective, you will be able to know at a glance whether your campaigns are profitable or not and whether you are achieving a good return on investment, especially if you have an e-commerce site. You can also choose the “leads” objective to increase your conversion rate for a chosen landing page. The aim here is to get people to buy from your website, subscribe to your newsletter or provide their contact details. As with your sales, it is important to track conversions in order to optimise your campaigns if necessary.
Visibility and awareness
To gain immediate visibility, consider designing awareness campaigns with the display or video network! These are visual campaigns that will appear directly on other websites and not on the Google search results page. It is on these types of campaigns that you will be able to define the “audience and brand awareness” objective. The objective here is not to directly increase your click-through rate (CTR), but rather to get more impressions, i.e. more views. So, by displaying recognisable visuals of your brand on several sites and videos, you will make a lasting impression on users and quickly gain brand awareness!
All about Google Ads :
What are the different types of Google Ads campaigns and formats?
What is the difference between Google Ads and other advertising systems?
What are the differences between Google Ads and Google Ads Express?