While there are many marketing tactics you can use to get your business in front of the masses, very few are as valuable as Google Ads. From the narrow targeting capabilities of IP campaigns to the bevy of social media platforms, Google Ads has its foothold in almost every modern marketing strategy.
In the next few paragraphs, we’ll be going over how to:
- Identify when to use Google Ads
- Achieve results
- Measure those results
Identify
Google Ads can be integrated into a wide variety of marketing strategies due to its vast targeting capabilities. Let’s face it, everyone uses Google for both searching for information as well as browsing websites which host ads on the Google Display Network (GDN). This means that even if you don’t physically navigate through Google’s site, you are still likely browsing sites tied to it.
The first step in identifying when to use Google Ads is determining your marketing goals. When creating a new campaign, you will have the option to choose one of the following objectives to help achieve those overarching goals.
- Leads – Get leads and other conversions by encouraging customers to take action.
- Website Traffic – Get the right people to visit your website.
- Product and Brand Consideration – Encourage people to explore your products or services.
- Brand Awareness and Reach – Reach a broad audience and build awareness.
- App Promotion – Get more installs, interactions and pre-registration for your app.
- Local Store Visits – Drive visits to your local stores, including restaurants and dealerships.
Achieve
Based on these objectives, the campaign will start to take shape. For example, let’s say you are a newly formed small business selling widgets similar to some other local companies’. Although you would likely prefer to achieve many of the objectives above, most businesses only have the budget to effectively focus on one to start.
For our new business venture, our goal is to make people aware of our brand and to let them know we are an option in the marketplace. We will be choosing the Brand Awareness or Product Consideration objective. Based on these objectives, there are different ways to show our ads to potential customers. The Brand Awareness ads are best served utilizing display ads (the ones that follow you as you browse the internet). They target you based on sites you have been to or previous searches.
The other Product Consideration objective will allow you to target potential customers on YouTube to make them aware of your products. The ad will show before or during videos your customers may be watching. These are targeted similarly to the Brand Awareness ads we just spoke about.
Now that potential customers are seeing your ads across multiple platforms, you may ask: How do we determine which ads are working and which ads aren’t?
Measure
Being able to effectively measure these results is dependent on the initial setup of the campaign. As online marketers, we love using landing pages made specifically for any campaign we are running. These landing pages are hidden within the navigation on your website and are only visited by clicking through an ad. They can help you determine which ad campaign is delivering customers and which customers are taking that next action towards a purchase. Besides utilizing dedicated landing pages, there are many other KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) you can use to evaluate results. Some of these are:
- Cost-Per-Click (CPC) – The average amount you are spending for one click on your ad.
- Click-Through-Rate (CTR) – The number of clicks per the number of views on an ad.
- Cost-Per-Conversion – The amount you are spending each time your goal is achieved.
These are just a few of the options when it comes to measuring the effectiveness of your online marketing campaigns. Depending on the type of campaign you’re running, you will need to choose the KPI which best suits your objectives. Now that you have a better understanding of how you can identify, measure and achieve your marketing goals with Google Ads the question is: What are you waiting for? Customers are looking for your business, help them find you!
If you still have questions on setting up an effective Google Ads campaign, contact Baer Performance Marketing today!
