Fundamentals About the Google Search Ads

Hi there! Main point of digital marketing is reaching right people, with right message, in the right time. I will mention this in my next posts as well. Forget about all confusing metrics, rules, suggestions, complex explanations of digital marketers, just be simple! As Albert Einstein said, ‘’If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough.’’ Again, right people, right message and right time!

Google Search Ads… When someone search something on Google, your advertisement will be seen on the top of search result page. Every Google user are familiar with these ads. If we establish our strategy properly and wisely, we can provide the rule of right people, right message and right time.

Some of advertisement types in digital marketing is triggered after our potential clients take an action, like browsing a word or a phrase in Google. I love this kinds of advertisements, because these ones provide the right people and right time criteria more than others. ?Isn’t make sense? For example, you are looking for a software consultancy service for your company and search it in google, and my ads are saying 'Welcome, I am here' to you at the top of the search results. You are the right person because I know that you search it, you need it. And this is the right time, you are searching to it, maybe not ready to make a sale right now but you are searching, want to learn more, it is perfect time to contact with you, after the first touch convincing you and ending it with a sale is my, a professional digital marketer. Business!

These are the general concept of search ads, let's dive into details a little bit! Catching your potential client’s search terms is crucial while designing our strategy. Remember, I will keep all my posts simple and understandable for you! So, just think like this if you were a person who need a service or product, your search would be how? Which words you would use. Just think about this and design your keyword strategy based on this simple mentality. For example, your software consultancy service can be seen in ‘’b2b software consultancy services’’ search but ‘’financial audit software consultancy services’’ is a more detailed and more specific search term.

While designing your keyword strategy you need to know the ‘’match types’’ as well. Google search ads have different match type options.

?1-Broad Match: Ads can be shown to people who searched your keyword, any variation of your keyword, related terms, in any part of the search, ranking isn’t matter.

?Type your keyword naturally to use it: Software Consultancy Service

?2-Broad Match Modifier: Ads can be shown to people who searched your keyword, close variations of your keyword. Ranking of keywords is not a matter.

?Type your keywords behind of a plus (+) sign: +Software +Consultancy +Service

3-Phrase Modifier: Ads can be shown to people who searched your keyword, close variations, ranking is matter. Words can be added behind or forward of phrase only.

?Type your keywords between quotation marks: ‘’Software Consultancy Service’’

4-Exact Match: Ads can be shown to people who searched your keyword, close variations, ranking is matter, extra words can’t be added.

??Type your keywords between brackets: [Software Consultancy Service]

5-Negative Keywords: In order to restrict your ads from unrelated searches, you can use negative keywords. For example, your company is providing consultancy services for financial audit software, a search like production control software consultancy is unrelated with your services.

?Type minus (-) sign to use it: -Production -Control

In order to choose the best and popular keywords, you need to consider the search volume of these keywords regarding your target area. Keyword planner tools will give you data that is beneficial while designing your keyword strategy such as volume.

**Designing your keyword strategy is a key factor. This requires expertise and experience. Too many advertisers pay high costs and cannot get good results because of weak and inadequate keyword strategies. If you need help with this, I'm here :)**

After we design our keyword strategy, now we will design the message’s itself. A search ad consists of three parts. 1-Header, 2-Description and 3-URL. There are thousands of different strategy combinations, but I will emphasize general and given ones. Firstly, put at least one of your keywords into header. This is Google’s own advice also and I am sure with my years of experiences that this is working! About the deception; please don’t put useless information in there. Don’t forget you are designing an ad! An ad, a marketing documentation! What make your product or service special, have a discount or extra after-sale service? Especially, discounts are very beneficial in description. Also very important to put a CTA(Call to Action) phrase. Like: ‘’Book a Demo’’, ‘’Visit Now!’’, ‘’Ask the Expert!’’, ‘’Find the Best Solution’’. When I have read that Call to Action phrase are motivates to people, I surprised a lot. If someone type there ‘’book now’’ and if I read that, does this motivate me? Yes! Even though it doesn’t make any sense, yes! Finally, last part of a search ad is URL. It is the place where your potential clients go after clicking your ad. It must be matched with your keywords, and general concept in your ad. Do not forget! Designing your message is a process, you will observe results and you need to change your message based on results.

**Your message should be simple, effective and trustable. As you do this over and over and test your results, your messages will be perfect. Knowing what will motivate potential customers is a special expertise. Again if you need help, I am here! **

Let’s move on another topic: Ad Extensions! Just be ready to a huge paragraph J There are lots of different ad extension types. Let’s go one by one! Read carefully and discover the most beneficial ones. 1-Sitelinks: Extra links. They help people to navigate on your website, seen under the description. If your ad message related to different parts of your websites, you can use this. For example, your ad tells about your software consultancy service and in your website each of software is told in one page, in your ad you can use sitelinks to navigate your potential clients to pages about each special software pages. We have two extensions that are very similar to each other. 2-Structured Snipped and 3-Callout Extensions. Both of them tells special important information about your product or your business. They are just below the description. 4-Local Extension: If you have a physical store and want to promote it, you can put location of your store in your ad. I highly suggest you to use this even though your aim is promoting online sales, because if people know that there is a physical store near of them, their purchase decision process accelerates. 5-Call Extension: Simple and fast way to communicate! If your company is enough to answer again I highly suggest you to put a call extension in your ad, this again accelerates the process. Also, it is great to generate leads, because when a potential client called you, you can follow up that number later with a newer offer. 6-App Extension: Your app’s link and logo. Perfect if you are promoting an app! 7-Price Extension: If you have more than one product or service. Also, if you think that your price is motivates to potential clients! They may build a trust with your brand and your potential clients. 8-Promotion Extension: Special offer, discounts etc. A strong motivator! It enables you to make such promotion additions without resetting the campaign. 9-Message Addition: Again a good way to connect with potential clients. Showing your search as is the first touch with your potentials clients, during this first touch communicating with them via phone call or message is great! So, using these kind of extensions is a great idea. Testing them and choosing the best working one is important, never forget that this is a process!

There are a lot of very important thing to mention from dynamic search ads to automated bidding. However, as a last thing I want to tell you about the bidding system. After learning bidding strategy you will learn the basics of search ads. Let’s go on with our example, software consultancy services! I guess it is not surprised that there are competitors in this area, and our competitors also want to use search ads. How Google decide whose ad will be shown? Based on Ad Rank! Google use a score system for ads that is called as ad rank, this score decide if your ad will be shown or not and ranking in the search results(generally up to three ads exist). Ad ranks consist of different things; bid amount! Think it like an auction. While designing your campaign you are giving a bid, that is the maximum amount you pay to be shown in search results, but perfect thing with search ads is that you pay only someone click your ad. So, you set a maximum price for every click, that is your bid. If your bid is so low unfortunately your ad won’t be shown but if your ad is so high you have to pay high price per click. Deciding proper bid amount is a crucial process. Another factor that affects ad rank is relevancy with search query. Also, ad quality. Your ads quality depends on your expected click through rate, your url and landing page’s performance and again ad relevancy! These are all important factors that we, digital marketers, care. Because, a high ad rank means more visible ads and that means reaching more people!

There are a lot of details about search ads but I tried to mention the basics. Search ads can bring great return rates with small costs when properly designed. Running a marketing process through the searches people make on Google provides better returns than you might expect. This process requires, a lot of research and expertise. As you try and test, the results you will get in this area will be perfect. I'm always here if you need support in this area, I enjoy chatting, exchanging ideas and helping people in this area :)