Google Adwords, or Google Ads, is a powerful tool for marketers and business owners looking to target a variety of issues on their to-do lists:
- Increase traffic to a website
- Attract new potential customers
- Get more revenue
- Improve brand authority and brand recognition.
It’s a complex PPC service, and with its complexity comes a lot of questions regarding how exactly you should use it. One question a lot of our clients often ask us is how often should they buy Google ads.
Google Ads 101
First, let’s take a closer look at what Google Ads is as a service, and how it works. It’s a pay-per-click (PPC) service that allows you to run paid advertisements on Google, either on the Search Network or on Google’s Display Network.
The Search Network ads are the ones that will appear on the search engine, between the organic search results after a user matches your keywords. Google Display Network is a group of millions of sites, apps, videos, and other digital products where you can show your banner ads.
The elements you’ll need for these ads are:
- A landing page link – where your users will end up after clicking on an ad;
- Ad copy – what the ad says
- Ad banner – for GDN only
You can use Google Ads to promote your product or services to an entirely new group, but to do that you will need to do two things:
- Really define your target audience, meaning who are the people who will be interested in what you’re offering;
- Conduct keyword research to identify what people are searching on Google that could match with your ad, and get them to click on them. Here, you should also include negative keywords, which will exclude certain types of queries that you deem won’t help you reach your goal.
How Often Should You Run These Ads?
The answer to this question depends a lot on what your goal is, but in general, when you’re talking about a campaign, you’re talking about a long-term marketing strategy.
In a nutshell, you probably won’t reach a goal with just a 1-month ad, unless your goal is very specific and very low. For instance, if you just want to attract 50 new visitors to your website, and that’s it, then you can do that with just one ad.
However, Google Ads let you reach so far beyond that. Businesses can experience genuine growth from a well thought out ad campaign that can allow them to bring new leads, which then become conversions.
But the notion of a “long-term”/campaign on Google isn’t appealing to everyone, because there is a belief that Google Ads are expensive. Small business owners may not have the budget to embark on this type of strategy, at least not one that can bring them closer to their goals.
Well, Google Ads can be sometimes expensive, but it really depends on the industry, and how you set them up.
The Google Ads Budget
With Google Ads, a marketer or business will only pay whenever an ad leads to the desired action, such as a link click or phone call, and not every time the ad is shown.
So if Google shows your ad to 5000 people, and only 55 ends up clicking on your link, you only pay for 55 link clicks. The other 4,945 aren’t useless since they help improve brand recognition, but that’s a different conversion.
Additionally, you can attribute an ad campaign, ad group, and singular ad to its own budget. When Google runs through all the money you have in your budget, it stops showing your ad until you put some money back into your account.
The issue with how much you pay comes down to the cost per click. With Google Ads, you will go through an auction process where you bid on the keywords you want to leverage. The more people bid on a particular keyword, the more the cost per click goes up. It’s why some industries like the insurance one have some of the most expensive keywords out there – these companies generally have the money to spend on ads, and so they bid more aggressively on the same keywords.
Of course, you can lower the amount you’re willing to pay for a click, but that will lower your reach as well. Those willing to pay more will get ahead.
Google Ad Spending
To have better control over how much you spend through your Google ads, you need to optimise your ad spending. Setting up a daily budget or a cap on how much you pay for a keyword is only part of the process.
First, you need to check the ad’s quality score, which tells you if the ad is relevant for the target audience, if the landing page is okay, and other information about the ad. If you have a lower score (it’s a 1-10 mark), then the ad needs to be changed. You can even pause the ad to avoid spending money on something that does not work. If you have a high score, you can increase the budget to bring in better results.
Then, you need to choose a bidding strategy that’s best for the goals you want to reach:
- Conversions – Target Cost Per Action, Maximise conversions
- Ad Clicks – Maximise Clicks
- Viewable impressions – cost per thousand impressions (GDN only).
Contact Us for a Google Ads Strategy
Australian Internet Advertising will ensure that not only will Google show your ad to the right target audience, but that customers buy or book from you, guaranteed. We are a trusted Google Ads Agency with strategies that generate amazing results!
