Google Ads is an online advertising platform from the well-known search engine. For many online marketers, this is a familiar tool they work with daily. Google Ads ensures that your ads are displayed on Google itself, as well as within Gmail, YouTube, and other reach via Google (search) partners. The beauty of Google Ads is that you pay and see immediate results: impressions, clicks, and more visitors that hopefully lead to more customers and revenue.
In this article, we’ll tell you everything about why Google Ads is used and how you can use it as a beginner or a more experienced user. Finally, we’ll give you an overview of the types of ads you can run with Google Ads.
Why use Google Ads?
If you want your business to be highly visible and discoverable online, it is advisable to delve into SEA and SEO. While SEO focuses on organic search results, SEA focuses on paid search results. You pay to display ads on Google or Google’s search partners. By setting this up effectively and showing your potential customers high-quality ads, you drive more traffic to your website or online store—and hopefully increase your revenue.
The biggest advantage of Google Ads is the flexibility of the ads. Google Ads allows you to adjust your bids and bidding strategies on the fly, as well as your ads themselves. Ideally, you only want to run ads that perform well. By analyzing this regularly, you can pause keywords, campaigns, and ads if they aren’t performing well enough, so you don’t spend too much.
You can adjust ad content at any time; Google provides a lot of proactive feedback and tips on this.
How do you use Google Ads?
Google Ads (formerly Google AdWords) is a widely used tool. A Google Ads account has the following structure:
1. Campaigns
2. Ad groups
3. Ads
Each campaign has one or more ad groups. An ad group contains one or more ads that share the same keywords. The ad groups belong to the overarching campaign but can focus on different keywords.
You can use Google Ads yourself, but you can also outsource it to an SEA agency. An online marketing agency specializing in SEA helps you allocate your budget effectively to achieve your desired results. For both experienced users and SEA agencies, it is advisable to use Google Ads Editor. Below, we’ll tell you more about Google Ads Editor.
Google Ads Editor
For experienced users, Google has developed a special desktop tool to help you create and manage Google Ads campaigns: Google Ads Editor. Google Ads Editor is an indispensable tool for SEA specialists. The tool offers comprehensive campaign support for all accounts you import into it. There are a number of benefits to using Google Ads Editor:
- Make offline changes via this desktop application.
- Quickly apply bulk changes, which saves a lot of time.
- Quickly switch between the accounts you manage.
Different ways to advertise via Google Ads
There are several ways to set up an ad within Google Ads. Below is an overview of the most commonly used ad types:
- Text ads: there are two different types. An ETA and an RSA. Currently, Google Ads is in the process of transitioning away from ETAs, so only RSAs are available. This is text with headlines and descriptions designed to prompt the consumer to click the link—in this case, Google compiles the text you’ve entered itself.
- Display ads: these feature visually appealing ads displayed via the Google Display Network. Through these ads, you reach consumers via multiple placements owned by Google or its partners.
- Shopping ads: these ads usually appear at the top of the search results page when a user searches for products or potential products. Google Shopping then displays, among other things, product images, prices, and product descriptions. By clicking on this ad, the consumer is directed straight to the relevant product to make a purchase.
- Video ads: these ads are typically displayed before, during, or after a YouTube video or on other video platforms within the Google partner network.
- Performance Max: These ads are designed to achieve maximum performance, typically targeting a predefined ROI. Google incorporates various ad formats into this mix—text ads, display, and video—giving Google complete freedom to deliver the best results.