Google Ads, What is It?
Google’s advertising platform. It’s a self service advertising platform where advertiser can promote their business on Google Search, Google’s Display Network and YouTube. One of the key differentiators with Google Ads is you only pay per click, for most of it’s advertising products.
Where are they?
Ads that are across Google Search, the Google Display Network, and YouTube. On Google Search, advertisers can promote their business on Google.com as well as hundreds of other smaller search engines, within Google’s partner network. The Google Display Network consists of owned and operated properties (i.e. gmail, YouTube), as well as a network of several million websites and apps.
How do they work?
Google Ads is a self service platform Google offers where advertisers can promote their business by choosing which type of ads to promote (search, display or video) and the targeting they want to focus on.
How much do they cost?
There is no minimum required to start advertising through Google Ads. Advertisers can start advertising at just $1 per day. With Google search and display ads, you only pay if someone clicks your ad. Also, it’s an auction based system where an advertiser sets the maximum amount they’re willing to pay and the amount of traffic and ranking will be influenced by your cost per click bid.
What is a Google Ads credit?
Occasionally Google will email advertising credits, to businesses to try their ad platform. These can be emailed out to new potential customers, or to past customers who paused their advertising on Google. If you’re thinking of advertising on Google, try a few Google searches of “Google ads coupon”, just to see if you can find any coupons that could work. Note, many of the published coupons are expired, but in some instances you can find a coupon that Google is promoting.
Are they effective?
Generally speaking, this is an effective platform to reach new customers for your business. The reason is you can target users who have an intent to purchase the products and services you’re offering, based on their searching. Google Ads can work for nearly all businesses, but you need to be very specific on the keywords your targeting and take proper training to avoid spending money that’s not effective. Here’s a link to my free Google ads courses hosted by SkillShare.
Are Google Ads and Google Adwords the same?
Google Ads and Google AdWords is the same platform. In 2018 Google rebranded it’s AdWords platform to Google Ads. The reason is Google AdWords was very specific to search advertising “adwords”, since AdWords was created, Google offers advertising products across Search, YouTube and millions of websites and apps.
How are they targeted?
Ads on Google Search are targeted based on keywords and advertiser wants to target. For example, if an advertiser owns an auto repair shop, the advertiser can reach users who are searching auto repair keywords, close to their business. This is what makes Google Ads very effective, as long as the advertiser has a strong knowledge of the Google Ads platform, which I recommend all advertisers take a course to prevent any irrelevant advertising spend. I offer tutorial classes, listed here.
Google or Facebook Ads?
Both advertising platforms are very effective at driving new customers, so long as the advertiser has the know how of each platform and has very tight targeting reaching qualified traffic. My recommendation is to test both platforms to determine the effectiveness of each for your business. Chances are you’ll find that both Google and Facebook are effective on driving new customers for your business.
What is the Difference between Google Ads and Google Analytics?
Google Ads is an advertising platform, to reach users on Google.com, YouTube and across millions of websites and apps within Google’s Display Network. Google Analytics is not an advertising platform, like Google Ads. Google Analytics is a free reporting tool to monitor your website traffic and understand where users are coming from and what they’re doing on your site.
Is Google Ads PPC?
Yes, this is a form of “PPC” (Pay Per Click) advertising. With Google search and display products, you set a maximum amount you’re willing to pay per click. The amount of traffic you receive is influenced by the amount you’re willing to pay, as Google operates on an auction basis. If several competitors are targeting the same audience with higher PPC bids, they will likely outrank you and get more traffic. However, there are other factors in play, such as the quality of the ads and landing pages.
Difference between Google Ads and SEO?
Google Ads is a paid platform, where advertisers can pay for search traffic for every click they receive. SEO is “search engine optimization”. It’s a practice of optimizing a website to naturally rank higher on Google and get more free search traffic. Unlike Google Ads, where advertisers can flip a switch to get more traffic immediately, SEO is a practice that takes months to start increasing organic traffic. Both are strong strategies that every business with a website should consider.
Difference between Google and Yelp ads?
Unlike Google Ads, Yelp ads, allows advertise specifically on the Yelp platform. Whereas Google Ads allows advertisers to promote their business on Google.com, YouTube and across millions of websites and apps through the Google Display Network.
What is Google Shopping?
Google Shopping is a comparison shopping engine and campaign type advertisers can use to promote their business. Google Shopping is an effective platform for retailers as it displays your product image, price and company before the user clicks your ad, and you’re charged for the click.
Difference between Google and Bing ads?
Both ad platforms are very similar, with Google Ads, advertisers can advertise on Google owned and affiliated properties (i.e. Google Search, YouTube) and Bing advertisers can promote their business on Bing and it’s network of websites.
What is Google’s keyword planner?
Google Keyword Planner is a tool within Google Ads where advertisers can identify keywords to target to promote their business. Within Google Keyword Planner, it will suggest keywords to target and provide statistics such as reach and cost per click, per each keyword.
What are the keyword match types?
Within Google Search, advertisers can target keywords based on match type – Exact, Phrase, Broad Match Modified and Broad Match. With exact match, advertisers will only show an ad when the search query matches the exact keywords targeted (or close to it – including mispelling, plural, etc.). Phrase match will serve ads to any search query that includes the phrase targeted. For example, for a keyword, “auto repair”, the query must include “auto repair” within the search query. Which could include queries such as “auto repair near me”, “best auto repair”, etc.
Broad Match Modified matches to search queries that contain words in the search query. For Broad Match Modified, every word with a + in front of the keyword has to be in the search query. For example, +auto +repair could show for search queries like “auto car repair”, “auto transmission repair”.
Broad match matches to related search queries, based on Google’s matching. For example, auto repair, could show on search queries such as car repair, and auto mechanic, etc.
What is Google Ads quality score?
Quality score is a scoring factor on the quality of your ads, in comparison to the competition. This takes into effect the ad relevancy, click through rate, and landing page experience. The higher quality score translates into lower cost per clicks and higher ranking on Google Search.
Are there free Google Ads courses?
There are a lot of great free resources to learn Google Ads. I created a 2 hour introductory Google Ads course, click here for more information. It’s strongly advised to study and take courses before advertising on Google Ads. Without proper training, one can waste a lot of money, with little to show for their efforts. However, if proper training is taken, Google Ads can be successful on driving business growth.
What are negative keywords in Google Ads?
Negative keywords are words which you don’t want your ads to serve, when someone conducts a search. For example, if you’re a dentist practice and advertising amongst a bunch of dental related keywords (dentist near me, tooth extraction, teeth cleaning, etc.), you may upload keywords such as “fairy”, as you don’t want your ad serving if someone searches “tooth fairy”. By adding negative keywords, you can negate this type of unqualified traffic.
What is the Search Query Report?
The search query report in Google Ads is a report which lists the exact search queries users searched which triggered your ad to show. This is a highly effective report when determining if you’re reaching the right users. From this report, you can refine your keyword strategy, as needed.
What is Customer Match?
Customer Match is the ability to upload email addresses within Google Ads and target across Google search, gmail and YouTube ads. It’s an effective way at targeting users advertisers have relationships with. There are certain qualifications that need to be met, for a new Google Ads account to qualify for Customer Match, found here.
What are callout extensions?
Callout extensions is a non-clickable ad extension that is appended to Google Search Ads. These are designed to promote differentiators of your business that advertisers can callout. It’s recommended that every business use Callout extensions. Callout extensions is a type of ad extensions, which is additional information advertisers can append to their search ads. is a direct correlation between ad extensions and performance of Google Ads and it’s recommended that advertisers use all relevant ad extensions (call extensions, site links, callout extensions, structured snippets, etc.).
Can you advertise on YouTube?
Advertisers can promote their business via video on YouTube, in addition to other platforms like Google Search and across Google’s Display Network. YouTube ads are designed to create brand awareness and consideration of a business, whereas Google Search is designed to drive immediate business outcomes.
What is a remarketing tag?
The Google remarketing tag is a snippet of code advertisers can place on their site, to identify and target past visitors of their site, with a banner ad. This is an effective advertising strategy to “close the sale” of users who have previously visited the site, by following up with a compelling offer within the ad.
What is Google Remarketing?
Remarketing with Google Ads gives advertisers the option to target users who have previously visited their site with a banner ad, to get them back on their site, to take action. Around 98% of site visitors don’t immediately convert (i.e. purchase, or sign up for a service) upon first visit. Remarketing helps close the sale by getting users back on the site to take action.
What are Google Responsive Ads?
Responsive ads are a display ad format where advertisers can upload several image, logos and text, and Google will auto optimize each ad to serve across all available ad slots across the Google Display Network and render well across devices.
What is Maximize Conversions?
Maximize conversions is a bid strategy in Google Ads where Google will try to drive as many conversions as possible, within your daily budget. This uses Google’s machine learning to smartly bid to each user based on the likelihood of potential conversion.
What is tCPA bidding?
tCPA bidding (otherwise known as target CPA) is a Google Ads bidding strategy where Google will use it’s machine learning to achieve a target cost per action (i.e. conversion), an advertiser is looking to achieve. This strategy works well for campaigns that have at least 15 – 30 conversions per month.
What is eCPC bidding?
eCPC bidding (otherwise known as enhanced cost per click) is a bidding strategy in Google Ads, where an advertiser will place a maximum cost per click they’re willing to pay, and Google will automatically adjust the CPC for every search query, based on the likelihood of potential conversion.
What is ROAS bidding?
ROAS bidding (otherwise known as return on ad spend) is an automated bidding solution in Google Ads where Google is bidding to achieve a specified return on ad spend. This requires that Google is tracking revenue from the campaigns to determine the return on ad spend.
Helpful Google Ads Resources
For more helpful resources, check out the blog posts and articles below.
Google Ads Support
Google Ads Management
Google Ads How to Guides
Google Ads Optimization Tips
- Top 14 Google Ads Search Optimization Tips
- Auction Insights: What are they and how to make them actionable
- Google Search Partners
- AdWords Express vs. Google Ads
- Google Ads and SEO Synergies
- Keyword Expansion Tip
- Google Search Ad Copy – Best Practices
- Top 5 Critical Search Settings to Check
- Google Customer Match
- In-Market Audiences
Google Ad Formats
