Tartalomjegyzék

Google Ads: stand out of the crowd!

10 March 2023

Google Ads, also known as Google Ads (formerly Google Adwords), is one of the most dominant bastions of modern marketing. What can Google Ads do? It helps you stand out from other adve,,rtisers. It can win the never-ending marathon race for consumers' attention, but it requires a lot of expertise and experience. Let's find out what Google Ads are and what you need to know about them!

The power of Google

Google is the world's leading search engine, where users navigate using a variety of keywords. Companies aim to get their websites as high as possible in the keyword search rankings, simply because internet users don't scroll past the first page of the results list. So, if you want your message to get through, you need to get ahead. This can be achieved in two ways: through advertising and through search engine optimisation.

Search engine optimisation is a systematic process of adding text to a website that is useful to the user because it is informative, useful to the company because it demonstrates your own expertise and, most importantly, that search engines like because it meets their ranking criteria. The SEO of a site depends on a number of factors, but the production of SEO-optimised texts plays an important role in the process.

SEO is necessary and very useful, and will definitely pay off in the long run, but there is another way to drive traffic to the site, and that is through advertising.

If SEO is the ‘slow and steady wins the race’, then Google advertising is the ‘quick win’, provided it is launched by capable hands.

What is Google Ads and what are the benefits?

Google Ads (Google Adwords) is an advertising platform that allows companies and organisations to deliver their messages to their target audience. Thanks to proper targeting and well-chosen keywords, Google Ads will be displayed to people who are searching on the same or similar topics.

Google Ads are not free, of course, and an ad auction system will decide how deep you have to dig into your pockets to attract an interested party. The more competition in a field for a keyword, the more expensive it can be to get a click. More on the auction system later.

The benefits of Google Ads

Google Ads has a lot of advantages, which is why it is so popular. Let's take a look at them!

EFFECTIVE

Google advertising can be very effective. Imagine if someone is searching in Google for children's hairdressing in Budapest and your ad appears first as a children's hairdressing salon in Budapest. It couldn't be better!

You search and you get an exact match. This requires, among other things, that the advertisement is well-worded and that the right keywords are used. And yes, there will certainly be a lot of good hairdressers' websites in Budapest behind you in the results list, but the important thing is that your website will be the first to be clicked on.

GENERATES CONVERSIONS

When someone is searching for where to find a hairdresser for children in Budapest, they're doing it because they want to get their little one's hair done. They don't hesitate, they don't procrastinate, they look for someone who can get the job done quickly. Because users are targeted, conversion rates can be very high for Google Ads.

YIELDS QUICKLY VISIBLE RESULTS

In the case of a start-up or a new product, it is often difficult to reach the target group, the channels are not yet established, there is no database. With advertising, this can easily change. If the campaign is well structured and the offer is good, you can see a measurable and significant increase in sales soon after the ad is placed.

COST-EFFECTIVE

But only if thorough research precedes the campaign setup. The advantage of Google advertising is that you only pay for real results or actual clicks.

However, if the ad is not relevant, interesting or reaches the wrong audience, you may get the clicks, but not the purchase/booking/request.

The result is similar if the landing page, i.e. where the ad points to, is deficient. So it's certainly cheaper than a billboard campaign or a TV spot, but it's a good idea to be careful and to prepare and plan your ads, campaigns and landing pages carefully.

MEASURABLE

To measure the results of some marketing tools are difficult. For example, if a PR article appears in a prestigious print magazine, we know how many copies have been printed, we know it has a prestige value, but it is difficult to produce precise, quantifiable figures. A Google ad is the opposite extreme to a PR article: everything can be measured with laser precision!

What types of Google Ads campaigns are there?

A Google ad can take several forms, depending on what you want to advertise, what product/service you want to attract attention to, and where you want to drive traffic.

The main campaign types are: search, display, video (YouTube), shopping and remarketing ads.

SEARCH ADVERTISING

A Google search ad, or simply search ad, appears in a list of results compiled by Google. So, if you search for the term hairdresser for children budapest, the ads that appear will be the ones that have been matched to that particular keyword. Since the number of ads that can be displayed on a page is finite, there is a competition to see which ads can be included from those that have been matched to that keyword.

DISPLAY AD

Display advertising is most commonly found on websites and in applications in the form of banners, sometimes also in the form of text ads. This type of ad is a powerful branding tool: for example, if you place a banner on a popular news site, it will reach a lot of people. It's another question of how many people will click.

The number of online ads and advertisements has increased dramatically, and the result is that anywhere you click, anywhere you look, ads are looking back at you. At the same time, advertising avoidance has reached unprecedented levels, and the banner is a clearly identifiable advertising content. But if you place a creative, imaginative, eye-catching banner on a busy and relevant website, you can expect an increase in brand awareness and even website traffic.

The display advertising camp is also strengthened by Gmail ads, where the ad appears in the mailbox under the Promotions category. A surprisingly high click-through rate is achieved here, but it is generally cheaper than search ads. It is not worth running this kind of ad at the start of a promotion or campaign, but rather when, for example, the Google search ad is already running and performing well, but you want to add a little extra, or if you are using it for remarketing.

VIDEO ADVERTISEMENT

Video ads can appear on YouTube or even within different websites and apps. A huge advantage of videos is that users are much more likely to watch them, especially if they are interesting and eye-catching. However, since the introduction of YouTube Premium, it has become increasingly common for subscribers, premium users, to pay a monthly fee to replace ads, so that they are not exposed to ads before and during videos. Nevertheless, it remains a very effective advertising solution.

SHOPPING AD

Shopping ads are created specifically for online shops. Product names, prices and images are displayed in or next to the Google results list, but you can also access a list of products by clicking on Shop in the Google navigation tabs. To be able to create shopping ads, you also need to create a Google Merchant Center account.

REMARKETING AD

Remarketing is a very useful tool to achieve conversions, but unfortunately it is not available to everyone. Google Ads limits its usability by requiring a minimum of 100 members in the targetable list for display ads and 1000 for search ads. Dynamic remarketing is when products, that users have already viewed on the website, are displayed to them.

Structure of Google Ads

Ads can fall into three categories: the ad, the ad group and the campaign.

The campaign category is the broadest level, where you can set the budget, the geographic targeting, the language and how the bidding is done, among other things.
The next category is the ad group, where you can specify the keywords that will apply to all the ads you create within the group.
The narrowest level is therefore the ad itself, which will run according to the terms you have previously specified.

How much does Google Ads cost?

The price of Google Ads advertisements is influenced by a number of factors, including the number of clicks or conversions. There is the option to set the maximum amount you pay per click or conversion yourself, and also the option for Google to calculate the optimum limit.

You may get feedback during the setup process that the amount you have offered is not enough for the first page. In this case, if we stick to this keyword and parameters, we will have to increase the budget, thus outbidding other bids.

How much a click ultimately costs, depends on the competition. There may be popular terms where it can be close to a thousand forints a click, but there may also be some where it is under 50 forints.

Google Ads steps

Creating a Google Ads campaign may seem simple, but it's not. So the goal is not to create an ad, but to create a campaign that delivers value. And that's why you need to know the ins and outs of Google Ads!

REGISTRATION

If you want to do it yourself, the first thing you need to do is register a Google Tag Manager account to manage all your codes in one place, a Google Ads account to create your ads, and a Google Analytics account to see very detailed statistics and analysis of your website traffic and campaign performance.

BACKGROUND RESEARCH

This provides the technical background, and the next steps are planning and research. It is worth analysing the competition, defining the exact objectives and the target audience. Your marketing plan will be a great help.

KEYWORD RESEARCH

The keyword is the word that the user enters into the search engine. So the words that we want to appear in the results list will be our keywords. Choosing these is not so easy, as some keywords are more relevant, some less, some more expensive, some cheaper. And of course, everything is determined by the size of the budget.

When setting up your Google Ads, you also need to specify in which cases the ad should appear for the keyword you enter. You can choose from the following options:

General match: also shown for Google Ads misspellings, synonyms and related searches.
Exclusion: it is possible to exclude certain words from the search, words that could mislead the search.
Expression matching: Google Ads ads will appear if the keyword you specify is included in the search expression, but other words may be included before or after it.
Exact match: ads are only shown if the keyword is an exact match or a close variant of the keyword.

AD TEXT

The text of Google Ads has a lot to do with success. It's worth writing copy that is eye-catching, that answers a question the user is asking or provides a solution to a problem they are facing. So the ad should not ask the question - people in the target audience will do that when they type the keywords into Google - but provide the answer.

It's important to be clear about the competitive advantages, why they should choose us rather than the competition. It's good to have specifics in the text (such as price), and it's also very important to include the keywords that we use in the ad group. The strength of the ads is also checked by Google Ads and it clearly indicates if an ad is weak, but also if it is strong. Strong Google ads can get better results. It's worth testing your ads so you can keep working with the best performing ones.

When is it worth to advertise?

The answer is simple: start driving traffic to your website when you're ready. In every sense. If you know the click-through path, if everything on your website works, UX and UI are in order and even the content is in demand, then it's time to open the virtual gates.

However, if not everything is ready, then Google Ads is a waste of money, and worse, the visitor may have had such a bad experience that they will never return to your website.

Digital advertising to boost revenues

At Meraki, we know how important and significant Google Ads costs can be in the lives of SMEs. We treat ads with this in mind!

This is how we work:

We will conduct an audit, review your advertising account, identify gaps and map strengths.
A campaign and media plan will be developed, one that best aligns with the objectives we previously agreed on. We advertise where you need it!
Ads are created, best rates negotiated and campaigns sharpened. We monitor them constantly and optimise them based on the data we receive.
We produce detailed reports on the results achieved.

At Meraki we believe and advocate that modern marketing tools can be used not only by the big players, but also by the small ones with a little skill. With our personalised advertising technology, we've managed hundreds of PPC campaigns for SMEs on Google, Facebook, LinkedIn and more.