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Ultimate Guide to Google ads
| By abhinav mr digital Abhinav Raheja

The Ultimate Guide to Google Ads & Generating ROI for Your Business

To effectively reach your target audience through advertising, it's crucial to choose the right platform. Over the time that we've been in the game as a full-service digital marketing agency, we've seen many businesses wasting money on Google Ads. However, we will say this for them: they recognised the potential of Google Ads. They just didn't succeed because they didn't target their audience correctly or at the right time.

Originally launched in 2000 as Google Adwords, the advertising platform underwent a rebranding in 2018 and became today’s Google Ads. With over 5.8 billion search queries being processed through Google every single day, it’d do your business a world of good if you knew how to target the right audience and advertise effectively on Google.

This guide for Google Ads will help you understand the basic concepts of AdWords and provide you with effective methods for creating top-notch leads for your company. Additionally, we will provide you with detailed information about the various ad types and optimisation strategies to help you achieve your goals.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: The Nuts and Bolts of Google Ads

If you ask anyone who’s ever managed a PPC campaign about the biggest challenge they have faced, they will most likely point out Google Ads Management. Not only does it eat up lots of your time, but it also stops you from focusing on other key aspects of an advertisement. Ineffective ad management is the major reason why businesses waste tons of money every year.

It’s essential that you think of Google Ads Management as a learning process. This laid-back approach will help you go a long way in an advertising landscape that is marked by constant changes. Unless you keep yourself up to speed with changes, you will never get to manage your ads properly.

Note: Keep in mind that Google ads run across all types of platforms such as Blogs, Youtube and Display Networks. So you need to consider them when creating and monitoring ads.

By the end of this chapter, you will have a clear understanding of how Google Ads works and what to expect from the platform. We will also discuss the different advertising networks and provide key tips for gaining an edge over your competitors. Before diving into the details of Google Ads Management, however, there are some important points to remember, including the various advertising networks and options, and explaining how to rank your ads against competitors.

Moreover, you will learn some practical tips for managing ads more effectively.

Making Sense of the Google Network

Since this is a complete guide to Google Ads Management, let’s start by talking about the two core aspects of Ads, namely, the Search Network and the Display Network.

Google Ads can be classified into these options which are selected based on specific marketing goals.

Search Network

The Search Network includes various Google platforms such as Google Search Results, Google Shopping, and Google Maps. Essentially, these platforms display text-based advertisements at the top of Google's search engine results page when you search for a specific product or service.

See the screenshot below:

Google ads sample

Google's advertising policies restrict the number of top ads to a maximum of 3 results, and there can be up to 4 ads shown below the organic search results, totalling 7. However, Google may also display "Shopping ads" at the top and/or bottom of the search results page, which allows for more ads to be displayed.

To give you a better idea of how that would look, if you search for a specific product, for instance, Beyerdynamic DT 990, you will be delivered results as shown in the image below:

Google shopping ads sample

The product-image-based ads in the above image are called shopping ads, a different advertising feature in Google’s Search Network. Here’s another example to give you an idea of how Google’s Search Network operates. Search for “Fishing Rods” and you’ll be served different ads related to the topic. See the image below:

Google shopping ads sample1

Next thing you know, based on various factors like compelling ad copy and affordable pricing, you click on one ad. Now you’re on the landing page of “Total Fishing Tackle”. Well, this is how Google Ads work and it’s all about enhancing the curiosity of searchers and persuading them to visit your landing page.

landing page google ads

Display Network

Display Network basically refers to advertising techniques that aren’t text-driven like the ones you see on Search Network. These ads feature exclusively on Display Network platforms like Gmail, Youtube and hundreds of other Google-partnered websites.

For instance, any ads you may have come across on Youtube belong to Display Network. Similarly, you may have also seen ads in your Gmail account. Now, you have probably seen image-based ads on the sidebars of websites you’re randomly visiting. Well, yes, you’ve probably guessed it already. Those ads are found specifically on Google Partnered websites.

In short, Google Ads give you the means of targeting your audience based on relevant keywords and driving them to a landing page to take profitable action. So what happens if they don’t convert after visiting your landing page?

Well, Google ads give you a retargeting option.

Google Ads Retargeting

Retargeting is when Google gives you a second chance to get your advertising right. It means reaching out again to someone who already clicked on your ad but did not buy anything. The goal is to show that person different messages and try to turn them into a customer. Google Ads can help you do this with its remarketing feature. We will explain how in the next chapters.

Top Tip: For now, let’s familiarise you with some essential Google Ads glossary terms before we dive into different aspects of ads management.

  • Ad Rank – It is a term used to refer to the position where your Google Ad is featured on a paid search results page. For instance, if your Ad is displayed in the first position, your ad carries the number 1 rank value. Whether or not your ad gets shown in search results depends on the rank value of your ad.
  • Campaign Type – Understanding and selecting the right campaign type is the first step to running effective Google ads. You need to choose a campaign type based on your specific goal, be it leads, sales, web traffic, or brand awareness. You’ve got various campaign types including search campaigns, display campaigns, and shopping campaigns to choose from.
  • Click-Through Rate – Clickthrough rate gives you insights into how well your Google ads are performing. For instance, if you had an ad campaign that generated 50 clicks after 1000 impressions, your click-through rate would be 5%.
  • Conversion Rate – Take the total number of conversions on your landing page and divide it by the total number of interactions your ad had over time. For instance, if your landing page had 50 conversions from 1,000 interactions, your conversion rate would be 5%.
  • Ad Extensions – Extensions are the additional bits of information you can include in your ad text, thus further optimising your text for conversion. When implemented effectively, it can improve the click-through rate. Extensions come in various formats such as call buttons, location details, and landing page links.
  • Keywords – Keywords are essentially the words that determine where you want your ads to appear. You need to choose the most relevant keywords to reach an audience who are truly interested in whatever you’re trying to promote.
  • PPC – You conduct search ad campaigns to drive traffic to your landing page. With Pay Per Click search ads, you pay every time a person clicks on your ad to check out your landing page or website.
  • Quality Score – The Quality Score is a value assigned to ads based on the level of experience it offers users. It’s essentially a combination of three factors: landing page experience, click-through rate, and ad relevance.

It’s good to learn about the workings of Google Ads before you get into the practical side of things.

Chapter 2: Setting up Your Google Ads Account

If you are new to Google Ads, we will guide you through the process of creating a Google Ads account for free and launching your first campaign. By the end of this chapter, you will have learned how to set up your Google Ads Account for all your business needs.

First up, let’s put to bed the number one beginner question: Should I select Google Ads or Smart Campaign?

This is perhaps the most common question faced by first-time Google Ads users everywhere. You can either create your account on Smart Campaign Mode or switch to expert mode. So which one should you choose as a beginner who’s new to the platform? Are they both the same thing? Smart campaign is a simplified version of Google Ads aimed at helping first-time users. Think of it as a laid-back version of the platform where Google does most of the legwork for you. It’s exclusively designed for online stores and e-commerce shops.

Since Google Ads take up lots of time, Smart Campaign is the go-to platform for local businesses with little to no technical knowledge of how Google Ads work. However, the platform’s simplicity is part of its problem.

After a while, you will start to see the platform’s limits on improving ad performance. This is where people switch to Google Ads to use the advanced features so they can take their advertising to the next level. Experienced PPC marketers would confirm that advanced Google Ads are superior to basic Smart Campaigns.

Step-By-Step Guide to Create Your First Google Ads Account

From setting your ad budget, and discovering relevant keywords to targeting the right audience and creating compelling ad copy, we take you through it all, step by step.

Now, if you don’t have an account, head over to Google Ads to sign up for a brand-new account with your email and site URL.

Now you will see a whole range of options as in the screenshot below:

setup google ads account

What are you trying to achieve from your ad campaign? Is it leads, website traffic, brand awareness or app promotion? Whichever your goal may be, select it from the list above and click continue.

Next up you need to select the campaign type. Will it be display, search, shopping, or something else? Choose the campaign type that suits your business objective and clicks continue. See the screenshot below:

setup google ads account1

Now, simply select the specific way in which you would like to reach the goal:

setup google ads account2

Next up, name your campaign and select the network where you’d like the ads to appear. Ask yourself, is it going to be Search Network or Display Network?

Of course, both these options are unique in their own way, so you can try them out based on your business goals. As someone starting out, it’s good to opt for a Search Network first. However, keep in mind that you may want to advertise in the Display Network for retargeting purposes.

Check out the screenshot below:

setup google ads account3

Are you specifically selling a product or service in your locality, for instance, Liverpool? Choose that specific location. If you’re selling your products Globally, choose “All Countries and Territories. Choose the preferred language of your target audience.

setup google ads account4

When choosing your target audience for your Google Ads, it's important to select the appropriate locations where you want your ad to appear. Google Ads offers various audience targeting options that you can use to expand or narrow down your audience. Please refer to the screenshot below:

setup google ads account5

It’s always good to start on a small budget and then work your way upward. Enter the amount you would like to spend each day and select a bidding type. (Clicks, Conversions, Impressions, etc) Check the screenshot below:

google ads campaign setup

Next up, it’s time to write your ad extensions.

As mentioned earlier, each of these extensions, namely site link extensions, call-out extensions, and call extensions can really improve the click-worthiness of your ad copy.

google ads extensions

Now, name your Ad Group. Enter your website URL and dial-in keywords related to the products or services that you want to promote. Check the screenshot below:

google ads keywords

Hold on, we’re almost there. We just need to write the headlines and descriptions for your ad. This is an area that requires your undivided attention and creativity. See the screenshot below:

google ads copy

Make sure to read our chapter on “Creating Powerful Ad Copy” to get your creative juices flowing and learn how to write effectively.

Chapter 3: How to Do Keyword Research for Your First Ads Campaign

To make Google Ads work, you need to use the most relevant keywords that will resonate with your audience. For instance, if you’re trying to sell shoes online, you need to target keywords that people would use while trying to look up shoes online.
The big idea is to find the right keyword for your ad campaign without necessarily leaving a dent in your budget.

Keyword research is not an easy task because you have to compete with other advertisers who may be bidding higher than you. That said, we will teach you the necessary steps for successful keyword research so that you can start your campaign effectively.

How to Use Google’s Keyword Planner

For conducting keyword research for your first campaign, you don’t have to go to a third party to get the job done. Google’s own keyword planner will help you conduct keyword research effectively. This easy-to-use keyword research tool gives you a diverse range of keyword ideas to hit the ground running. If you’ve never done keyword research, we will show you how to get started. See the screenshot below:

google ads keyword planner

Now simply enter the keyword related to your business and the tool will bring you a set of relevant keywords to work with. It’s Google Ad’s way of helping you discover what’s right for you.

google ads new keywords

Once you click enter, you will be delivered a long list of closely related keywords. This list may appear huge and you may find it a bit too overwhelming at first. Your goal is to delve into the list and discover the most relevant keywords for your ad campaign.

Also, you want to keep an eye on the two top right columns of your page, namely, "Top of Page Bid (low range)" and "Top of Page Bid (high range)". Take a look at the screenshot below:

google ads keyword planner2

These two metrics will tell you exactly how much money you need to bid to feature on top of the first page or bottom of the first page. When you are just starting out, these figures will help you understand what it costs to run your ads effectively. If you want your ads to feature in the first position, you need to pay attention to “Top of the Page Bid”.

Select your keyword based on monthly search volume and specific competition level. You need to have a perfect mix of high and low-search volume keywords to get the best out of your Google Ads campaign.

Classify Your Keywords into Different Funnels

If you put your keywords into a funnel according to specific goals, you can see them in relation to their marketing goal. What does this mean?

Let’s look at some examples:

The following are different types of keywords used for a PlayStation Product at 3 stages of the funnel:

Top Of The Funnel Keywords For Playstation

  • PlayStation Reviews
  • Which PlayStation is best
  • PlayStation 1 and PlayStation 2

Mid-Level Funnel Keywords For PlayStation

  • PlayStation discounts
  • PlayStations on sale
  • Best store to buy PlayStation

Lower-funnel keywords for PlayStation

  • Buy PlayStation
  • Where to buy PlayStation 3

The keywords that lie at the bottom of this funnel are more conversion-ready compared to the ones at the top and mid-level funnels. On the other hand, keywords like “PlayStation review” and “PlayStation discounts” are not exactly ready for conversion yet.

It’s worth noting that keywords at the bottom of the funnel will drive more landing page conversions, eliminating the need for retargeting your audience. Additionally, while selecting the keywords, make sure that they are aligned with your business goals.

Ask yourself these straightforward questions:

  • What are you trying to achieve with this campaign?
  • Is this campaign supposed to generate sales?
  • Are you building brand awareness so you can turn the audience into customers?

Try to learn more about the search intent behind every keyword before you include it in your campaign. Remember, if you want to sell more PlayStations, you should target keywords in the lower funnel. If your goal is to educate people about your product, then by all means use top-of-the-funnel keywords.

Once you’ve got a decent grasp of keywords, you can expand your industry knowledge by analysing your competitors. We will show you just how to spy on your competitors’ advertising techniques to your advantage.

Using SEranking To Spy On Competitor’s Ads

The keyword planner has hopefully laid the foundation for all types of research. Do you know what would be even better? Spying on competitors and reverse-engineering their tactics. If you don’t know how to go about it, simply run a basic search on Google around the keywords you found using the Keyword Planner.

See the screenshot below:

google competitors ads

You can probably see various companies competing and bidding for the keyword you looked up. You’re most probably looking at your competitors whom you should learn from. There are tools you can use to tap into their Google Ads techniques and find out what makes them tick.

SE Ranking is a powerful tool most advertisers use to get insights into ads created and managed by competitors in the past. You also get key performance metrics to help you see which keywords worked best for them and how. This should give you a clear-cut idea about which keywords to focus on and how much to spend. See the screenshot below:

google competitors ads1

All you need to do is enter the website URL of your competitor. Next up the toll will reveal versions of your competitor’s ads giving you metrics such as ad position and coverage. Use this data as a starting point for finding keywords and CTAs that you can incorporate into your own ad. This will help you improve your ad’s performance and remove the guesswork for you.

Start Bidding on Your Branded Terms

Google Ads has a confusing area regarding branded keywords, with varying answers from different sources. Branded keywords contain your brand name. You may have seen many instances where brands like Adidas and Sony run ads for their own brand name. See the screenshot below:

google competitors ads2

You may be wondering, why do they want to run ads for keywords that are already ranking organically. Well, there’s actually more to it than you may think. Simply perform brand-name-specific research on any brands you know of. You will see that their competitors are breathing down their necks to capture potential leads away from them. This is where running ads for branded terms can help them out.

The best part about these branded terms is that they are pretty cheap. Also, because your branded terms are directly linked to your website, you shouldn’t have any problem getting a decent quality score for your ads.

Alright, now that you know how to conduct keyword research, let’s look at some ways to improve your Google Ads copywriting skills.

Chapter 4: Setting up Ad Groups and Writing Ads Copy

Setting up your Google Ads Group is a time-consuming process that demands your attention. Various performance metrics including CTR and quality score are determined by how well you set up your ads group and write your ad copy. If your ads are not set up and maintained systematically, they can become difficult to manage. Now, creating Google ads copy is an art of its own, especially given the character limits.

Things can get quite tricky for someone who is new to ad copywriting. Don’t worry!
In this chapter, we’ll take you through the step-by-step process of setting up your first ads group and writing powerful ad copy.

Creating a Single Keyword Ad Group

Google Ads suggests starting your ads group with 10-20 keywords, which can be a difficult task for beginners. As a result, many newbies make this mistake. The main problem with this is that it goes against the purpose of creating an Ad Group, which is to achieve specificity. When you include too many keywords in your Ad Group, it can reduce specificity and make your campaign less effective.

To avoid irrelevant ads, it's important not to include multiple similar keywords in your Ad Group. For example, if someone is looking for running shoes, it wouldn't be helpful for them to see an ad for trekking shoes. While these two keywords may be related in general, they shouldn't be grouped together for advertising purposes. Only include keywords that are closely related and specifically cater to a certain search intent.

So, how do you ensure maximum engagement for ad groups?

Well, you can’t go wrong with a single keyword ad group. It essentially simplifies ad groups and helps you retain their specificity. See the screenshot below:

google ads keywords3

Choose a single keyword and use different match types on it.
Phrase Match keyword – “SEO Agency London”
Exact Match keyword – [ SEO Agency London ]

If you’re not confident about using both match types in your ad group, start by using just one match type.

Of course, we will leave this bit to you as techniques work differently for different people. But the idea is to experiment with different options and settle for what works best for you. Sometimes, these two matches can combine to deliver the desired results.

How to Write Google Ads Copy

Writing ads on Google Ads is a tiring process. You have character limits and writing anything compelling in a short limit can feel next to impossible. Due to this, most people write a single ad and then move on. After all, all you need is one great ad, right? I wish.

When creating ad copy, it can be difficult to come up with something attention-grabbing, especially when you have to work within a limited character count. As a result, many people end up only writing one ad copy. Let's turn to Google to see what advice they have on the matter.

Google has come out suggesting that for an ad group to run effectively you need to create a minimum of three ads. Now you may ask why you need multiple ads for a single ad group. Well, you need multiple ads because an ad group rotates your ads and displays the one that performs well.

You can think of this feature as Google Ads' own in-built A/B testing capability. Based on various metrics you can reshape your ads just the way you want. Let’s say your first ad copy generated 10% CTR, well, using the new ads insights you can further improve the CTR. This is a proven technique to generate the best out of your ads and create high-performing ads in the long run.

Here are a bunch of features you need to be aware of while creating your ad copy:
Final URL: the landing page where people will be taken to when they click on your ads.

Headline 1: First headline field
Headline 2: Second headline field
Display Path: Customise how you want your URL to appear for searchers (15 characters)
Description: Describe what you’re trying to promote (80 characters)
Keeping things simple is the key to writing high-converting ad copy.

It’s absolutely vital that you include keywords in your ad text as they will make your ads appear more relevant. See the screenshot below:

google ads keywords4

Benefits are a great way to entice users to keep reading and clicking through.
Showing off benefits to searchers is a great way to persuade them into taking a profitable action on your landing page. Make changes to your call to action and benefits to find out what resonates better with your target audience.

Experiment with different types of benefits or discounts. Once you’re done creating your ads, you can start adding ad extensions to improve your CTR.

Adding Extensions to Your Ads

An official study from Google revealed that including ad extension increases CTR by 10-20%. When deployed correctly, these ads can certainly improve your ad’s performance by delivering different options that searchers can relate to. With the extension’s additional links on display, you will get a chance to re-engage even those who were not particularly interested in your ad at first.

Ad extensions come in a variety of formats and are used to achieve different goals. See the screenshots below:

google ads extensions3

Now let’s look at some common extensions offered by businesses:

  • Location extensions: This extension is used to display the address of your business. This type is used to drive footfall in your store.
  • Callouts: Use this extension to add texts such as coupons, discount offers and CTAs.
  • Calls: Display your phone number to drive direct phone calls
  • Message: This extension lets users send you text messages through ads
  • Sitelinks: Include links to other pages on your website
  • Price: Display the price of your product or service on the ad
  • App: If you have an application for download, insert it here.

Top Tip: Review extensions are a powerful option you can use to display review ratings of your product or services. This can work as great social proof and increase the credibility of what you’re promoting. Once you’ve written an ad copy and included the right extensions, you can hit save and push it live.

Chapter 5: Guide to Google Ads Bidding

Selecting the right bidding strategy can make or break your ad campaign. From improving your quality score to cutting down on ad spend and increasing your engagement rate, bidding strategy plays a massive role in getting things right.

Google offers multiple bidding options you select based on your specific goal, whether it is driving website traffic, generating sales or building brand awareness. Most common bidding options are driven by cost-per-click features and focus on generating more clicks for your Google ads.

  1. Automated Bidding
  2. Manual Bidding

Automated Bidding

If advertisers drop out and costs decrease, your bid will adjust accordingly to generate more clicks. Automated bidding is all about taking the legwork out of advertisers. That’s right Google will do the guesswork for you. All you need to do is set up a daily budget and Google will make changes to your Cost Per Click bidding based on marketing metrics. For instance, if competing advertisers pull themselves out of the ads race, the Automated bidding system will take over to help you generate more clicks.

However, the manual bidding option can save lots of time, especially if you’re managing a large account.

Manual Bidding

As the title suggests, the manual bidding option gives you greater control over your bidding game. Make adjustments to your bids either at the group level or keyword level. More importantly, select bids on your high-performing ads and cut down on underperforming ones. You can choose bids on specific sets of keywords using match types that really work. Of course, manual bidding will equip you with the necessary practical experience to handle more complex bidding techniques. However, manual bidding becomes trickier as your ad campaigns multiply and your ad account grows.

How to Choose the Right Bidding for Your Campaign

Upon launching your new campaign, you are greeted with this question: Automated Bidding or Manual Bidding? Now, most beginners tend to opt for the automated because they would much rather let Google Ads get the work done for them. After all, who in their right mind would want to spend their time managing bids for various campaigns?

Although it may seem harmless, giving Google ads unrestricted access to your ad spending can actually have negative consequences. But don't worry, we will guide you through a variety of bidding strategies so you can select the one that is most appropriate for your business.

Target Cost Per Acquisition

If your main objective is to improve conversion rates, you can use the Target Cost Per Acquisition bidding strategy. This approach enables you to achieve conversions at a set cost. This is an automated bidding method that Google Ads uses to regulate campaign bids based on the specific cost per acquisition you specify. However, if you don't understand CPA, you might find this option puzzling. CPA refers to the amount of money you're willing to spend to get a conversion.

For instance, if you’re selling a product or service for £70, you don’t want to set your CPA at £70. That really defeats the purpose of running a campaign as you wouldn’t make any profit out of the acquisition. When setting up your ad, all you need to do is set your target CPA.

Maximise Your Conversions

The easiest bidding strategy provided by Google Ads is probably maximising conversions. This strategy allows Google to manage your bidding based on your daily budget and helps you generate the most amount of conversions possible. For instance, if you set a budget of £100, Google will spend it wisely to find the most conversions within your budget range. However, it is important to make sure that you have set an adequate budget for Google Ads to work with before utilising this strategy. Screenshot below:

google ads bidding

Top Tip: When the campaign ends, evaluate your ROI to see if this bidding strategy is actually bringing in conversions at a profitable rate.

Maximise Conversion Value

Google Ads has had a conversion tracking feature for many years, which allows advertisers to track the actions and behaviours of users who click on their ads.

However, in 2018, Google introduced a new feature called "Conversion Value" that enables advertisers to assign a monetary value to specific actions or conversions that occur on their website after a user clicks on an ad. With Conversion Value, advertisers can measure the return on their advertising investment more accurately and optimise their campaigns accordingly. Screenshot below:

google ads bidding1

Enhanced Cost Per Click

Enhanced Cost Per Click strategy lets you enjoy the best of both worlds in that it combines manual and smart bidding. Once you set CPC for your ad campaign, Google Ad’s algorithm will take over and optimise it for you. You’re giving Google the control to tweak your bid rates based on the possibility of conversion. If a search term is too competitive and CPC too high, Google ads will reduce your bid accordingly. You can use this bidding strategy on Search and Display Network. See the screenshot below:

google ads bidding2

Maximise Clicks

This is another automatic bidding strategy set up based on your daily budget. It is aimed at generating as many clicks as possible with your daily budget. This might not be the ideal option for those who want to focus exclusively on conversions as it doesn’t really take into account the relevance of the clicks. Maximising clicks is mostly preferred by advertisers operating on a limited budget. See the screenshot below:

google ads bidding3

Manual CPC Bidding

If you’re particular about how your ad spend is managed, Manual CPC bidding might just be what you need. Of course with greater control over bidding strategy comes great attention to detail, meaning that you will be spending lots of time managing your ad. It might not be the best option if you don’t know your way around the technical aspects of Google Ads.

This is the strategy where you set bids for campaigns or keywords all on your own. You will do a manual review of search terms and select the ones that performed better. You will also have the freedom to increase or decrease the budget at the campaign level.

For instance, if you are running a campaign consisting of multiple ad groups and keywords, then selecting manual CPC would mean a lot of work. Mind you, if you’re not completely confident about what you’re doing, you may end up wasting your money on clicks with very little chance of converting.

Now, Google check marks “Enhanced CPC” by default, meaning that you should uncheck it to start using manual CPC. While setting it up, you may receive a warning saying that your ad may perform poorly. However, if you’re low on budget, then this might just be the right step forward. See the screenshot below:

google ads bidding4

Cost Per Thousand Impressions

This bidding strategy is based on the number of impressions your ad generates. This bidding option is available just for the Display Network and YouTube.

Cost Per View Bidding

This is a bidding strategy selected for running brand awareness campaigns. Just like Cost Per Impression bidding, this strategy is exclusively used for display network and YouTube ads. Using this bidding strategy you can set your maximum cost to 1000 impressions. As for YouTube ads, specifically for TrueView ads on YouTube, advertisers are typically charged based on the cost-per-view (CPV) bidding model.

This means that advertisers are only charged when someone views their video ad for a certain amount of time or interacts with their ad in some way. For example, they may be charged when a viewer watches their ad for at least 30 seconds or when they interact with a call-to-action button on the ad.

However, the exact amount of time a viewer needs to watch a video ad for it to count as a view can vary. Google Ads defines a view as an impression when at least 50% of the ad's pixels are visible on the screen for at least 2 seconds.

How to Choose Between Manual Bidding and Smart Bidding

Should you trust Google with automated bidding or manage ads manually to achieve your specific marketing goal? Now, Google ads don’t offer a one-size-fits-all solution for advertisers. Your choice of bidding type will be influenced by these factors:

  • The quality of the conversion data you gathered
  • Traffic and conversion data from your campaign

Google’s smart bidding options are dependent on conversion-specific metrics. So, it is essential that you set up conversion tracking effectively. For instance, if you accidentally apply conversion tags on irrelevant pages, it could really mess up your tracking. In fact, this could result in you wasting tons of money.

Top Tip: Because it’s easy to get overwhelmed by the variety of bidding techniques out there, we’re bringing you an easy automation tip to scale your ad campaigns.

Adjust Bidding Automation Rules for Effective Management

We all wish there was an easier means of taking constant monitoring and guesswork out of the Google ads campaign. Actually, Google offers wonderful automation tools to help you achieve just that. Follow this series of tips so you automate your ad campaign without having to spend all day. See the screenshot below:

google ads keyword planner4

How would you like to be notified every time your CPCs get out of control? Automation will let you do that. What about the time when your CPAs are running low and you want to increase your bid? You can simply use Google Ads rules to automate your bidding.

By the rule of thumb, if your ad is converting at a great value, you should raise your daily budget. Here’s how you can create a rule and get started. Click on the blue plus icon. Screenshot below:

google ads rules

Create a name for your campaign. Select the campaign you want to automate and set up the action. For the sake of example, you want to raise the budget and maintain a maximum limit you’re comfortable working with. Screenshot below:

google ads rules1

Next up you need to set a condition. You want the conversion cost to be lower than X. Now click on conversions, and then on the menu. Screenshot below:

google ads rules3

Now you set a value that offers a good conversion value for your campaign. Before you click save, you need to set the action, campaign limit, and conversion cost.

Chapter 6: How to Optimise Your Landing Page

The landing page is an integral part of your advertising campaign. A landing page can directly influence the quality score of your ad campaign which can in turn impact the overall performance of your campaign. A landing page is significantly more different from a typical site home page in that the former is designed with two specific goals in mind:

  • To persuade visitors to take profitable action on the landing page
  • To collect visitor information

Landing pages need to be simple in style and form. Mostly landing pages are stripped down to bare details necessary to drive the desired user action. We will show you the best practices deployed by experts to create high-converting landing pages. By the end of this chapter, you will learn to not only build a landing page but optimise it for the best results.

Before you learn more on the subject, here’s what a no-nonsense simple landing page looks like. Screenshot below:

google ads landing page2

What’s so special about the landing page above, you may be asking. Well, for one thing, it’s got no distracting elements like extra links and navigation. Rather, just a good old landing page with an effective CTA.

The Best Landing Page Practices for Google Ads

Matching Messages on Ads and Landing Pages

Let’s say you clicked on an ad upon seeing a special discount in the copy, then when you visit the landing page there is no mention of the specific offer anywhere. This will really frustrate you, won’t it? Well, imagine what it would mean for Google. This disconnect between your ad copy and landing page content will send bad user signals to Google, resulting in a poor quality score for your ads.

This mistake comes from a poor understanding of how keywords work. When users look up a specific keyword, they are searching with a certain level of expectation. For example, if someone is looking up the keyword “Email marketing guide”, they need a guide to help them in their email marketing initiative, not a marketing agency to launch their campaign. Do you see what we’re getting at?

We cannot stress enough the importance of looking at the landing page from the users’ standpoint. The idea is to deliver a matching offer on your landing just like in the ad copy. It’s a terrible idea to trick users into visiting your page, only to offer them what they never asked for.

google ads landing page3

Display Your Social Proof on the Landing Page

Social proof is essentially the number of social media followers, testimonials purchases, shares or tweets your brand carries. You need to feature these somewhere prominently on your landing page. The research conducted by Hubspot revealed, “71% of Millennials buy online based on the recommendation they find online”.

Now if you’re not exactly huge on social media, you can still feature your client testimonials to earn the trust of your landing page visitors.

The social proof offered by industry influencers for instance can certainly resonate with visitors and urge them to buy your products or services. Take a look at how a brand used customer testimonials as social proof to drive conversion. Check out the screenshot below:

google ads landing page4
google ads landing page5

Focus on Keeping Your Design Unfussy

The high-converting landing pages always make a point of keeping the key elements on a single page while getting rid of the unwanted. It’s a call you need to make. If you make your visitors leave your landing for any reason, it will certainly affect the outcome of your campaign. In essence, you need to include everything from product/service explanations, and benefits to testimonials and CTA on your landing page itself.

Of course, you don’t have to lay out these elements in a structured order. You can always make changes to the style to better suit your landing page’s flow. Check the example set by the music app Spotify. How cool and clean is that? A landing page doesn’t get more simple and more basic than that.

google ads landing page6

A/B Test Your Landing Page

A landing page is the last point of contact with a potential customer before the sales. So you can’t afford to compromise the quality of testing you do on the landing page. Just like you constantly monitor and test your ad copy, A/B test your landing using effective tools.

Find out how visitors are behaving once they land on your page. Are they spending time interacting with specific elements on the page or are the same elements causing them to leave the site for reasons? Use the behaviour data you gathered through A/B testing to better shape your body text, images and headlines and CTA.

For understanding the user behaviour or your landing page use the Microsoft Clarity tool to analyse the user data in detail. Go through the metrics to find out what’s working and what’s not quite working.

You should closely observe the heat maps and recording sessions to see if there’s any room for improvement. Check out the screenshot below:

microsoft clarity

Optimise Your Landing Page for Mobile

If you’ve run a Google Ads campaign, you may have engaged in a bidding war for the mobile version of your ad. Google is super insistent on delivering consistent user experience across all types of devices. From mobile-first indexing to Accelerated Mobile Page, Google is taking the right step towards the mobile revolution. And Google wants you in on it.

Research suggests that 30% of users will instantly leave your site for another site or app if it doesn’t satisfy their real needs. As the stats suggest mobile users tend to leave your site as soon as they find the navigation too confusing or form a submission complex. Your goal should be to deliver a great user experience that does not in any way interfere with the browsing experience irrespective of the mobile device you’re using.

Here’s an example of a mobile-optimised landing page:

mobile optimised landing page

From low engagement rate to shopping cart abandonment and poor conversion rate, if your landing page is not mobile optimised, your campaign will turn out to be a complete dud.

  • First up, run a test using page speed insights to find out how well-optimised the mobile version of your landing page is.
  • Minimise the CSS and HTML of your page. Next up, compress the images and get rid of render-blocking JavaScript. If you can optimise the mobile version of your site, you can enhance a user’s conversion journey.
  • While you’re optimising your landing page, make sure to incorporate the right amount of white space in your design. The white space helps your landing page break with the monotony and gives it a sophisticated look. White space can make for easier site navigation and eliminates the risk of accidental clicks. See the screenshot below:
mobile_optimised_landing_page1

For a comprehensive understanding of Landing page optimisation, make sure to check out our go-to guide on Landing Page Optimisation.

Chapter 7: How to Track Conversions Effectively

Conversion tracking forms an essential part of Google Ads. From tracking ad clicks to conversions, implementing conversion traffic correctly is key to measuring the effectiveness of your Google ads campaign.

So you’ve got your first campaign up and running and there are clicks being generated. But do you have proper conversion tracking in place to track which clicks lead to eventual sales? Conversion tracking will help you understand the key metrics of your campaign so you can optimise to improve sales. From managing your bids effectively to finalising ad copy and selecting relevant keywords, conversion tracking will let you stay in control of your ad campaign at all times.
Your conversion goals depend on whatever action the visitor takes on your landing page, whether it is an enquiry submission, newsletter or contact form submission.

What’s important is that you get the tracking tested and ready for your campaign. If you have never done it, no worries, we will give you a step-by-step guide to implementing and getting the best conversion tracking for your Google ads. Keep reading!

Setting up Google’s Conversion Tracking

Conversion tracking starts by simply placing an HTML code on a landing page. This straightforward process involves creating a conversion tracking code in Google ads and copying and pasting it onto your website. The code will track all conversion-based actions you define on your landing page. A conversion, in the traditional sense of the word, takes place every time a visitor reaches a thank you page or order confirmation page. Of course, there are a host of conversion types you can deploy on your website but let’s start with the most basic one and work our way forward.

First up, in order to create a conversion tracking code, go to the Tools tab and head to the measurement section to click on “conversion”. Screenshot below:

google ads conversion setup

Next up, you will be asked to create a conversion type for your specific need. This is where you need to select one from the types of conversions available. Screenshot below:

google ads conversion setup1

Now, give a name for your conversion goal and select a category (Purchase, Sales, Page View, etc) Screenshot below:

google ads conversion setup3

This is where you set up a value for your specific conversion. You can either dial in the same value for each conversion or customise different values for them to track the ROI just the way you want. Screenshot below:

google ads conversion setup4

Depending on the number of services or products you offer, you may assign different values for conversions. Simply edit the conversion tag to define transaction-based values. Now before we show you how to install conversion tracking code on your website, let’s quickly go through the different types of conversion and their uses:

Webpage

Once you have chosen the category from the drop-down menu (sale, signup, Lead, page view) Head to select the relevant markup language. Ideally, you want to select the HTML Code. Screenshot below:

google ads conversion setup5

Now you will receive a tracking code that you need to publish on your landing page. We will show you how to do that later.

Call-on Site Conversions

If you are giving visitors an option to call your business from the landing page, you can track the number of calls. Now you can track this conversion in different ways but it’s vital that you set up the right option for tracking. Here’s the screenshot of the three different options:

google ads conversion setup5

Now, this is a crucial part of the set-up where people mess things up. As you can see there are three different options and you can only select one of them. Generally, you want to track the number of phone calls that come through the website with phone options made available in the ad extension, landing page, and mobile page. However, most advertisers make the mistake of tracking just the number of calls on the website, meaning that they miss out on tracking tons of calls. The big idea is to track each of those conversion elements.

Using Third-Party Tools to Track Your Conversion

If you find the conversion tracking data gathered by Google too limited, you can choose from many third-party tools for improved call tracking.

Using call tracking tools you can avail of various benefits including:

  • Tracking calls based on keywords
  • Tracking the pages a user visited before making the phone call
  • Recording call sessions to see if they have converted
  • Tracking the location, name and number of the caller

CallRail is a powerful call-tracking tool that helps you track your conversions effectively.

Top Tip: Oftentimes people start freaking out when their conversion column is not showing any data in Google ads. It’s worth noting that it can take up to 24 hours before conversion data can start appearing in your Google ads. If there’s still no data after 24 hours, perhaps, your target audience has not converted yet.

One proven way to test this is by clicking your ad with the intention of triggering a conversion on your landing page. If there’s still no conversion being tracked after 24 hours, you need to see if there’s anything wrong with the way you installed the HTML code. Based on the diagnosis, you may want to place your tag on a different side of your page.

While implementing conversion tracking, you must at all stages make sure that you’re tracking all the right metrics, not the vanity metrics.

There you have it! You can use the practical tips in these seven chapters to take your Google ads to the next level. Irrespective of where you’re at with your advertising, no matter what type of struggles you have faced along the way, take in these ideas and implement them effectively for long-term Google ads success.

If you need any help in making your brand more likable and profitable via LinkedIn, contact our LinkedIn marketing experts.
abhinav mr digital
Abhinav Raheja
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CERTIFIED

As Mr Digital’s Campaign Marketing Manager, Abhinav leverages three years of rich experience to masterfully navigate the complexities of digital advertising. His dedication to data analytics and campaign optimisation is reflected in his diverse skill set, which spans from setting up intricate conversion tracking to executing thorough audience research using a sophisticated toolkit that includes SpyFu, SEMrush, and Google Ads.

Abhinav's academic journey began with a Bachelor of Arts and led to a Postgraduate Diploma in the Aviation Industry, which complements his multifaceted expertise in marketing. Beyond his career, he enjoys exploring the world, indulging in creative media and pursuing his ambitions to further his proficiency through Meta certification as well as a steadfast commitment to client-centric success metrics.

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