How Can Google Ads Help You Advance Your Business Goals?

Clarifying Business Objectives: A Prerequisite for Success

The first step in using Google Ads for your business is to lay a strong foundation, which, in this case, requires articulating business objectives. Without goals, you may expect the most uncoordinated PPC campaigns and no sense of achievement, which would undermine optimization technologies.

How to Grow Your Revenue and Sales with Digital Marketing

The Point of Setting Goals Clearly

Think of your Google Ads goals as the compass guiding you through the PPC landscape. They provide a clear direction, ensuring the alignment of your campaigns with your overall marketing strategy and business objectives. Clear goals also enable you to:

• Measure success. Decisions based on set goals are only beneficial if their application results in attaining the desired objectives. Therefore, measuring progress is essential.
• Make informed decisions. Numbers can give you great opportunities regarding measurability and the ways you want to spend your money on focusing, targeting, or creating an advertisement.
• Optimize for results. You can clearly define the areas that need improvement and adjust your campaigns to achieve better results.

Common Business Goals for Google Ads Campaigns

While every business is unique, achieving some common goals through Google Ads is possible.

• Increasing the number of website visitors. Increasing the number of visitors to your website helps create awareness, improve engagement, and build recall value. All of these can lead to an increase in conversions.
• Promoting brand awareness. Benefit through an increase in brand awareness and recognition in the minds of your target audience.
• Generating leads. A Google Ads campaign can help you obtain contact information from potential customers interested in your products or services.
• Boosting sales. You get to increase online and in-person sales by bringing targeted visitors to a specific landing page or offering enticing promotions.

Defining Your Specific Goals & KPIs

In your quest to learn how Google Ads can help you achieve your business objectives, remember that the goals you set should follow the SMART framework (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Based). Consider these examples.

• Vague goal. Growth in sales.
• SMART goal. Online sales shall increase by 15 % in the next six months.

Once you formulate your SMART goals, determine which target key performance indicators (KPIs) you will use to gauge success. Here are a few KPIs regularly used in Google Ads campaigns.

• Impressions. Impressions refer to the number of times Google Ads displays your advert.
• Clicks. This refers to the number of times people click on your ad.
• Click-through rate. Click-through rate (CTR) is the ratio between the number of clicks and the number of times Google Ads displays your ad.
• Conversions. Conversion denotes the number of users who perform the desired action, which could be making a purchase or registering for an event.
• Cost per acquisition. Cost per acquisition (CPA) is the average overall expenditure incurred to make a sale or generate a lead.
• Return on ad spend. Return on ad spend (ROAS) refers to the sales brought about by the advertisement for each dollar spent.

Defining your goals and KPIs helps create a strong structure for your Google Ads campaigns and allows you to monitor, manage, and optimize them to achieve the desired results.

Remember that your Google Ads goals may change with the development of your business or other market circumstances. Therefore, you need to be flexible and occasionally update several-dimensional goals.

How Google Ads Helps Businesses in Different Ways

When it comes to how Google Ads can help you to advance your business goals, the first thing that comes to most people’s minds is the different types of campaigns from which they get to choose, each targeting distinct marketing goals and specific groups of people.

Gaining insights into each campaign type’s advantages and use cases is very important because this is how you will achieve the right balance to meet your objectives. Here are the key types of Google Ads campaigns and their appropriate use for your company.

Search Network Campaigns

It’s common for people to refer to search network campaigns as search campaigns for Google Ads. This is where text ads appear in the search results when web users type in relevant keywords in Google searches. Search network campaigns are the right choice if you are open to Google Ads campaign experiments.

Strengths

• High intent. High-intent users are those who want to know what products or services are available. In such instances, you may expect to achieve a high percentage of your goal volume.
• Precise targeting. This is when only relevant people get to view your advertisement. Targeting options depend on keywords, location, device, demographics, and gender.
• Measurable results. You may expect each campaign to generate responses. Response metrics may include every click on the ad, impressions, purchases, phone calls, and more.

Use Cases

• Direct driving of leads and sales for offered products and services.
• Promoting a website by making visitors click on its link for specific deals.
• Promoting a brand for high-intent keyword searches.

Display Network Campaigns

Display network campaigns involve using image or text ads across various apps, websites, and Gmail to attract users’ attention.

Strengths

• Massive audience. There’s a good likelihood of reaching out to a large section of your target audience through the internet.
• Visuals. The use of appealing images and other graphics helps draw attention.
• Remarketing. Advertisements can target users who have previously visited your website or used your app.

Use Cases

• Enhancing brand image and its reach.
• Getting back potential clients who have visited your website or used your services.
• Attracting attention to image-based products or support.

Video Campaigns

Video campaigns or YouTube Google Ads campaign video ads appear on YouTube and other video partner sites.

Strengths

• Engaging format. Facilitate communication of the brand message and present products and services in the desired light.
• Huge reach. Reach out to a billion people on YouTube, the second-largest search engine.
• Different ad formats. Examples include skippable, non-skippable, and bumper ads.

Use Cases

• Creating top-of-the-mind presence and encouraging interaction.
• Inducing a session to select products and promote their features or benefits.
• Being able to target an audience that is more within the younger generation and relatively mobile.

Shopping Campaigns

Shopping campaign ads appear when a Google search results in the shopping tool. These ads display images of items, their costs, and their sellers’ names. If your goal is to increase purchase intent for your products, these types of ads might work well for you.

Strengths

• Image-based advertisement. You can make your listings attractive by visually displaying products on the search engine result page.
• Users have high buying intent. You get to target people who are looking for items to purchase.
• Simple to run. It’s easy to update and manage product details with feeds from the Merchant Center.

Use Cases

• Boosting sales.
• Increasing the sale of particular merchandise or categories of merchandise.
• Improving the exposure of your eCommerce business.

App Campaigns

These ads focus on coordinating and generating installs and in-app activity for an app on various platforms, including Search, Display, YouTube, and Google Play.

Strengths

• Easy campaign setup. There’s no need to bother about the details of app promotion since Google uses a better way based on the application and defined goals.
• Broad coverage. You get access to users from other Google websites.
• Emphasis on the app action. It’s a great way to drive app downloads, in-app purchases, and other app-related behaviors.

Use Cases

• Promoting apps and generating additional sales.
• Increasing interaction and sales with the app.
• Promoting products to users on mobile devices.

Selecting the Best Google Ads Campaign Types

One answer to “How can Google Ads advance your business goals?” is that there is no one-size-fits-all formula, and the most effective campaign types for your business will always depend on the existing goals of your business and its audience. Keep the following in mind when choosing your options.

• Business goals. What is the aim of your exercise (increase in web traffic, generation of leads, boosting sales, or improving brand awareness)?
• Target audience. Where is your target audience active the most (search engines, social network platforms, or video sharing resources)?
• Budget. Google Ads campaigns come at different price points and potential returns from the investment.
• Product or service. Certain types of campaigns may work better with some products or services than others.

Researching and Adding Keywords to Google Ads: The Bedrock

It is near-impossible to ride in a direction when no map or compass is available. When it comes to Google Ads, it’s like running a campaign without paying attention to keyword research and targeting. Like other SEO KPIs, keywords help your ads reach customers who need your products and services.

The Importance of Keyword Research

Keyword research is one of the most critical elements of every Google Ads campaign. You can find out the exact words and phrases your potential customers are most likely to search for when looking for similar products or services. This information allows you to:

• Reach the right audience. By targeting the right keywords, you can ensure higher conversions because your advertisement will appear to the right people currently interested in your product/service.
• Optimize your ad spend. One goal of keyword research is to help you find more cost-effective keywords to bid for while still producing several campaign conversions.
• Improve ad relevance. This leads to improved account health since your ads will be of better quality, and their relevance will also impact the CTR positively.
• Gain valuable insights. Looking for the keywords that will engage your target audience is helpful because you will know what people seek from the web, their needs, and what you can do about them, which will direct your marketing efforts.

Remember, it’s not about how many keywords you should use with Google Ads but finding the right ones.

Finding Relevant Keywords through Google Keyword Planner

Google Keyword Planner’s robustness in keyword research makes it a great free tool for finding keywords in content creation. Using it is fairly simple.

• Input seed keywords. Begin the process by creating seed keywords related to your business, services, or products.
• Obtain keyword ideas. Use Keyword Planner to produce a list of related keywords, the number of searches, the level of competition, and the approximate cost per click.
• Narrowed and streamlined. Shorten your list and use filters based on relevance, the volume of search, and competition.
• Create keyword-themed ad groups. Create relevant and focused keyword-themed ad groups based on the keyword sets created without enabling crossover between different ad groups.

Understanding Search Intent and Keyword Match Types

Searching for keywords that align with your business idea has become commonplace, especially for people dealing with online advertisements. Emphasizing search intent for every keyword is essential because the optimization process will include ads and landing pages focused on these keywords. There are three basic types.

• Informational. This user is interested in knowing about a particular subject.
• Navigational. This user is looking for a specific website or brand.
• Transactional. This user intends to buy a product/service or perform a desired action.

Targeting more specific groups of audiences requires keyword match types. These include:

• Broad match. Covers the largest audience across the spectrum of the match types, but weakens results for absorbed searches.
• Phrase match. This allows you to deliver your ads to audiences who perform searches with your exact keyword phrase within the body of any other supporting text.
• Exact match. Limits the appearance of ads to those who input exactly the targeted keyword.

By carefully selecting specific match types, digital marketers can identify the segments of the population that are most important to them.

Unfortunately for the lay person, Google Ads targeting abilities have become very diverse, going beyond the realm of plain keywords, and simply targeting fixed keywords won’t work anymore.

• Demographic targeting. Target users by age, sex, household income, and parental status.
• Interest targeting. Direct ads to users with aligned interests to promote your business and achieve maximum conversion.
• Location targeting. Target a language, country, region, and or specific location, including street addresses and businesses, or radius used around targeting.

Creating Compelling Google Ad Copy and Visuals

Every marketer who has experience in the crowded digital arena understands that the primary challenge is capturing the attention of a target audience. Often, Google Ads are a potential customer’s first interaction with a brand. Therefore, it is essential to create striking ad copy and images.

Creating Effective Advertising Content

You may compare ad copy to a virtual selling machine. It is usually short, persuasive, and to the point. Here are some tips that will make it more than ordinary.

• Identify your company’s unique selling proposition (USP). Determine what makes your product better than its counterpart. Ensure you highlight the importance of the customers’ needs, which you will address more effectively.
• Focus on the customer’s issues. Know what the audience struggles with and demonstrate how your product helps them overcome the problem.
• Employ strong calls to action (CTAs) at the beginning. State what the users need to do, which could be “Buy Now,” “Find Out More,” or “Send Me a Quotation.” It should be easy and catchy.
• Add keywords. Place targeted keywords within your advertisement copy to increase its relevance and quality score and, as a result, justify the advertisement’s position. The strategy works great when you are brainstorming Google Ads headline ideas.
• Test and iterate. Test various ad variations to determine which works best for your audience. Use A/B testing to establish the best-performing message.

You can also benefit by checking other great content marketing tips to enhance web traffic.

Visual Appeal

The presence of images or video has always been significant in catching an audience’s interest and increasing engagement levels. This is how to use them wisely for your Google Ads.

• Image ad. Use images that are aesthetic and related to the product/ service you advertise. In addition, make sure they are device and resolution-friendly.
• Video ad. Your brand’s short videos should be engaging and narrate the brand story, highlight customers’ reviews, or showcase product features. They should also be appealing and straightforward.
• Ad creative. Design is a creative element of a campaign, so it should be new and at the center of the message. Often, it’s difficult to achieve similarity in the ad creative when changing websites or campaigns.

Google Ad Copy Best Practices for Effective Ad Creative

When you use infographics or footage, or both, focus on the following rules.

• Relevance. Ensure the visuals relate to the ad text and the landing page.
• Quality. The images and videos must be high quality, professionally finished and edited.
• Clarity. Get to the point quickly so readers understand all the details, while eliminating what you can.
• Emotional appeal. Generate feelings that the target audience is likely to encounter, such as happiness, fun, excitement, and trust.
• Brand consistency. Try different modern and visual forms for a particular face of the business or product to fit into its overall brand identity.

Strategic Bidding, Budget Setting, and Maximizing Returns

Bidding refers to how to appear on certain ads and the amount you pay per click on an ad. This has a significant bearing on how much Google Ads costs. Understanding bidding strategies and choosing the right bid and budget is important to enhance your return on investment (ROI) and achieve your campaign targets.

Understanding Bidding in Google Ads

When a user carries out a keyword search that you are targeting, Google Ads conducts an ad auction to select which ads to showcase. The auction considers multiple elements.

• Your bid. The cost per click you have specified remains the highest cost you are willing to incur.
• Your ad quality score. This rating of how good and relevant your ad is based on several metrics, including the CTR, the quality of the landing page, and the ad’s relevance.
• Ad rank. The rank of an ad on the search engine results pages (SERPs) is determined by combining its bid and quality score.

Bidding Strategies: Manual vs. Automated

Google Ads provides two main ways of bidding. They include:

• Manual bidding. You set your maximum bids for each keyword, giving you absolute control over spending. This is more management-intensive than automated bidding but offers more room for targeting and adjustments.
• Automated bidding. Automated bidding is when Google Ads employs machine learning to increase profits and achieve your business goals. This strategy may effectively minimize the time and energy spent, but you don’t get much in the form of flexibility.

Choosing the Right Bidding Strategy

Given that each business is distinct, an ideal bidding strategy depends on your goals. The most common strategies include:

• Maximize clicks. This is useful when creating a campaign to drive traffic to a website. Here, Google sets bids to ensure achieving as many clicks as possible within the given budget.
• Target cost per acquisition (CPA). This option is appropriate for campaigns focusing on obtaining leads or sales. This automated bid strategy involves Google Ads setting bids for you to achieve as many conversions or customer actions as possible.
• Target ROAS. This only affects campaigns that focus on revenue maximization for each advertisement. In this scenario, Google’s modifiers usually maximize bids to achieve the desired return on advertisement expenditure.
• Manual cost per click (CPC). While this bidding strategy gives less control over your bids, you get more to do in terms of management and optimization.

Appropriate Bids and Budgets for Campaigns

When you are setting bids and budgets, you must keep these points in mind.

• Keyword competition. Your bids have to be higher than usual for competitive keywords.
• Campaign goals. When you aim to boost sales, you may set maximum bids per keyword to generate revenue through keyword targeting.
• Daily limits. Daily limits should ideally be in proportion to the total expense and goals of the marketing planned campaign.

Experts advise beginning with lower bids without running the risk of long-term losses and constantly improving over those once you collect some performance metrics.

Bids Monitoring and Adjustment

You should keep a constant eye on campaign performance and revise or raise the bids, applying data from the analysis as needed. For this, you need to monitor:

• Keywords with high click-through rate but low conversions. Consider reducing bids or improving targeting.
• Keywords with low click-through rate but high conversions. Think about raising bids to capture more valuable clicks and increase conversions.
• Keywords with very high CPC. Analyze performance and remove or redo keywords that don’t bring back good ROI.

Conclusion

Google Ads offers a dynamic platform for connecting with your target audience, driving valuable traffic, and achieving your marketing objectives. You can unlock its full potential by understanding its intricacies, from defining your goals to setting bids and optimizing campaigns. Remember, success with Google Ads requires continuous learning and adaptation. Start small, track your results, and refine your strategies to maximize ROI.

Now that you know how Google Ads can help you advance your business goals, determine if you have the time and knowledge to devise and implement a suitable strategy. If not, consider partnering with a professional digital marketing agency to navigate the complexities of this realm and achieve sustainable business growth.