An easy guide to understand Google Ads: With Example

What are Google Ads? How do I run an Ad on Google? Are Google Ads better than Facebook Ads? Which one is better for my Business? Are Google Ads Costlier? 

Thousands of questions and very few answers. How many of you have honestly thought about running a Google Ad? I guess only some of you because Google Ads seem to be difficult and costly. Let me bust this myth and tell you the easiest way to run a Google Ad. 

Let’s start with the simplest question. 

What is Google Ad? 

Google ads are effective ways to advertise your business on Google. They are used to drive traffic to your website, find quality customers, boost your sales, and increase engagements. It works under the marketing channel Pay-Per-Click (PPC) where the advertisers only pay for a click or per impressions on their ad. 

Have you looked for a furniture store online? Or courses online? Or how to Facebook Ads? 

You might have seen that just above the first google search result, there are some Ads related to your search. These are Ads other companies or online stores on Google. 

Have a look here. I searched for online marketing courses and found a Google Ad from Facebook and it came up before the first search result (results shown from a mobile phone)

You can see the difference between the organic search results and a Google Ad with the ‘Ad’ symbol shown. 

Many of you have seen these ads and are confused about whether or not they can be beneficial to you. Before we jump into how to run a Google Ad, let’s see why we should run a Google Ad? 

Benefits of Google Ads

1. One of the biggest benefits from running a Google Ad is Google’s massive reach. 

People have questions (millions of them) and their biggest trusted source is Google. There are around 5 – 6 Billion searches per day on Google (more than 75,000 searches per second! roughly calculated). This accounts for over 80% of all internet searches!

If your business is providing a solution to someone’s problems(which you obviously are!), Google is the place to advertise. 

2. The range of targeting that Google provides is designed for every business, every prospect, and every stage of the buyer’s journey. 

Suppose you are a website development company. If people see you in the earlier stages of product discovery, it will allow you to fill the top of your funnel easily. 

The first step of the AIDA funnel is Awareness so people will become aware of your brand through Google Ads. (The best options for top of funnel marketing (Branding) are display and YouTube ads).

3. With Google Ads, you are harnessing their intent. On any other platform that provides advertising(Bing ads excluded), people are not spending time to find a solution to their problem. Rather they are there for entertainment purposes only. 

But when someone finds you on Google, their sole intent is to find a solution. Your Ad should be more specific to answering their problems on Google. 

4. Managing your budget is feasible with Google Ads. Many long-tail keywords are available for a higher cost per click, but most of them you don’t need to spend that much. Even if you are not monitoring your account like an eagle, you can set your daily budget, and max bid for keywords and not need to worry about overspending. (This assumes you’re using the manual cpc bidding with enhanced cpc disabled) 

You can check your performance graph and see how your ad performs. If your conversions go up, you can increase your budget to potentially gain more leads or sales.  

5. You get an easy to read analytics dashboard. The results are laid out in a simple format so that you can view your data quick and efficiently. 

You get information like the number of clicks, average click cost, impressions, and more, in a more granular layout. You can also see how the Google ads visitors are behaving on your website via Google analytics, this lets you see what pages they are visiting, and how long they spend on your website.

6. Get better results than just SEO. If you are only dependent on Search engine optimization to rank higher on Google, it will take years. You can boost your business a lot quicker by advertising on Google Ads. 

There are already many sites that have been around for years and amassed many backlinks. You can still compete with them by choosing Google Ads. Advertising your website on the high value keywords your competitors are showing for organically, giving you the boost your business needs. 

TIP: Don’t forget to utilize SEO practices, because it’s still the backbone of being a highly visited site for free. 

7. Marketers highly prioritize brand awareness. Most businesses use Google Ads for generating traffic through Pay Per Click Ads. But Google Ads was built to do more than that. 

Even if people are not clicking on your Ads, they still become aware of your brand, what you offer, tagline, etc. It enables you to reinforce your brand name and personality which helps you gain the trust of your customers. 

8. Google Ads takes your landing page experience into account. For Google, it’s extremely important to provide a good user experience. 

Your landing page is the URL people are directed to when they click on your Ad. For Google to show your Ad, you need to focus on:

• The ad message matches with the landing page
• You have a focused and easy to navigate design 

If you have an excellent landing page, your quality score will improve making it easier to show your ads above your competitors while also not costing as much.

9. ROI is the most important factor while running ads. Google allows you to get maximum ROI with multiple bidding strategies that are:

• Use (Cost Per Click) Manual CPC bidding if you want control over your keywords bids. 
• Use CPM, Cost per thousand impressions, when you want to build brand awareness. Remember, it’s not available on the Google search network, but only on the Google display and YouTube network. 
• Use CPA (Cost Per Action) bidding when you want to stick to a specific cost for leads like sign-ups or purchases. 

10. You can maintain full control of your campaign any time you want. You can start or stop your Ad anytime you want, allocate your resources to specific products or locations, and reach the right people by adjusting bids for demographics. 

There are several other benefits you get while running a Google Ad. But I know by this point, many of you may be thinking about Facebook advertising and the pros and cons for each. 

Let’s consider both Google Ads and Facebook ads and see which benefits your business more. 

Google Ads vs Facebook Ads

Anyone you ask to help you choose between google ads and Facebook ads may end up confusing you more with their unbiased judgments. Let me lay out a clear comparison between the two. 

Google Ads is faster at generating leads than other ad platforms.

People do not have the time or patience most days.

Every business wants its products to catch the eyes of buyers rather than wait for people to scroll it over many times before even watching the ad (banner blindness). 

Google ads is the quickest means to reach your target audience who are looking to buy now. It helps you understand the mood and behavior of your buyers, informs you of the number of times your ads were clicked and time spent on your website (with Google Anlaytics) thus making it flexible and easy for you to better understand your target audience to further tailor and grow your businesses marketing.

The Google Globe

You are probably here because you ‘Googled’ a question.

Google processes more than 75,000 search results per second amounting to billions of search results each day. Billions of people have everyday problems that create demand for solutions. If your business is the answer to that problem, Google lets you show ads so your clients can find you in microseconds. You are just a click away from your buyer (of course you pay for the ad click).

Social media platforms like Facebook also provides a good advertising method but a person looking for his plumbing to get fixed will ‘google’ “plumber near me” rather than scroll through their Facebook news feed.

Business intent meets user intent

Anyone scrolling through Facebook feed watching birthday pictures often get annoyed if shown an ad for a water bottle. But at Google, people are looking for an answer and your business is there to provide that answer, allowing you to beat your competitors. Making a better user experience on your site, which Google cares a lot about, can help boost your ad and or organic listing towards the first-page search results.

Google Ads is unparalleled when it comes to generating enormous sales, leads, and converting potential clients. Even lost customers are hunted back to your business by setting up retargeting ads, these are image and or video ads shown on Googles display and YouTube networks. They will only show to all of your website visitors or just those who don’t convert, make a purchase, or abandon their cart.

Creating brand awareness

Google is the traffic driving giant and unmatched at that. But for promoting new brands we tend to look to social media platforms like Facebook.

Want a surprise?

Google ads are highly versatile when it comes to advertising. I know someone seeing your brand on a google ad may not click it right away, but what if people see your brand name, and your tagline constantly, repeatedly, by millions of people?

Your brand reputation is being reinforced every day, and the longer when your branding advertising runs it will eventually start attracting many buyers.

Google respects your wallet

Let me bust a huge myth for you. This is a general thought that huge companies with their enormous advertising budgets can ‘win’ in every advertising game.

This is a big no! What Google cares about is its user experience and quality content, not just the money of the advertiser, hence it values relevant and quality ads above all else. If your ad uses optimized keywords and quality ad copy which are served to the users with relevant needs, you will have an edge over your competitor.

No social media platform including Facebook, though cheaper, is going to level that playing field as well and fairly as Google. For smaller businesses looking for leads or sales, Google will ultimately provide you with the highest returns.

Now that you know about the pros of Google Ads over Facebook Ads, you can choose what’s best for business at your current state. 

Now how do you make use of these benefits? Are Google Ads worth my time? Let’s have a look at an example to see how a business can make the best use of Google Ads.

Best Google Ad example 

Many big brands are benefiting from using Google Ads. One example to look at today is 

1. Apple: 

The hidden rule with Apple is ‘Always promote yourself’. Apple is the biggest mobile producer there is. 

Some key points of focus for Apple are:

• They protect their market share. 
• Their benefits are clearly listed. 
• They show monthly pricing to seem cheaper. (hah! A nice trick)
• They use CTA site extensions

Why are their ads great? 

The main reason Apple, being such a big company running ads, is to run-off competition. They bid for the most relevant keywords and hold that spot. 

Note: Unlike many other companies, Apple bids on its own name. 

iPhones are basically sold for around $800+ but they are shown at monthly prices, which makes them look more affordable and also tells the user they don’t have to pay the whole amount at once. 

They also show that users can get a cheaper phone if they sell their existing one. 

Their ad focuses on showing all the key benefits and features of their latest phones. They show multiple CTA buttons. All of them mean ‘buy now’ but worded differently. 

iPhone Ads are simple, they clearly show benefits, features and think about the buyer’s persona. 

Now that you know the ins and outs of Google ads, you can now figure out your own objectives for your Ads and setup a budget. Google Ads can give your business a big boost if you consider the points you learned above.