Basic guide to start your first Google Ads campaign from scratch
Google Ads is one of the fastest and most effective systems to market any product or service on the internet. Unlike other strategies such as SEO or Inbound Marketing, which require months of work, with Google Ads you can get the first results in just a few hours.
Google Ads (formerly Adwords) offers a wide range of advertising solutions: YouTube, Display, etc. But today we are going to focus on SEM campaigns: the ads that appear in search results. Its main advantage is that they are only shown to users when they search for your products or services and you only pay when they actually click on one of your ads.
From the outside, Google Ads may seem like a mystery difficult to unravel. In this article, we will help you take your first steps on the platform to create ads that drive relevant users to your website. Users who end up buying your products and services.
How Google Ads work
As we have seen, Google Ads is based on the PPC (Pay Per Click) system: you pay for every click your ads receive from potential customers. The mechanism is an auction where companies bid for their websites to appear among the first results when the user searches for certain keywords that are related to their products and services.
The cost per click for each ad is determined by the amount that other advertisers are willing to pay for that same search, so it can vary greatly over time and from one industry to another.
However, it is not always the highest bid that wins. Google always wants to show the users the most relevant ad for their search, even although another advertiser is willing to pay more for the click. Google calls this metric the Quality Level or Quality Score of an ad, and it is based mainly on:
- The probability that the user will click on the ad.
- How well it match the user's search intent.
- The user experience on the landing page. Essentially usability, loading speed and ease of navigation.
How to create an ad in Google Ads
The Perfect Cost Per Click (CPC)
Google Ads is an auction, and to participate you have to establish a daily budget and a bid or maximum cost per acquisition that determines how much you are willing to pay for each click and every keyword.
For example, if you sell a product for 200 € and the profit margin is 50%, the maximum cost per sale will have to be less than 100 €. If you think earning 70 € per sale is good enough, then you can pay Google a 30% commission for each successful conversion.
On the other hand, the conversion rate is the percentage of users who end up buying when they visit your online store. For example, if for every 1,000 visits 10 buy a product, that is a conversion rate of 1%.
Maximum cost per click (CPC) = your profit x Google's commission x your conversion rate. In this case it would be: 100 x 0.3 x 1 = 0.30 €. This means that you can spend up to 0.30 € per click on Google Ads and still earn 70 € per sale.
However, the final cost per click may be lower than your maximum bid, especially if your ads have a high quality level or if the competition is offering less for the keyword you have selected.
Find the right keywords
Go to the Google Keyword Planner and put yourself in the shoes of your customer. If you wanted to buy your product, how would you search for it on Google? Type in exactly that and you will get keyword ideas, with the monthly search volume in your region and the average CPC for each of them.
Build an amazing landing page
Make sure that users who click on your ad will end up on a landing page that is optimised for their conversion. Choose a simple design, with an eye-catching and powerful headline, a clear and concise text, and visuals that help you get your message across.
Write your first ad
The text of your ad must be short, precise and attractive. Make a unique value proposition that sets you apart from the competition. Add a call to action. Try to include the keyword in the URL so that it is highlighted and has more exposure.
In order to compare results, it will be necessary to create at least two slightly different ads that will help you to determine which one works best and gradually optimise your campaign.
Choose the best type of match
On the dashboard, go to the keywords and set the match type. Google defaults to the "broad match" type, but you will probably need a more specific match. With broad match, Google will choose any word in your phrase and show your ad with searches that include any of those words, possibly also in searches that have little or nothing to do with your products and services. Using this type of broad match is one of the most common reasons why Ads campaigns are sometimes unprofitable.
Conclusion
Google Ads is a great solution for online advertising with great flexibility, but it also has a complexity that makes it difficult to get the most out of every euro invested.
As a Google Partner, BCM Marketing is a marketing agency specialised in Google Ads and we can help you establish the best strategy and optimise your SEM campaigns to the maximum.
