Google is the leading search engine that people use to gain insight into a particular product, service, or topic. Because of this, it’s also a crucial platform for businesses that want to drive traffic to their website and get more inbound leads.
To drive the right people to your company website, your marketing team should take advantage of search engine optimization (SEO) and paid search campaigns. However, if it’s done improperly, your marketing team could cause more harm than good. While many companies prefer to take the SEO route because of its cost-effectiveness, it can take some time to build website credibility and bring the right users to your website.
When companies want to get leads as quickly as possible, they invest in PPC campaigns like Google Ads. For many reasons, Google Ads is a crucial part of a company’s digital marketing strategy. Throughout this blog, we’ll cover the following topics:
What Are Google Ads?
Google Ads (previously known as Google AdWords) is a paid advertising solution that positions your company in front of Google users who are actively searching for your product or service.
Users know they’re looking at a Google ad rather than an organic search result because the sponsored result is accompanied by an “Ad” label, such as the one shown highlighted here:
While Google Ads are often identified on the top of search engine results pages (SERP), they also appear on other websites through the Display Network or Google AdSense. The Google Display Network is a group of third-party websites that have agreed to collaborate with Google and present users with Google Ad campaigns on their website.
Display ad campaigns are often used for remarketing users who have previously performed a Google search on a specific product or service. This helps present top-of-mind awareness and remind users of your company’s product or service needs.
For example, think about the last time you did some online shoe shopping. Have you ever noticed that the next time you jump onto Facebook, an ad for those same shoes you were looking at pops up on your feed? This is an example of a display ad. Even though you aren’t currently browsing shoes online, the ad is intended to remind you that you were looking at shoes, urging you to online shop again.
How Does Google Ads Work?
Google Ad campaigns are focused on keywords that intended users type into the Google search bar. Marketing experts select keywords based on what’s relevant to their industry, what they hope to achieve from the Google ad, and the keyword’s overall search volume and intent.
As marketing specialists select keywords, they must choose high-volume keywords that have a transactional intent because this means users are looking for these keywords with the intent to make a purchase.
However, it’s also important to consider the cost-per-click (CPC) of the keyword to ensure you’re not spending too much on the ad. When a keyword’s search volume and density are high, more often than not, so is the CPC. Therefore, it’s essential to consider your budget as well.
Google Ads works similar to an auction system, meaning that companies bid on keywords and determine how much they’re willing to spend for a user to click on their ad before it goes live. A paid AdWords bid is combined with the quality score of the ad content. If the ad’s quality score is high, along with a high bid amount, the better your ad positioning is for the right users to find it. This is all done in an instant between the time a user presses search, and the results are displayed.
A paid search ad’s quality score is based on some of the following characteristics:
- Relevance to the search query
- Relevance to targeted buyers
- Landing page intent alignment with targeted keywords
- Historical conversion and click-through rates
- Overall Google ads account performance on past ads
When advertising on Google, quality score significantly influences current and future ad performances. A high-quality ad score enables advertisers to pay less on their campaigns while increasing ad exposure, empowering them to boost their ad ROI.
Since a significant part of an ad’s quality score is related to the relevance of the ad to the searcher, it’s essential that the ad and landing page content is what potential buyers are looking for. For instance, let’s say that you’re a commercial roofing company that wants to generate more leads through Google Ads. While you may want to compete for the industry keyword “leak repair,” it’s essential that you specify “roof leak repair.” Without specifying “roof” within your keyword, you risk getting traffic from users who are looking for plumbing repair services, which increases the ad bounce rate and the rise in ad costs.
How Do You Pay for Google Ads?
The way your company pays for Google Ads is dependent on your marketing team’s preferred bid style. Here are different approaches you can take to pay for Google Ads:
- Cost-per-click (CPC): This bid approach increases the amount of traffic that’s sent to your website.
- Cost-per-thousand impressions (CPM): This method increases overall awareness and is typically associated with display and video campaigns.
- Cost-per-view (CPV): This bidding option is specific to video ads. The goal of this ad is often to increase brand consideration or interaction.
- Cost-per-action (CPA): This approach is most useful when you value specific actions like phone calls or form fills.
- Return on ads spent (ROAS): This bidding method is complex and requires in-depth conversion tracking to work effectively. However, it empowers you to target based on your return on ad money spent.
- Maximize conversions: This option allows you to set bid amounts to help you obtain the most conversions from your campaign while spending within your budget.
Ways To Determine Your Google Ads Budget
The target keywords determine your select Google Ad costs and your budget settings. One of the best things about Google Ads is the ability to completely control your ad-spending budget because your company is only charged for the ad when a user interacts with it.
Overall, the cost of the ad depends on a variety of factors, including:
- Competitiveness: This encompasses both the target keyword chosen and the industry you serve. If it’s a highly sought-after keyword, then the cost of the ad goes up. Additionally, if you operate in a competitive sector, the ad’s cost also increases because more companies are targeting the same users.
- Geographic location: Smaller markets are often cheaper because there are fewer companies in the same industry to compete with. For example, if you’re in a larger metro like NYC or Los Angeles, the ad will be much higher than if you targeted a smaller metro like St. Louis because fewer companies are fighting for the same buyers.
- Quality score: As mentioned previously, the quality score plays a significant role in the cost of your ad. If users find your meta title, description, and landing page beneficial for what they’re looking for, the price goes down significantly because it matches the intent of their search.
Benefits of Investing in Google Ads
While many companies want to rely on organic digital marketing practices like SEO, PPC ads present companies with both short- and long-term benefits. The benefits of investing in Google ad campaigns include that they:
- Don’t require a minimum investment
- Are incredibly measurable to explore the results
- Boost the number of leads generated and conversions made
- Empower you to further compete with similar businesses
- Help you enhance your organic SEO strategy
- Allow you to target specific audiences
- Present quicker results than organic SEO
Key Takeaways
Google Ads are an essential component of a high-performing digital marketing strategy. While you shouldn’t rely on them completely, they do present growing businesses with immediate, short-term results. When paired with an SEO strategy, you have the opportunity to bring more users to your website, convert them into leads, and secure a sale.
At Abstrakt Marketing Group, our A-Players present growing B2B companies with advanced SEO and PPC services that bring in leads who are ready to make a purchase. Additionally, we use tracking platforms like Google Analytics to explore the impact of your ad campaigns.
When you need a hand with your Google Ad campaigns, contact the inbound marketing experts at Abstrakt Marketing Group!
Want to Learn More?
