Google Ads
What is Google Ads? Google Ads, AKA Google AdWords, is Google’s advertising system in which advertisers bid on certain Keywords in order for their clickable ads to appear in Google’s search results. Since advertisers have to pay for these clicks, this is how Google makes money from search. This infographic will help you understand how Google Ads works, detailing the Google Ads auction, bidding process and explaining important factors like Quality Score and cost-per-click. If you’re asking “How does AdWords Work?” this page is for you.
Does Google Ads work?
Depending on the competitiveness of the keywords you’re bidding for and the relevancy of that keyword to real conversions for your company, AdWords may or may not work for your business. For the most part, we’ve found that Google AdWords is extremely effective for many kinds of businesses, as long as they don’t waste their money on the wrong keywords, or write weak, low CTR ads.
Types Of Google Ads
Standard Text Ads
Standard text ads used to be very basic, with a strict character limit and not much room to get creative with copywriting or include top keywords for higher rankings. A few years ago, Google expanded these ads into what are now called expanded text ads (ETAs). ETAs offer room for up to three headlines and two descriptions, along with “extensions” that allow you to add things like phone numbers and opportunities to link to different pages of your website. ETAs are a tried-and-true paid search tactic that all marketers should consider.
Responsive Search Ads (RSAs)
RSAs are like ETAs on steroids. They offer more options for headlines (14) and descriptions (5) to allow greater reach and allow A/B testing without having to create separate ads. Google will try different combinations of your headlines and descriptions until it identifies the most effective combination, effectively reaching potential customers with the most engaging copy at the right time. These ad types have a drawback in that each headline must work well with all the others, delivering a clear message no matter what order they appear.
Dynamic Search Ads (DSAs)
Dynamic search ads offer an automated ad type in that they populate search ads automatically with content from your website. These ads are meant to be used with well-developed websites that have clear categories of content and a large inventory of products. DSAs use the content housed on your website to target your ads to users searching for similar products or services. This saves you a lot of time in setup and ensures you are using keywords you may otherwise have missed. However, the automation factor means you have little control over what exactly your ad will say.
Image Ads
Image ads run on the Google Display Network, which means they can show on websites that partner with Google to provide ad space; Google will choose to show them on websites your target audience visits often. Also known as display ads, image ads can be static or interactive graphics and are recommended for brand awareness campaigns, whereas text ads are geared more toward users further down the marketing funnel.
App Promotion Ads
App promotion ads do exactly what they sound like: promote app downloads. These ads are mostly run on mobile devices, like smartphones and tablets, but can also run on platforms with the Google Search and Display Networks, including Google Play, YouTube and Google Discover.
Video Ads
Several different video ad formats allow you to deliver a more engaging experience to users, reaching customers on Google Partner sites and platforms including YouTube. Video advertising is a lucrative ad format with high ROI, highly recommended for companies who have the budget to invest in video assets. Fun Fact In a single day, more than 500 million hours of video content are watched on YouTube alone, and one-third of all online activity is video consumption.
Product Shopping Ads
Product shopping ads show items for sale with a product image, title, price and a link to the store. All this information is pulled from your Google Merchant Center account through the product feed you provide. Your product shopping ad campaign will show on Google Shopping, Images, search partner websites – and at the very top of the search engine results page (SERP).
how does google ads work
Google Ads operates under a pay-per-click (PPC) model. That means marketers target a specific keyword on Google and make bids on the keyword — competing with others also targeting the keyword. The bids you make are “maximum bids” — or the maximum you’re willing to pay for an ad