If you’re looking to grow your customer base, Google Ads is a great place to begin. Google has over 5 billion daily interactions, so it’s basically unbeatable in terms of reach.
That doesn’t mean it's easy to succeed – you still have to put in the work to make your ads stand out and be effective.
To give you even more reach, it's not only Google Search you can advertise on:
1. In Google search, the first several results are paid ads, as well as the last results at the bottom of the first page. Search ads are great because they allow you to advertise on a very specific intent related to your business
2. Google Display advertising allows you to reach customers in millions of websites and apps. You can target customers based on the data that Google has collected about them, for example which websites they visit and even demographic information.
3. YouTube - yes, you can reach your prospective customers on YouTube, and creating a Google Ads account is the key to unlock this massive opportunity.
4. Lastly, Gmail - you can even run ads based on what emails people receive and advertise directly in their inbox. Clever, right?
Benefits of a Google Ads Account
Google Ads (formerly Google Adwords,) helps you reach your ideal customer base with targeted ads so that instead of reaching a random set of users, you’re more likely to be reaching people who are interested in products like yours.
Better yet, you can choose how you use your ads to target your audience.
You’ll be able to use keywords and location services. You can target your ads based on the desired age, location, and language of your ideal audience. You’ll be able to choose when your ads show – which days of the week, times of the day, and how often they’ll be displayed.
You don’t have to be left wondering if your ads are working or not. Google Ads has a built-in tracking system that lets you in on ad clicks, or conversion tracking: which of those clicks translated to a sale or a download.
When you see which of your ads has the best functionality, meaning the most clicks or orders, you can prioritize those methods going forward for the best possible outcome.
Before you create your Google Ads account
There are a few things you need to do before you create your Google Ads account and get the advertisements up and running. The first one is pretty obvious – you need an email address.
You also need a website or an app, aka the place where your ads will be directing traffic to.
Go to your website and make sure your landing page is ready for the viewers who are directed there by your ads:
Is it easy to navigate? Are your most important pages visible right when you land on the site? Will users have easy access to sign up for updates or join your service? Is your website up to date within your industry?
If you’re feeling overwhelmed by any step of the advertising process, take a look at our Do's and Don'ts when starting out with Google ads at the bottom of this article.
Step-by-step: Creating a Google Ads account
Go to your Google account; create one if you don’t have one already. If you have multiple, choose which account you’ll be using. From now on, this will be your Google Ads manager account.
1. Navigate to Ads.Google.com. From there, click one of the blue “Start Now” buttons to begin your account setup.
Unless you’re ready to start your first campaign from the get-go, click on the option that says “Experienced with Google Ads?” this will direct you to the simple act of creating an account instead of creating a campaign alongside your account.
If you don’t click “Experienced with Google Ads,” you’ll automatically be routed to “Google Ads Express” – instead, you want to use the full version or even “expert mode” for further customization.
2. The next page will again prompt you to create a campaign, offering you several campaign options. Below is a link: “Create an account without a campaign.”
3. Confirm your business information, such as your timezone, currency, and billing country.
There’s still a bit more to do to get you up and running. You won’t be able to run ads until your billing system is set up.
4. Input and double-check your billing information. At this point, you should also ensure that your contact details like your phone number and address are current – sometimes we’ve been using our Gmail accounts so long that we don’t realize an old address is still in use.
To do this, log into your new account. In the top right navigation area, you’ll see a wrench icon labeled ‘Tools and Settings.’
You’ll get a drop-down menu – under Billing, click Settings. This will bring you to the billing page, where you can add or edit your business and credit card information. Google Ads either uses a PPC (pay-per-click) advertising model or an impression based model (e.g. for display advertising).
At the bottom of the page, click ‘Submit.’
5. Now your new Google Ads account is set up and ready to go. This is a good time to give access to your team or agency – which you can do with Leadsie.
Create your first Google Ads campaign
1. Sign into your account, and from the landing page, click on ‘New campaign.’ Here you’ll create your first ad to boost traffic to your website or app.
2. Pick your advertising goal. Goals include ‘website traffic,’ ‘sales,’ ‘leads,’ ‘brand awareness,’ and ‘app promotion.’
- The sales goal works to engage with customers who are close to the point of the process where they make a purchase decision. The campaign types within a sales goal are search, display, and shopping.
- The leads goal encourages ongoing participation by ideal customers by signing up for more information such as a newsletter or putting their contact information into your system. Leads campaign types include search, display, shopping, and video.
- Website traffic as a goal increases overall potential customer flow through your website. Website traffic campaign types are search, display, shopping, and video.
- The goal of brand awareness means introducing your product to a new market or when you have a new product as part of your services. Brand awareness campaign types can be display or video.
- The app promotion goal refers to wanting customers to install the mobile app associated with your online presence. The campaign type for app promotion is a universal app. If you have multiple goals, you should set up two different PPC campaigns.
3. Name your campaign. This should be based on your product and what you’re advertising.
Next, you’ll choose your display location. This can be a country, a city, or even based on latitude and longitude coordinates. If you’re a local business, you will want to target your geographic area, while if you’re a fully online service, you’ll be less tied to your specific locale.
4. Set up your budget. Initially, it’s better to set a low budget and use your initial ads to gather data. You’ll be able to expand once you have a feel for your campaigns and how your target customers are interacting with them. You can set your payment method to manual, automatic, or monthly invoices.
5. Set your keywords. According to Main Street ROI, most users are tempted to put in as many keywords as possible. This can be a mistake because you end up spending more money and having less specific reach.
Instead, go for “bullseye” keywords or the exact phrases that your ideal customer will be searching for to find your product or service.
6. Create your ad! You’ll need to write three headlines and two ad descriptions. The third headline might not show on all devices, so concentrate your most important intel in the first two.
Zone in on the key benefits of what you’re selling. Be concise – longer ads don’t attract more customers; instead, they’re more likely to distract – and you have a 90-character limit on your descriptions.
Include a call to action to encourage on-the-spot conversion with new customers. Metigy offers excellent tips on writing effective ad copy.
7. Once your ads are up and running, you’ll need to begin tracking your metrics.
Luckily, Google Ads helps out with services such as the Quality Score. The quality score is “Google’s rating of the quality and relevance of both your keywords and PPC ads.” It is used to determine your CPC and ad rank. The quality score is determined by several factors, including your click-through rate, keyword relevance, page quality, and more.
But you don’t need to get ahead of yourself. Create your Google Ads account and familiarize yourself with the process. If you’re working with an agency or freelancer on your Google Ads campaigns, here is how you’ll give them access.
5 do’s and don’ts for your first campaign
We’ve asked our very own Google Ads expert Patrick, CEO of Singularity Digital, for what pitfalls to avoid and what crucial things to do when starting out with Google Ads. Here you go!
Don't
- Have a wide target audience. Even if you serve all the US states or even the whole world, you won’t make your mark if you’re too generalized. Focus your budget on a specific sector, you can expand over time.
- Make assumptions about what will and won’t work. No matter how well you think you know your customer base, there’s always more to learn. Take industry advice to heart, communicate with your customers, and learn from your competitors and critics. Feedback is essential to growth.
- Run one ad at a time – if you run several, you can see what works best: not everything will hit. Try out different themes, copy, or styles. Just one ad limits how much you’ll learn.
- Set up an ad without setting up conversion. It can be tempting to hit the ground running, but if there’s no conversion set up, your ads won’t help you in the long run. Even better, set up a revenue stream from the get-go.
- Skirt the rules - We all know Google has policies for everything, and some aren’t our favorites. But ads isn’t a time to go off book. You don’t want your account canceled before you’ve even gotten started – and the Google policy team is notoriously unforgiving.
Do
- Write as many headlines and descriptions as possible. You want to have tons of copy to choose from, and you’ll refine your wording as you go. Forcing yourself to come up with new word combos and themes for your ads can make them truly stand out.
- Take time to understand the market, as well as you and your competitors USPs. Research may seem like a slog, but it proves invaluable in the long run.
- Take risks in your ad copy. When you’re writing out different headlines and descriptions, experiment and see what you can do differently. What will make your ads stand out?
- Interview your customers and target market. Set up calls or Q&As with your ideal market and get feedback from them about what would engage them in an ad.
- Set up display remarketing and RLSA campaigns - low-cost ongoing campaigns will assist your bottom line.
Create marketing accounts in just a few clicks with Leadsie
Do you frequently create new advertising accounts, e.g. because you’re an agency or freelancer?
Check out Leadsie, which makes creating new advertising accounts a breeze:
Want to onboard your clients smoothly and allow them to create ad accounts and give access hassle-free? Try us out for free for 14 days!
Do you have any questions on creating your Google ads account? Tweet us @leadsie.
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