What is Google Ads and how does it work?

What is Google Ads?

Google Ads is a pay-per-click advertising platform created by Google where advertisers bid on certain keywords relevant to their business offerings in order to get their advertisements ranked at the top of the search results.

Let’s start understanding how the Google’s network is divided into two parts (Google Search Network and Google Display Network):

1. Google Search Network: includes the results of search engines that are unders Google’s control, including non-Google search sites like YouTube and Amazon and also Google Play Store or Google Search.
2. Google Display Network: allows you to advertise on different publisher properties including websites, mobile apps, videos (YouTube) and more. These are the ads you can see while watching/reading content.

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How does Google Ads work?

Google Ads works as an auction system, where every time a user does a research, the advertisers compete to appear at the top of the search results page. In order to get the most of this platform, it is important to identify those words that people are searching for. However, apart from spending money, Google also considers the quality score to make sure that the users clicking on the ads will have the best possible experience.

Therefore, Google Ads is not just about spending the most money. When submitting a bid for a keyword,Google asks you how much you are willing to spend when a user clicks on your ads. Furthermore, the algorithm considers the quality of the ads and their relevance based on the relevance of the keywords, the click-through-rate (CTR), the copies, etc. The Ad Rank, meaning the position Google will place your ad, can be computed by simply multiplying the maximum bid value (CPC bid) by the quality score:

• Quality Score: is a number between 1 and 10 that estimate the quality of your ads, landing pages and keywords. Accordingly, Google will reward you with lower costs and higher ad rankings. The higher the score is the better you’ll rank and the less you will pay.
• CPC bid: the bids that you make define the maximum you are willing to pay for an ad. However, you have different options for the bids:
  • Cost-per-click (CPC): deciding how much you pay based on every time a user clicks on your ad.
  • Cost-per-mile (CPM): deciding how much you pay per 1000 ad impressions.
  • Cost-per-engagement (CPE): choosing how much to pay when a user performs a specific action on your ad.

Tips for successful Google Ads campaigns

Are you ready to start running your own Google Ads campaign? Follow the following tips that will help you make the most out of your campaigns and achieve the best results.

• Use Geotargeting: adjust your bids to certain locations according to your target in order to optimize your bids and save costs.
• Track and analyze your campaigns: use the right tools (such as Google Analytics) to analyze the performance and make data-driven decisions.
• Never stop testing: the only way of making sure that something is working is testing as many times as needed to identify areas of improvement.
• Focus on mobile users too: make sure you use mobile-preferred ads and that your landing page is mobile-optimized.
• Add negative keywords: exclude topics and tell Google what your ad is not about will help you to avoid unnecessary costs.

Creating successful Google Ads campaigns, requires specific training. With the Master in Digital Marketing of Nuclio Digital School you can get your foot inside this door. Grow your skills and learn how to get started with Google Ads and create the best campaigns to reach your target audience and grow your business.