A Beginner’s Guide to Using Google Ads

Using Google Ads might be the best decision you make for your business.

This is not an exaggeration.

People use Google to search 3.5 billion times a day. Each search offers opportunities for you to get your brand in front of more users.

This means increasing leads, conversions, and sales. That’s where Google Ads comes in.

Google Ads allow you to advertise and promote your products and services when users search relevant keywords. When done right, it has the potential to turbo-charge leads and sales.

Let’s take a look at what Google Ads are, how they work, and jump into the exact process you can use to set it up for your business today.

How Google Ads work

Google Ads operates under a pay-per-click (PPC) model. That means marketers target a specific keyword on Google and make bids on the keyword — competing with others also targeting the keyword.

The bids you make are “maximum bids” — or the maximum you’re willing to pay for an ad.

For example, if your maximum bid is $4 and Google determines that your cost per click is $2, then you get that ad placement! If they determine that it’s more than $4, you do not get the ad placement.

Alternatively, you can set a maximum daily budget for your ad. You’ll never spend more than a specific amount for that ad per day, helping you get a better sense of how much you should budget for your digital ad campaign.

Types of Google Ads

Google offers a variety of different campaign types that you can use:

• Search campaign

• Display campaign

• Shopping campaign

• Video campaign

• App campaign

Google advertising cost

The average cost-per-click in the United States is typically between $1 and $2.

However, the cost of your specific Google Ad varies on a number of factors. Those factors include the quality of your website and how much you’re bidding.

As such, the cost is going to vary from ad to ad.

To understand how much Google advertising is going to cost your business, you need to first understand the Ad Auction system.

When a user searches a keyword you’re targeting, Google automatically jumps into auction mode and compares your Ad Rank with that of every other marketer targeting that keyword.

If you think a big ad budget with large maximum bid amounts to rank well, think again.

Google’s Ad Auction and Ad Rank system favors websites that help users most with a high Quality Score over lower ones.

So you might see your CPC be much lower than a huge Fortune 500 company with a big ad budget just because your advertisement was of better quality.

Now that you know the cost, the types of ads you can make, and what Google Ads are, let’s take a look at how you can optimize your ads with Google Keyword Planner.

How to advertise on Google

There are multiple ways to advertise on Google.

If this is your first time advertising, you’re going to get a very hand-holdy process that’ll help you easily set up your Google ad. If this isn’t your first rodeo and you already have a Google Ad account, skip this section and move onto the next one.

If not, keep reading! In order to advertise on Google, you must first have a Google account for your brand or business.

If you don’t have one yet, that’s okay! Follow this link for instructions on how to create one.

Once you have your account up and running, you’re ready to advertise on Google.

Step 1: Define a winning goal

First, head to the Google Ads homepage. From there, click on the Start Now button in the middle of the page or the top right hand corner.

If you’re sent to your dashboard, click on + New Campaign.

You’ll then need to choose your campaign goal. Choosing this goal will let Google know the type of audience you’ll want to target, as well as how they’ll get your bid money.

There are a variety of goals you can choose. Once you do, it’ll help furnish the right type of ad for you.

Tip: A solid, well-defined goal can mean the difference between creating a lead generating machine with your Google Ads campaign, and seeing your time and money wasted.

And to set good goals, you need to learn how to set SMART objectives.

SMART goals help your business to build systems to achieve your Google Ads objectives. For more, be sure to check out our article on the topic.

Step 2: Choose your business name and keywords

Once you’ve chosen your goals, click Next. On the next page, you’ll need to provide a business name.

Click Next once you add your business name. You’ll now be able to add a URL to where users will go after they click on your ad.

On the next page, you can choose the keyword themes that match your ad and brand. Remember the work you did with Google Keyword Planner? This is where it might come in handy.

After you’ve chosen your keywords click Next.

Step 3: Choose your target audience

On the next page, you’ll be able to choose where you want to target your ad. This can be near a specific address such as a physical storefront or location. Or it can be broader regions, cities, or zip codes.

Choose the region you want to target. Once you do, click Next.

Step 4: Craft a fantastic ad

Now it’s time for the fun part: Crafting the actual ad itself.

In this section, you’ll be able to create the ad’s headline as well as the description. All of it is made even easier with the ad preview box on the right side.

Google also offers helpful tips and sample ads for you to jumpstart your ad writing.

There’s only one thing you need to know about writing great ad copy: Know your audience.

That’s it. There’s no big secret or trick to writing captivating copy. Once you know your target market and exactly what their pain points are, you’ll be able to create content that’ll send them click on your ad faster than you can say, “Don Draper.”

Need a little help getting to know your audience? Download our white paper on audience research for free today.

Step 5: Set up your billing

This part is straightforward. Enter in all of your billing information as well as any promotional codes you might have for a discount.

Then click on Submit.

Congratulations! You just created your first Google Ad!

Tips for running Google ad campaigns

Want to run a really stellar Google ad campaign? Follow our tips below to help.

Optimize your landing page

Your landing page is where users go after they click on your ad. As such, it’s one of the most crucial parts of your prospective customer’s experience.

You want the landing pages to have a clear and inviting call to action, while keeping the entire page scannable. That means no large blocks of text and an obvious goal.

Do you want visitors to sign up for your newsletter? Make sure the sign up box is front and center.

Want more sales? Include a few testimonials and plenty of links to purchase your products/services.

Whatever your goal, be sure to check out our tips on how to craft high-converting landing pages here (this article is Instagram specific, but it works well for any type of advertising).

Nail the headline

Your headline is arguably the most important part of your Google ad.

After all, it’s the first thing prospective customers see. And it has to stand out amongst the other results on the first page of Google.

As such, you need to make sure you nail the headline.

There are a few great ways to make inviting headlines. Our biggest suggestion: Avoid clickbait. Not only will it frustrate your readers but it also erodes your brand’s reputation.