The Ultimate Google Ads Guide! All you need to know.
If you have a budget that is dedicated to advertising, then there is no better place than Google Ads. There you can perfectly direct advertisements only to your audience, without wasting them on users who are not interested in your goods or services. It’s Google’s most powerful tool and they take a lot of care with it because most of their income comes from Google Ads.
The advertising platform on Google appeared at the beginning of 2000 and was then called Google Adwords. The platform was created two years after the Google search engine was launched. In 2018, the rebranding of the service was carried out and since then it has been called Google Ads.
Given the popularity of Google, you must have clicked on an ad at least once, as have your customers.
Like any advertising campaign, the stronger and more focused it is, the more clicks you will have on your website. And therefore more sales. However, Google campaigns are much better than any other marketing campaign if you look at it through money.
Because you determine exactly to which audience your advertisement should be delivered, you determine the exact daily/monthly budget and optimize your campaigns to achieve the best possible result.
That’s why it’s no wonder that today both micro businesses and the largest companies use Google Ads benefits equally well. Because for almost all campaigns, it is impossible for your monthly budget to be, for example, 100 euros.
And on Google Ads it is possible!
That’s why we’ll do our best to help you start your campaign in this text or to learn something new if you’ve already done Google Ads advertising.
We will teach you how to optimize your campaigns, which functions and features you should pay attention to in order to achieve the best results and much more.
What is Google Ads?
Google Ads is a platform for paid advertising on the Google search engine. You can pay for each click (PPC) that leads to your website or for each impression to a user (CPM).
Google Ads is the most effective way to attract new customers who are looking for a product or service that you can offer them. With Google Ads, you can increase the number of views of your page, which is a great option if you have good content or earn from Google AdSense.
Google Ads allows you to create ads that will be shared only with the audience you have selected on all types of devices. And the most important thing, you will always appear on the first page above 1 place on Google organic search.
The ad can still appear at the bottom of the page, but it depends on the moment and the competition. Ads used to be separate and very clearly marked. However, today Google Ads ads have practically merged with organic search.
The only difference is the letters Ad at the beginning of the advertisement.
But Google Ads advertising does not have to be only on the search engine, you can use advertising services on other Google services and partner sites. Everything can be defined in advance. This is how you reach the target audience, and your ad will be shown to them when it is most needed.
After some time, you will receive analytics from Google that will help you optimize your campaign even better. In this way, you will reach an even better audience and even better sales of products or services.
That’s why Google Ads is so superior compared to the competition!
Why is Google Ads advertising so good?
In the first place because everyone can advertise through the Google Ads platform. You can adjust each of your campaigns to the budget you have for that month . The Google Ads tool itself is very advanced and has a large number of possibilities.
For example, you can stop or pause certain ads at any time. If you want some advanced settings, it still needs to be done by someone with experience. It’s not complicated, but it’s easy to make a mistake that can cost you a lot.
Is Google Ads really that effective? He is the best!
It is incomparable to the competition, and only by working on it will you see how far it is ahead of other platforms. Almost anyone with a little knowledge can create a simple campaign.
Should you advertise on Google? Mandatory , because Google is the most used search engine with over 8 billion queries per day.
It is a place where people have been asking questions or looking for certain products and services for more than 20 years. And Google Ads always gives preference to paid advertising. You will always be one step ahead of the competition. Millions of companies use Google Ads advertising services, and this means that even though you are organically in 1 place on 1 page, your result will be below the paid advertising of your competitors.
That’s why we have a good tip.
Even if you are well positioned with keywords that are important to your business, Google Ads advertising also benefits. From our experience, much better results are achieved this way.
We always advise clients to try this strategy for at least a month and compare the results.
What is the best way to advertise with Google Ads?
As we said, with a little education, it will not be a problem to place an ad on Google. And it often happened that some of our clients were disappointed with the results of the ads they placed themselves. The reason is that they didn’t know how to set up the features properly and optimize it perfectly. Because Google lives on advertisements and looks to make as much money as possible.
That’s why you need to learn the advanced options for placing ads on Google Ads. To simply make that system work in your favor.
It is good to use a template for PPC advertising. In this way, you will have all the projects organized and you will be able to plan your campaigns better. The choice of keywords is very important for every campaign. This field is very important and one must take the time and do the best possible analysis.
That’s why we advise you to use the testing method to determine which keywords work best and which should be eliminated.
Don’t go too wide with KW because that way you get a wider audience, more clicks, but less profit.
The headline and ad text are one of the most important factors. They must be attractive, clear and look like they can solve the user’s problem.
It is the only combination that will give a result and must be approached very seriously.
It’s good to have multiple ads in one campaign, so you can track and decide which ad should be removed.
If there are more of us, how can I be the first in Google Ads advertising?
If there are more ads for a keyword, how to be number 1 might be a better question. How Google Ads ranks may be your Quality Score (QS). It is the quality rating on the basis of which Google determines the position of your ad.
The higher your Quality Score, the better position you will have with a lower advertising price. If your Quality Score is low, you will have to offer a much higher price in order to overtake your competitors.
That’s why our advice is to work on it in order to have the best possible Quality Score, and therefore a lower advertising price.
But make sure that the landing page your ad goes to is well optimized, because your efforts don’t end only with a good ad. See how someone from your industry solved it best. If you want a successful campaign, you must take care of some things that we will mention.
AdRank is one of them and they determine the position of your ad. It is obtained by multiplying your maximum price and Quality Score.
Whoever has the best score is first on the advertising list!
Google Ads is based on a bidding system. One click on an ad can be worth a few euro cents, but it can cost more than 1,000 euros per click.
However, the amounts for advertising for the territory of Serbia are still quite normal, so don’t worry about that.
There are three bidding options, and they are:
-
CPC (cost per click). Here you only pay for a click on your ad
-
CPM (cost per mile). Here you pay for 1,000 impressions
-
CPE (cost per engagement). Here you pay a certain amount when someone takes a predetermined action with your ad.
A few more important things about Google Ads ads
It is very important to choose the type of campaign that suits you best, and we will mention some of them.
In our opinion, Search and Display campaigns are the most important.
Video, shopping, app are less important for most. and smart campaign. But it again depends on your products or services and it is not bad to try more options.
Search ads are based on the text that is displayed in the results of a Google search.
Display ads are displayed in the form of images and are shown within the Google Display Network.
Another important thing is Click through rate (CTR). It is a percentage obtained by dividing the number of people who clicked on your ad and the number of people to whom your ad was shown. This is a basic and very important metric that can tell you a lot. The higher the number, the better your campaign or ad.
Based on this metric alone, you can literally determine which ad is successful and which should be removed or replaced.
This is immediately followed by the Conversion Rate (CVR). This metric shows what percentage of users took an action after seeing your ad.
UA managers usually follow two metrics:
-
Conversions after installation
-
Conversions after an impression
There is one good trick to make your ad more noticeable compared to the competition, and that is adding extensions.
This way, you supplement your ad with additional information at no additional cost.
One of the following options can be added:
-
Offer
-
A call
-
Location
-
Link to website
-
Link to the application
Are keywords important for Google Ads advertising?
By keyword we mean what the user types in when searching, for example on Google. Google then returns a number of results sorted by relevance.
Keywords can be Short Tail (one to two words) and Long Tail (several words). In English, keywords are called Keywords (KW). When creating a campaign, it is important to enter negative keywords, i.e. words that you do not want to trigger your ad.
Therefore, Google will not display you for the keywords you have entered as negative KW. There are a few more fine adjustments, but we will write about them in another post.
Keyword research is just as important for organic search as it is for ads.
A perfect analysis must be done for both searches in order to match the searches as best as possible. Because in both cases, Google associates the queries with the keywords you have chosen.
Another important thing is the location. When setting up the campaign, you will have to choose the geographical area where your advertisement will be displayed. Depending on your job, it can be a city, state or region in our case.
It depends on the products or services you provide and can deliver. If you have a gym on Voždovac in Belgrade, the territory of Belgrade should be your limit. Anything outside of it is a waste of budget.
You know that Google also takes care of this, so it will only display relevant results for the query that was set.
Google Ads remarketing and bidding!
This is a very powerful weapon that you must use. The key is to bombard users who have already been to your website with your ad. This is achieved with tracking cookies that register a user who has been on your website but has not yet made any conversion.
Thanks to this method, your ads will follow them all over the Internet. Remarketing is very effective, but the user needs to see your ad several times in order to eventually become a customer. If you’ve decided to advertise on the web, take remarketing into serious consideration.
Once you’ve set up and configured all of your campaigns, it’s time to bid. You need to carefully analyze the keywords and what are the minimum and maximum prices for them that your competition has set. Based on that, you create a strategy that will depend on your goals and budget.
This is the part where you have to be very careful.
There are two options for bidding:
- Automatic bidding. Here Google practically runs the whole business and you don’t have to worry about anything, except for the budget. And that’s the only thing we would mention in this option. Because Google will spend your budget much faster than in manual bidding.
- Manual bidding. This is an option that we always use for our clients. It is much more difficult to work and requires a lot of time and analysis, but it pays off many times over. Try both options and you’ll understand how much you can save in manual bidding.
How to use Google Ads advertising?
We’re going to be very brief here, so let’s get started:
1. Open your Google Ads account. In the upper right corner, click “Start now” and sign up.
2. Enter your company name and your website. This is the next page, right after login.
3. Choose an advertising objective. Here you have four options: Get more visits, get more YouTube views, get more calls and get more website sales.
4. Create your ad. This is the next step. It requires creativity and well thought out actions. You have a lot of articles on this that will help you. It is important to write good text that will be noticed and clicked on.
5. Choose keywords. On this page you will choose keywords that will trigger your ads. If you’re not sure, Google will give you suggestions. If you have no experience with them, feel free to choose what Google suggested.
6. Set the location of your ad. There you will choose which sites or locations your campaign or ad will be displayed on.
7. Determine your budget. Here you can accept the amount suggested by Google or you can manually enter the amount you are willing to spend on Google advertising.
8. Confirm payment. Here you provide the data that Google needs to download the funds you spent in the campaign. Funds are withdrawn once a month or when you reach a certain limit.
That’s it, you’ve created your Google campaign. But this is the shortest possible version.
In real life it takes much longer, especially if you use some advanced methods.
A lot of people who are beginners and publish ads on Google don’t know how to do that.
A few more things you need to do for Google Ads advertising!
We would start first with:
-
Connecting to a Google Analytics-GA4 account. Since UA will cease to operate in 2023, you must open a GA4 account. In this way, you will integrate advertising in GA4, so you will be able to monitor and analyze all events on your website from this page.
If you want even more accurate and better results, we suggest you consider opening an account on Google Tag Manager (GTM).
-
Adding UTM codes. This is a great thing because the UTM codes will tell you which offer or ad led to the conversion. So you will be able to track your campaigns very effectively. UTM codes facilitate the optimization of your Google ads and can provide you with very clear data. You can add them manually using Google’s UTM builder.
It’s even better to add UTM codes when you’re setting up your Google Ads campaign, so you don’t have to add them manually for each ad URL.
-
Set up conversion tracking. This way you will get accurate data on how many clients or potential clients you have acquired with your advertising campaigns. This is optional to set up, but will allow you to better track sales or other activity on your website.
Conclusion
We hope you now know how to place an ad on Google Ads. If you’re not sure, try it, it’s not hard to fix.
If you want a serious advertising campaign, look for a good agency. Their costs are around 10% for some larger campaigns, and believe that the ad they place will be at least 20% cheaper than what you will do.
Not to mention keywords, ad writing and much more. If you still want to place an ad on Google yourself, here are our 7 tips:
1. Have a clear goal.
2. Create a good landing page for your ad.
3. Use the best keywords.
4. Make the creation process automated.
5. Be sure to use extensions when publishing ads.
6. Don’t forget about negative keywords.
7. Measure and always look to improve your marketing strategy.