Google Ads offers businesses a great way to market their products and generate sales. However, too many companies run ads without a clearly defined goal. The result is unfocused campaigns that throw money down the drain.
Let’s examine the types of Google Ads you can buy and how they correlate with your company goals.
Why goals are essential for an ad campaign
All marketing and advertising campaigns need a goal. Everything you do needs to have a purpose. Otherwise, you are just hoping it works. And as they say, hope is not a strategy.
Additionally, you need to set goals so you can measure the effectiveness of what you do. So, before you start a campaign, have a clear goal in mind, whether that’s web traffic, sales, leads, etc.
1. Search campaigns
Search campaigns are an ad type that connects your website to people entering search terms into Google. These ads appear at the top of the search engine results page (SERP).
Making text-based ads is very straightforward. They also link high-intent users with your company. For example, if someone is searching for “Accounting software for small businesses,” you can use this search term to connect with users.
In effect, what you are buying is search traffic for your website. However, you are qualifying this traffic based on their expressed interest.
Search campaigns typically use a pay-per-click (PPC) model. You pay a fee each time a user clicks your ad.
Search campaigns are great for awareness and conversions.
You can use them to:
- Boost signups
- Drive sales
- Generate leads
2. Display ads
Display ads are a great way to serve ads to users across Google’s many channels, like YouTube, Gmail, Search, Discover, etc.
You can also use display ads to reach people you’ve already interacted with via your website or app.
Display ads can help you:
- Increase reach
- Drive sales
- Increase awareness and consideration
- Re-targeted users who have previously engaged with your website or app
3. Video campaigns
Video campaigns are a way to get your brand in front of users on YouTube and other channels.
Video ads allow you to select the “Drive Conversions” option that will enable you to build video ads with clearly defined calls to action (CTA).
The main goals of video ads are to:
- Drive awareness of your brand
- Expand your reach
- Improve consideration by demonstrating your product or service
- Boost leads
- Boost sales on your website
- Connect with people who’ve engaged with your website or app
4. Shopping campaigns
Shopping campaigns are excellent for retailers to help sell and display their inventories. Retailers can send product data via the Merchant Center to be displayed as search ads.
These ads are highly effective because they are visual and feature a price tag. Furthermore, they can also drive web traffic and awareness.
The goal of these ads is to:
- Increase sales
- Drive awareness
- Drive consideration
- Boost brick-and-mortar shops’ revenues
- Market your products visually
5. App campaigns
App campaigns are an excellent way for developers to boost app sales, installs, and in-app purchases. App campaigns help you get your app in front of more users and are presented on the Google Play store, YouTube, Discover, and more.
Ads are created from the creatives on your app store listing. You can choose different promotion goals, such as:
- App installs
- App engagement
- App pre-registration
The goal of app campaigns is:
- App installs
- Awareness
- Boost in-app sales
- Consideration
5. Local campaigns
Local campaigns are built to connect your physical location or shop with users in your area. These ads are presented on Google Maps, Search, YouTube, Display, etc.
The goal of local campaigns is to:
- Drive visitors to your location
- Raise awareness of your store or venue
- Provide users with your contact number or address
- Promote offers, events, and other in-store promotions
6. Performance Max campaigns
These campaign types allow users to set up one campaign that can be displayed across the entire Google inventory. Users plug in some images and copy, and Google automates the rest.
Performance Max uses AI and machine learning to place your ads in front of an audience that needs your service. It also optimizes your ad bids to ensure
The goal of Performance Max campaigns are:
- Drive traffic to your website
- Conversion
- Increase awareness
- Increase consideration
- Find new customers
Metrics to track before buying ads
Now that you know the different ads you can buy, it’s time to get down to business. As we said, every campaign needs a goal, and each goal needs a metric or two so you can track your sales and marketing effectiveness.
Awareness metrics
Web traffic: Web traffic measures how many unique visitors are driven to your website.
Impressions: Impressions measure how many people have seen your content.
Consideration metrics
Engagement: Engagement measures social media follows, likes, comments, etc.
Time spent on page: Measures how much time a website user spends on your web page
Bounce rate: How quickly a user leaves your website
Downloadable content: If a user downloads a whitepaper, pdf, or other content
Views: If a user watches your videos or other marketing materials.
Conversion metrics
Some conversion metrics you should be aware of are:
CTR: CTR, or click-through rate, measures how many clicks you get per impression. This metric can tell you a lot about how your copy is performing.
CPA: Cost per acquisition (CPA) measures how much ad spend it costs to gain a customer.
ROAS: Return on ad spend (ROAS) measures the revenue you generate per advertising dollar.
Conversion rate: This metric measures how many website visitors turn into leads, signups, buying customers, etc. A low conversion rate means your traffic is too loosely targeted, or your copy needs work.
Conclusion
Buying ads on Google can be a huge help for your business. However, unless you define what you are trying to achieve, it can be a waste of money.
You should always clearly define your aims before you build a campaign. Then, you can decide what formats are most appropriate to help you achieve your goals and which metrics you should use to measure their success.
If you don’t have the expertise in-house to get your ads off the ground, or if you’re struggling with keeping your CPA at an acceptable level while expanding to new markets, our robot can help. You decide the budget and the channel, and our robot will build your ads with creatives and copy from your site, translate it to any language you need, create audiences, and make up to 5 million optimizations per day, including keyword generation (if Google), bid adjustments and more. Contact us today to learn more or watch webinar about something else.
