Every day, about 3.5 billion searches are made on Google. And every search is an opportunity to get your brand out to more users. This means an increase in leads, conversions and therefore sales.
That’s where Google Ads comes in. Google Ads is a paid online advertising platform, offered by Google. Originally called Google Adwords, the search engine company rebranded the service to Google Ads in 2018. How it works doesn’t really work: when users search for a keyword, they get the results of their query on a search engine results page. These results may include paid advertising that targeted that keyword. But how, more accurately, does Google Ads work to attract new customers? Right away the answer.
How does Google Ads work?
Google Ads works like the pay-per-click model . That is, advertisers target a specific keyword on Google and make offers on that keyword, competing with other advertisers who also target that keyword. The offers you make are « maximum offers », i.e. the maximum you are willing to pay for an advertisement. Just like an auction.
For example, if your maximum offer is $4 and Google determines that your cost per click is $2, you get the ad placement! If it determines that the cost per click is more than $4, you don’t get the placement of the ad.
You can also set a maximum daily budget for your listing. You will never spend more than a specific amount per day on this listing. This allows you to have a better idea of the budget to be provided for your digital advertising campaign.
Marketers have three options for their bidding:
- Cost per click (CPC): The amount you pay when a user clicks on your ad.
- Cost per mile (CPM): How much you pay for 1000 ad impressions.
- Cost per engagement (CPE): How much you pay when a user performs a specific action on your ad (sign up for a list, watch a video, etc.).
Google then takes the bid amount and associates it with an evaluation of your ad called a « quality score ».
The score is between 1 and 10, with 10 being the highest score. The higher your score, the better you’ll rank and the less you’ll have to spend to convert your ads. Your quality score combined with your bid amount determines your ad’s position on the search results page.
The different types of Google advertising campaigns
Google offers different types of campaigns that you can use:
- Research campaign
- Poster campaign
- Purchase campaign
- Video campaign
- App campaign
Now let’s take a look at each type of campaign to see how they work and which ones you should choose.
Research campaign
Search campaign ads appear as a text ad on the results page for the keyword. These are the ads you’re probably most familiar with. They appear on the search results page with the black « Ad » symbol next to the URL.
The buying campaign
A shopping campaign allows you to promote your products in a much more visual way. These ads may appear as images on the search results page. And they can appear in Google Shopping.
If you have a physical product, Google Shopping ads can help you get qualified leads by pitching your product directly to customers.
Display Campaign
The Display Network leverages Google’s extensive network of partner websites to show your ad on different websites across the Internet. And there are several ways to appear. First, your ad may appear on third-party websites. You can also make a video ad appear as a pre-roll before YouTube videos.
Google also allows you to show your ad on its Gmail email platform: Advertising on Gmail
Finally, you can have your ad appear in third-party apps on Google’s app network: Ads on Google’s app network
Video campaign
These are ads that appear on the front of YouTube videos as pre-rolls.
Google offers the ability to choose specific video ads, rather than making a more general advertisement on the Display Network.
This is perfect if you have a great idea for a video ad you want to test.
Video campaign ads come in different forms. There are video ads to skip, elusive ads.
App campaign
Like video ads, app ads are also included in the Display Network but can be used for targeted campaigns.
In this case, you don’t design each individual app ad. Instead, they will take your text and resources, such as photos, and they will provide the ad for you. The algorithm tests different combinations of resources and most often uses the one that gives the best results.
Now that you pretty much know what Google Ads is, then can this platform be right for your business ? Most likely, yes. Because in 2013, 1.5 million businesses generated $111 billion in revenue from Google’s search and advertising tools. And why not yours? Advertising on Google can be extremely beneficial for any business with a good strategy. And what is the best strategy? This is another story, which we will detail in another article.
