What are Google Search Ads?

The Internet is everything!

Over the past two decades, we have evolved from traditional brick-and-mortar stores to using the new and emerging Internet marketplace as a medium to grow our brands, expand our global network, and boost sales online.

All of this is because of the volume of searches that happen online.

About 59% of the world population today uses the internet. Roughly, 4.57 billion people actively use the internet as of June 2020.

And with 3.5 billion search results conducted every day on Google alone, it is by far the largest search engine on the web!

Naturally, Google has to be the first choice for businesses/brands looking to build online traffic and market their products.

Google Ads is Google’s way of letting these marketers gain more traffic on their website. But do the search volumes yield as good a result for these marketers? Why is Google Ads a popular medium for marketing products online?

>>Why Brands should invest in e-commerce?

Let us figure out!

Google Search Ads – What Are They?

Google Ads is a paid advertising platform on Google.com – one of the most popular and the largest search engines.

Over 86.86% of people use Google for their online searches. And out of this over 75% don’t even look past the first page of Google Search.

There is no doubt that today most (almost all) online businesses are constantly competing to be ranked first on the Google Search Engine.

While conventional methods like creating content, optimizing SEO, working with the algorithm, etc. takes a long time to get a good rank on the search engine, Google Ads lets you buy the top spot for a period of time and display your products to your audience for maximum conversion.

Google Ads is an effective way to drive your target audience to your business when they are searching for it.

How Do Google Search Ads Work?

Unlike other social media Advertisements like Facebook Ads, Google Shopping Ads, or LinkedIn, Google Search Ads is a performance-based platform that works on the basis of Pay-Per-Click (PPC) i.e. you only pay when the customers actually click on your posted Ad.

So if you don’t get results or clicks, you don’t need to pay at all.

Cool. Right? But that’s not all.

With people literally typing the names of products into the search engine and looking for them, the audience’s intent is matched with your product presence, and BOOM! You are generating sales in the most effective way!

Google Adwords is where all the magic happens. It’s a platform where you can design, draft, strategize, and make your campaigns LIVE to give your brand the exposure it needs.

Of course, Google loves what people love!

And if big brands are what people are googling the most – these are the brands that will get first page rankings on the search engine. If you are a small business looking to tap into the Google Audience, beating these brands would be the last thing on your mind.

But Google Adwords lets you cheat!

Google Adwords works like an auction where people bid for clicks and keywords are the medium. But the higher bidder isn’t always the winner. ‘Quality Score’ is the key!

Fundamentals are important here, so stick with us!

Google cares about the quality of content together and the audience’s experience the most. And so the metric is a combination of a number of factors that make your business the best fit for the Google search made by the customer.

Every keyword gets a Quality Score depending on how relevant it is to the user. For example, if a person has searched for ‘Coffee Mugs’, which keyphrase do you think will have the highest relevancy score?

1. coffee mugs India
2. coffee utensil
3. coffee cups
4. green coffee mugs

Option one is obviously a better fit than the others. Google Adwords will determine the quality score of each keyphrase depending upon their popularity.

So while determining the best fit, Google Adwords takes into account relevancy, popularity, quality score, max bidding, ad rank, and more such factors in a fraction of a second to determine how your Ad will work on the Search Engine.

The Google Algorithm and Adwords Quality Score ensures that the best content is shown to the user (if your Ad is suitable – it’s given a good spot!)

So a small business can definitely get the top spot if they have the best advertising campaign!

Types of Google Search Ads – Choose What Influences Your Audience!

Google Search Ad campaigns can be of four types – Search Ads, Display Ads, Video Ads and App Ads.

For Display Ads, Google uses third-party networks to display advertisements and drive traffic. Here, the space for display is hosted by third parties through Google Adsense.

Video Ads are display ads that promote your brand through video campaigns. These are displayed on the Video tab of the Google Search Engine, Youtube timeline, and often in the middle of the Youtube videos.

App Ads are majorly advertisements created to drive audiences to App installs. They can be images, videos, or even a text ad.

Search Ads are the bread and butter of Google Advertising revenue.

Search Ads are the Advertisements that are displayed right on the Search Result page of the Google Search Engine. These look just like the other results that are displayed but are given a better spot depending upon the bidding. Google Search Ads are marked with the word ‘Ad’, ‘sponsored’ etc to denote their nature.

Why Should You Choose Google Search Ads?

As we said earlier, Google is the most used search engine in the world! And with over 3.5 billion search queries being served every single day – it definitely has the search volume that you are looking for!

Google is one of the most established platforms in the Paid Advertising arena. It is not only the best but the most resourceful and established platform for marketing online.

According to Google, advertisers make for every spend on Google Adwords. That means that your advertising expense isn’t just an expense but an investment that shall earn an ROI of over 800%. Unbelievable, isn’t it!

Still not convinced? Here are some more reasons why the world, including you, should choose Google Search Ads!

• Pay-Per-Click Marketing Channel where you pay only when your customers click on the Advertisement. If PPC is your mode of online marketing, Google Search Ads is the only viable option you can go for. (except for Facebook Ads, covered in another article)
• 86.86% of people online use Google Search Engine for their daily internet searches – your ad is displayed right there!
• Your competitors are using Google Ads already. And if you are still working organically, you are already pushed one spot down because the competitor has bid for a better spot.

Remember: You are typing keywords into the Google Search Engine every day to look for products/services online – it only makes sense to market your business on that very same platform.

Google Search Ads and Market Stats

Google Ad Revenue has been experiencing significant year-on-year growth. The reason? Google Adwords is increasingly used by marketers to run campaigns and get effective results.

It is one of the most popular platforms for advertising.

According to Statista, in 2019 Google accounted for the majority of Alphabet Inc’s (Parent Company) revenue with USD 113.26 billion in Google Website Ad revenues alone. And a majority of these Ad revenues i.e. over 80 billion come from its advertising programs like Google Adwords, Google Adsense, etc.

But in 2020, the graph has changed a bit, and for the first time in the history of Google, the company has shown a dip in the Ad Revenues generated from Search Ads. The lockdown of economies led to marketers cutting down on their spending on Search Ads which in fact diverted a lot of attention to Display Ads and Video Ads as more people opted for renting site spaces for extra income, online streaming for entertainment, and more.

eMarketer estimated Google’s net US Digital Ad revenue to be USD 39.58 billion in 2020 – a decline of 5.3% from 2019.

The world of Search Ad marketing is a Duopoly. Today, it is dominated by the two giants i.e. Google and Facebook.

According to eMarketer, if we compare the share of Total US Digital Ad Spending over the period of the last 5 years, there seems to be a huge gap!

That’s not all. Even if we take into account all the major global digital ad sellers, Google enjoys the top spot, followed by Facebook and Alibaba.

This indeed tells us that not only is Google Search Ads a favorite amongst the marketers in terms of ad budget spend, it is also a hub for the marketers to gain the best results and compete against each other.

So if you aren’t advertising on Google, you’re missing out because your competitor is!

How to Set-Up Google Search Ads

It’s pretty simple!

Go to Google Adwords and click on ‘Start Now’. Not only is the platform easy to use, but it also takes you through the setup and drops useful hints along the way.

Login with your account and home page URL to open up the Adwords account.

Google sends you prompts to help you run your first campaign! (That’s what you are here for right?)

Click on ‘Create Campaign’ and you are served with an option to choose your ‘Marketing Objective’:

Upon selection, you are prompted to select the type of campaign you want to run i.e. Search, Display, or Video. (We discussed this earlier!)

Set up your budget, target audience, preferences, keywords, duration of Ad, etc. and design the metrics of your Advertising.

Once you have set the ad campaign, and have tracking on, it’s time to start bidding. The most complicated part of Google Search Ads is here but stick with us!

Bidding involves setting up the cost of acquiring clicks on your website or the price you pay to get every new customer for your business! Metrics like impressions, conversion rate, conversion value, clicks, etc define costs.

There are a few bidding strategies you can opt for to find the right keyword and amount:

Automated Bidding – Google Adwords takes the front seat and adjusts the bid based on the competitors. You can set the maximum budget for your campaign and Google optimizes the budget to give you the best chances within the range.

Manual Bidding – Here you set the bid amount for your Ad groups and keywords. You can reduce your spending by limiting the number of keywords, prioritizing the ad targeting, etc.

Bidding on Branded Search Items – Branded search items are the keywords or keyphrases that are unique to your business. Designing an advertisement for these is often considered debatable. While some people take it as a waste of time to campaign on keywords that are unique to you and would show up on Google Search unanimously, others take the safe road by including them in their campaigns before the competitors use these to drive your audience to their website.

Once the Campaign is all set and made Online, one should keep refining it from time to time to optimize its performance until it performs well within your budget.

Let’s Get You Set up With Google Ads!

Google Search Ads is a promising way to drive a credible Google audience to your platform just when they are looking for it.

With its Pay-Per-Click Marketing Channel, great ROI, and a dedicated analytics window to optimize your content – Google Search Ads is a great choice that marketers should definitely make to market their products/services.

All Stars Digital is a Digital Marketing and Brand Scaling Agency dedicated to leveraging Marketing, Branding, and Business awareness across the wide world of the Internet. Our team of experts helps you create innovative brand campaigns, market products, and make use of channels through the internet to create leads for your business online.

Have you been thinking about marketing on Google Adwords lately? Let’s get you set up!