To celebrate the renaming of Google Adwords to Google Ads (launching July 24th 2018) we thought now would be a good time to consider the 7 reasons why your business should use Google Ads.
Google launched their online advertising platform almost 18 years ago. The platform is a pay-per-click (PPC) model that allows advertisers to pay for product offerings, service listings, video apps amongst more.
When thinking about Google Ads we immediately think of the four ads seen on top of a search engine result page in addition to the ads at the bottom. (Until earlier on this year, were previously situated on the side). However, Google Ads is so much more. Campaign types offered include variations of the search and display network, shopping, video and universal apps.
Google Ads, when executed correctly can do wonders for a business. There’s a good reason why Google Ad’s has brought in over $95 billion (USD) and been Google’s biggest revenue maker during 2017.Millions of advertisers and businesses use the PPC platform. For many businesses, rightly or wrongly, it’s the only form of marketing they use to promote themselves. Why is Google Ads so popular and is it the right fit for your organisation? Here are 7 reasons why your business should use Google Ads.
1. Gigantic Reach
One of the biggest advantages of Google Ads is the platform’s enormous reach. A monopoly within the market, Google holds 90% of the search market and processes over 3.5 billion searches a day.
A majority of those searches won’t be relevant to your business, however, many of them will. According to Google, Ipsos MediaCT and Purchase, 4 in every 5 consumers use search engines to find local information about products and services. Whether daily searches related to your business is 1 million or a dozen, Google’s reach consistently provides your business with ample opportunity to build brand awareness and recognition.
2. Pin-Point Targeting
As previously mentioned, not all searches will be relevant to your business. Furthermore, you likely won’t want to cast your net too wide and target all the related searches but a selection of them. This presents another reason why you should use Google Ads, their specific targeting.
The PPC platform allows for, among other things, multiple keywords to be targeted at once, demographics to be segmented by age, gender, parent status and household income level alongside specific device use whether mobile, tablets or computers. If you’re a small local business wanting to focus on a particular state or region/s within a state, Google Ads allows you to location target accordingly and without constraints. Furthermore, a user can even schedule their targeting to distinct times of the day and days of the week. Completely aware of how different factors influence decision-making, Google has even recently introduced Life Events targeting which consists of audience segmentations including college graduation, marriage and moving.
Not content with simple text advertising, Google Ads offers a more integrated remarketing service which allows users to retarget audiences who have expressed interest in their offering by visiting their website or that of their competitors. Remarketing campaigns can be so influential in moving a potential customer from one stage of the sales funnel to the other, it deserves its own post.
When set up and established correctly, Google Ads can ensure your business is targeting the right people, in the right place at the right time. It doesn’t get any more powerful than that!
3. Targeting People Who Are Interested
Coinciding with the previous points, Google Ads focuses on targeting audiences who have established a degree of desire for your offering.
Traditional advertising and promotional methods like radio and newspaper ads and physical banners, are ‘spray all’ approach to marketing and more likely to reach people are who aren’t interested in your product or service. Conversely, Google Ads focuses on audiences who, based on their behaviour, have suggested they have some interest in your business. This behaviour might include searching for a related product or previously visiting your website.
4. Really Quick Results
We’d like to preface this point by reinforcing the importance of search engine optimisation (SEO) and organic traffic. We strongly caution businesses against thinking Google Ads should be done in place of SEO. These two strategies are not comparable nor akin. SEO is a crucial component of a business’ survival and should always be highly regarded regardless of whether or not Google Ads is used. However, the best digital strategies will involve both SEO and Google Ads.
Googles Ads yields results faster than SEO. Given SEO is a long-term strategy that focuses on building organic traffic, it often takes months to see results. Whereas, Google Ads can bring create results in visibility for your business within an hour. Depending on the campaign budget, keywords, targeting and optimisation, Google Ads can bring instantaneous results.
5. Bending Budget
Another reason to use Google Ads is the flexibility available with one’s budget. Google Ads allows users to spend whatever they like, whether that’s $1 or a $1000.
Furthermore, the PPC platform offers greater flexibility through what can be done with a budget. Users can set and continually change budgets. Additionally, users can also set other budget factors such as accelerated spending which focuses on burning through your budget. Additionally, Google’s bidding factors bring further flexibility to one’s budget. For example, if one’s strategy focuses on clicks then you only have to pay for clicks and all the brand awareness and recognition building impressions are free.
Through optimisation, any Google Ads budget can be highly effective regardless of how big or small it is.
6. Really Easy Reporting
Based on all the information Google provides about an Ads campaigns, the reporting should be complicated. But it’s not. It’s about as simple as it can be.
Upon logging into your Google Ads account and selecting a campaign, users are taken their dashboard. This provides basic insights about the campaign and can be easily customised. Metrics available include impressions, clicks, average CPC and costs, keywords selected, demographics, devices, locations and day and hours. Google even provides recommendations to help boost your campaign’s effectiveness.
Further reporting is available through the Reports section (funny that!). Reports allow an extensive list of information to be presented as a table, line, bar, pie or scatter chart. Simply click and drag the metrics you want to analyse. Report insights can be based on levels of detail which include campaign, ad group, specific ads, keywords, final URLs and more, performance which includes metrics such as clicks, CTR, views, and engagement rate and attributes which focus on campaign attributes like budget, start and end date, bid strategy, headlines, extensions and device preferences. Other insight topics include competitive metrics, quality score, bid simulator, combined ad and organic stats amongst more.
Another benefit to Google’s reporting is that the system is as close to live as possible. In some situations, there are only a few minutes lag between what’s happening in real time and what’s reported. Furthermore, connecting one’s Google Ads account with Google Analytics allows reporting to occur at a deeper level. Doing this can prove highly effective and enables users to make informed decisions, not only about marketing but regarding future business plans.
No platform makes insights and reporting as simple as Google Ads.
7. Use of Ad Ranks
Ad Ranks is another reason why your business should use Google Ads. Ad Ranks is an algorithm used by Google to determine the order of ads on a search engine results page. Ads with a higher rank will show in higher, more effective positions.
Focusing on your Max Bid and Quality Score, Ad Ranks justly determines one’s rank and CPC. Through Ad Rank, the playing field is levelled because the highest bidder doesn’t necessarily receive the highest ad rank. Not unless their quality score is the highest too. If your website has a high-quality score (achieved through SEO), there’s a very good chance your ads can rank higher than someone whose blowing your budget out of the water!
Now that you know these 7 reasons why your business should use Google Ads, it’s time to sign up for an account! This article originally appears on the Start Digital website.
Source
https://medium.com/swlh/7-reasons-why-your-business-should-use-google-ads-ad7ecaea1033
