How does Google Ads work and what are the benefits?
Written by Jamie Schelling
Digital Marketing & AI Automation
How does Google Ads work? Google Ads is one of the most effective ways for businesses to advertise and drive traffic to a website. It is used by millions of businesses and has many benefits for both small and large companies. In this blog we tell you more about how Google Ads works and what the benefits are.
Google Ads is not just any advertising platform: the Google Ads algorithm uses your business information and hundreds of other signals to find people who are interested in your product or service. We are happy to explain why your business should start with Google Ads and how it fits within your marketing strategy.
What is Google Ads?
Google Ads (formerly Google AdWords) is one of the largest online advertising platforms. The platform helps businesses reach customers all over the world and grow their business. Google Ads is also called a pay-per-click network. Advertisers pay Google for a click on an ad that a user is shown based on their search query. In addition, there are other settings that let you, as an advertiser, make sure you reach the right target audience, such as the country, the type of device or the time of day. In this way you can appear in Google in a targeted way for people who are looking for your product or service.
How does Google Ads work is a frequently asked question from (starting) entrepreneurs who want to create more online visibility. Google Ads is suitable for all types of businesses. It is often an affordable form of advertising that targets potential customers, provided they are approached in the right way. The key to making Google Ads work for you is understanding the ins and outs of the ad options, bidding strategies, keyword research and account structure.
Map out what you can spend on each campaign, set your daily budget accordingly and keep track of spending. Carry out thorough keyword research to find out what your target audience is looking at, and bid on keywords to receive relevant clicks and bring the right people to your website.
When creating ads, make sure they are relevant and eye-catching enough for the user to click. Optimise your landing pages by running A/B tests and trying out variations of a page.
If you are still wondering whether Google Ads is worth the money, it is best to start small, keep optimising based on the results and increase the budget once your campaigns deliver affordable and profitable sales or leads.
How does Google Ads work?
3 reasons why you should use Google Ads
1. Fast results
You can set up and start a campaign within a day. Google Ads starts your campaign straight after review. If your campaign is set up strategically, the chance of fast results is a lot greater.
2. Targeted reach
You can design your ads to be keyword-specific. You get the option to select the demographics, interests, preferences, location and language of your target audience. This means you only show the ad to interested people and filter out the rest. With Google Ads you can also be more specific in retargeting ads to website visitors who left without buying anything or taking a desired action.
3. Only pay for interaction
When you use Google Ads for campaigns, you pay for results. Even if you have set a limit on ad spend, you only pay for interaction with the ad. The interaction depends on the ad format you have selected. It could be clicking through to the website, clicking the install button or watching a video ad.
3 important things to know when you start a Google Ads campaign
1. Know your target audience
Who are you going to advertise to? What are the people you want to reach searching for? And who do you not want to reach? These are all questions to consider before you start.
2. Learn the basics of Google Ads
If you are not familiar with Google Ads and its settings, it is a fairly complex and large system. Before you start setting up your campaigns and ads, you need to know what the different ad types are and when to use them. The next step is to understand what a campaign structure is and how to set up successful campaign structures and ads. Feel free to let us know if you need help with this.
3. Optimise the landing page
The landing page is the place where users “land” when they click on an ad. It is important to optimise the landing page to improve the user experience and, ultimately, to increase conversion as well.
You need to make sure that the landing page is relevant to the ad that led to the click and that customers find it easy to navigate the page. Google rewards highly relevant landing pages, and this is based on various factors, including ease of navigation and the presence of the keywords on the page.
2 best practices when using Google Ads
1. Improve your Quality Score.
The Quality Score is an important factor in how Google determines the position and how often your ad is shown.
The higher the Quality Score, the better you are ranked and placed on the Search Engine Results Page (SERP). A low Quality Score leads to less traffic and higher cost per click. So make sure you have the highest possible Quality Score for every keyword.
2. Experiment with broad keywords
Google offers the option to use broad keywords. You need to be careful here that your keywords are not too broad, which would lead to people clicking through to the website who are not of interest. If this does happen, you can exclude certain words in the campaign so that you are sure not to receive visitors who are not of interest. So test carefully whether a broad keyword works well for you, and make sure you exclude irrelevant keywords.
How does Google Ads work for my business?
Do you also want to start with Google Ads, or have you already started and would you like support or tips with managing Google ads? BE Digital is ready to help you!
