If you’re looking to invest in advertising to target your audience, it’s essential to ensure that your advertising strategy is effective. While Google Ads is a popular advertising method for many businesses, it may not always be the best option for reaching your target audience. In fact, investing heavily in Google Ads doesn’t always result in a positive return on investment (ROI).
However, it’s worth noting that the Google Ads landscape has evolved significantly over the past decade, with constant updates and changes. Despite this, Google Ads can still be an excellent tool for your company, and in this article, we’ll be sharing some of the best practices that have proven to work for our clients.
Google Ads: An Introduction to the Fundamentals
Understanding Google Ads: A Brief Overview
Google Ads: An Overview and Best Practices for Optimizing Your Advertising Strategy
- Google Ads is an online advertising solution that enables businesses to promote their products and services across the web, including on Google Search and YouTube. Advertisers can set specific goals for their ads, such as driving website visits or phone calls, and customize their budgets and targeting according to their needs. However, to achieve success with Google Ads, businesses must understand how to use it effectively and optimize their strategies to achieve a positive return on investment (ROI).
- At Live Web Promotion, we have helped numerous businesses achieve incredible sales results through our Google Ads campaigns. While we can’t reveal all our secret ingredients, we can share some of our best practices for optimizing your Google Ads strategy and achieving a positive ROI.
Optimizing Your Google Ads Strategy: Best Practices
Understanding the Importance of Impressions in Your Google Ads Campaign: Is Your Click-Through Rate Below Average? Are You Receiving Enough Impressions to Boost Your Clicks and Improve CTR?
Impressions:
Understanding Impressions in Google Ads: Exploring the Frequency of Your Ad Appearances
- In Google AdWords, an impression refers to the number of times your ad appears to users on Google or the Google Network. Even if only a section of your ad is displayed, it’s still counted as one impression. Depending on the nature of your business, Google Maps may display only your business name and location, while Google Ads may show your business name along with the first line of ad text.
- To determine how often your ads are appearing to users, you can track metrics such as impression share (IS) or absolute top impressions share (ATIS). These metrics provide valuable insights into the prominence of your ads and can help you optimize your Google Ads strategy for better results.
- Understanding Absolute Top Impressions Share (ATIS) in Google Ads
Exploring Absolute Top Impressions Share (ATIS) and Its Significance in Google Shopping Ads - In Google Ads, Absolute Top Impressions Share (ATIS) is the percentage of your Shopping ads that appear in the most prominent shopping position on Google. Since there’s only one “absolute top impression” per auction, your ATIS serves as a vital indicator of your overall prominence.
- To calculate your ATIS, the number of impressions you received in the absolute top location is divided by the estimated number of impressions you were eligible to receive in the absolute top location. By analyzing your ATIS, you can determine if increasing your budget or bid will result in more prominent placement of your products in shopping ads. This metric is available not only for campaigns but also for ad groups and product groups in Shopping campaigns.
- Driving impressions is crucial for achieving brand success. By increasing impressions, you can boost engagement, grow your community size, and improve various metrics that prove the relevance of social media.
Clicks:
- Every time someone clicks on any part of your advertisement, whether it’s the headline or phone number, Google Ads considers it a click. The number of clicks can be used to assess how attractive your ad is to the audience that views it.
- The more relevant and precisely targeted your ad is, the greater the number of clicks it will receive. It’s worth noting that even if the viewer doesn’t land on your website after clicking, the click will still be counted.
As a result, the number of impressions, clicks, and website visits you receive may differ.
Click-Through Rate:
- Click-through rate (CTR) is a crucial metric that indicates the percentage of people who clicked on your ad after seeing it. It provides insight into the effectiveness of your ad and how well it aligns with your keywords and targeting preferences. It’s worth noting that CTR is contextual and varies depending on the type of ad and advertising platform.
- A/B testing is a common approach to compare CTRs of different advertising creatives to identify which features result in more interactions. Additionally, CTR can be used as a benchmark to evaluate campaign performance relative to other campaigns.
- Moreover, CTR can serve as an indicator of user quality within the attribution funnel. Advertisers can assess if a high CTR translates to increased user value by linking campaign performance to in-app behavior.
- Understanding which channels offer high CTRs that generate quality traffic rather than just a large volume of users can guide advertisers in making sound investment decisions.
- Creating ads that are relevant and compelling to your target audience can boost your click-through rates significantly.
Conversions:
- To track your marketing campaign efforts, you can monitor various actions taken by visitors, such as subscribing to your company’s blog, downloading a white paper, or viewing an important webpage on your website. These actions indicate an interest in your products or services, making them potential leads.
- When a visitor engages with your ad or free product listing, and then takes an action that you define as valuable to your business, such as making an online purchase or a phone call, it is considered a conversion.
- Conversions can be tracked across different surfaces, including mobile and desktop, and even modeled conversions can be estimated by Google. This information is not personally identifiable.
- The effectiveness of a campaign can be measured by its conversion rate. A higher conversion rate means you can achieve more with the same advertising budget, or you can reduce your advertising budget and still have additional funds to test new marketing strategies.
Creating Virtual Boundaries: Understanding Geo-Fencing
- In 2021, many digital marketing businesses are interested in determining a business’s conversion zone, which involves setting up geo-fences around a specific location to track how many consumers received the business’s mobile advertising and then physically visited the location.
- This location-based marketing strategy is based on Haversine’s mathematical formula, which calculates the difference between the circle center and the location’s longitude and latitude. Geofences are only considered valid if the distance is within the circle’s radius. Otherwise, the location falls outside the geofence.
- This marketing approach is highly effective in reaching targeted leads who are more likely to convert into customers, making it a valuable tool for businesses.
Cost:
- Businesses new to PPC advertising may view it as a costly endeavor, causing them to deplete their budget much quicker than anticipated.
- For instance, a company may set aside an advertising budget intended to last an entire month, only to find that it’s been spent within a few days.
- It’s crucial to comprehend PPC budgeting to optimize the use of Google Ads. The average cost-per-click (CPC) for Google Ads is around $1 to $2 for the Google Search Network and under $1 for the Google Display Network.
Streamlining Ad Campaigns: The Advantages of Automated Bidding
- Automated bidding is a widely preferred choice for new advertisers due to its effectiveness and convenience.
- If you want to drive conversion actions such as leads or sales, the “maximize conversions” strategy can be used. On the other hand, if you aim to receive the highest number of clicks on your ads, the “maximize clicks” option should be considered.
- With automated bidding, you don’t have to set a maximum bid limit since you control your spending using your budget. Your campaign’s average daily budget, which is set by you, determines the overall spending limit.
All About Budgeting
- Google provides valuable insights to help determine when to run ad campaigns for maximum impact during peak search traffic or when a higher ROI is expected. As a result, there may be days when you don’t reach your budget, while on other days, you may exceed it.
- Typically, small-to-midsize businesses spend between $10,000 and $50,000 per month on Google Ads, excluding any additional expenses like software costs.
Decision Time: Should You Utilize Google Ads for Your Business?
- Regardless of the size of your advertising budget, Google Ads can be a valuable tool to help you achieve success. To make the most out of your ad spend, it’s important to follow the tips mentioned above and consistently test and refine your ads to maximize your return on investment (ROI).
- As you become more proficient in creating and optimizing Google Ads campaigns, it may be beneficial to increase your starting budget to see greater results.
- Many businesses rely on Live Web Promotion to track the performance of their Google Ads and make necessary adjustments to their budget and strategy.