Running a successful Google Ad

Google Ads is an advertising feature that allows advertisers to display their ads at the top of Google’s search engine results page. They’re one of the most effective ways for a company to get their product showcased, especially in a global market. Google Ads is currently the biggest provider of search advertising on the market (Statista, 2020), so while its potential for your company is vast, so is it for your competitors. Here are just some ways to capitalise off of your advertising through Google effectively and efficiently.

Google Ads work in two divisions: organic results and paid ads. Organic results are popular sites with a high click rate, while paid ads show up at the top of the search bar. Though organic results may seem like the go to because of their low price to run (free!), not only are they harder to obtain in a sea of advertisers but studies show that “Paid traffic converts 50% better than free organic traffic” (PowerTraffick, 2019) while also having a “200% ROI” (Tech Jury, 2020). Hence, focusing on running paid ads will become a benefit rather than a detriment when done to their full capacity.

First and foremost, assessing what keywords you should use so that your ads run alongside your target audience is important. The goal of any marketing technique is to ultimately generate sales, no exception is taken with Google Ad. This seems like an obvious statement but can be commonly lost in translation when the go-to method of generating ads is under generic keywords. There are two main things to consider when considering which keywords to use- the first, how often those words are searched into google, and the second, how many of those searchers are buyers. This lends long- tail key words to be a useful tool. Long- tail key words are targeted keyword phrases which aims to attract visitors who will likely have the intention of buying as opposed to others. Say you’re selling boots. Rather than using ‘boots’ or ‘black boots’, you might say ‘100% vegan leather, black knee-high boots’ or ‘heeled vintage suede boots.’ While you may draw “less traffic” with long tail key words, “the traffic you do draw will be better: more focused, more committed, and more desirous of your services” (WordStream), and therefore increasing sales.

AB testing, or split testing, is a method of contrasting differently styled ads to see which ones gain the most attraction. There’s a control group ad, and then there’s perhaps more creative or unique versions of that control. While this may appear to be a pointless exercise, as the diagram table by ‘Hire Digital’ to the left displays, even seemingly small changes in tests managed to boost the conversion rate by 63%. Even further, this roughly translates into a higher click-through rate (percentage of total ad views that result in clicks), which makes your ranking in google ads better and therefore lowers your costs.

Finally, using the google ads funnel is a great framework to conceptualise your ads. This model is designed to target strangers, people outside of your usual demographic. It does this through mapping the buyer’s journey, from early research about a product to getting ready to pay for a product. The larger you can make the tunnel, the more ‘decision’ buyers are being accumulated. For more info on google ads funnels and how to create one, visit Stable WP’s ‘Google Ads Funnel – The Most Powerful PPC Strategy to Maximize Your ROI’: https://stablewp.com/google-ads-funnel-the-most-powerful-ppc-strategy-to-maximize-your-roi/

For more general info on optimising your ads, check out Travis Marzani’s ‘Google Ads Tutorial 2021 with Step-by-Step AdWords Walkthrough’ on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqajQ7DuWjw