How to Use Google AdWords (And See Results!) LeadCrossing
Online advertising has continued to grow exponentially over the last few years, and Google AdWords is one of the biggest players in the market. Although Google Ads are great to use for marketing, there are many people out there that still don't understand exactly what Google's online advertising platform is and how to use it. Through all of our years in digital marketing, we've learned the ins and outs of the Google's ad platform and want to share it with you so you can use this tool to grow your business quickly. Here's how to use Google AdWords and see results! Step 1: Kno w the D ifference Between P a id & Org a nic Sea rch Organic search might be obvious to you, but the important thing to know when using Google is where to find organic (green) searches and paid (red) searches.
According to HubSpot over 70% of online searchers click on the organic results, while only 30% click on paid ads. But does that mean you should avoid paid advertisement? No! Here's why: Small businesses often have a hard time ranking well in search engines like Google and Bing because their popularity does not match up with the big dogs in their industry. Paid search ads are a great way to get your name out in front of your competitors without spending big money. Step 2: Lea rn Ho w Yo u Sho ul d Use P a id Sea rch Ads There are plenty of ways to use Google AdWords, but there are just a few ways that you should be using search ads to bring in more business.
1. Test Yo ur La nding P a g es Testing your landing pages (or the pages you send your ad viewers to after they click on your search ad) is one of the most important things to do. With Google AdWords you can send your ad viewers to different landing pages to test out which layout, copy, or content is best. 2. Find New Keywo rds Google AdWords also provides you with reports that will help you find new keywords without any extra work. By utilizing the Search Terms report within Google AdWords, you will find more keywords that people are using to find your ad. You can then bid on those words that leading to more clicks and conversions to increase your ad efficiency! 3. R a nk Hig her in Go o g l e The competition for online search is steep. Even the biggest of companies have a hard time getting above the fold (before you have to scroll down to view searches) for every major keyword in their industry. This is where paid Google ads come in. Paid Google ads will help you rank your site or landing pages higher in search than they would be ranked organically. Step 3: Lea rn Ho w Go o g l e Ads Wo rks (I nside & Out) Go o g l e AdWo rds Structure: The hardest part of figuring out Google AdWords is learning how Google decides to choose what paid advertisements rise above the rest. There are 3 aspects to every online search campaign you need to keep in mind: 1. Keywo rds
2. Ads 3. La nding P a g es These three aspects work together to drive traffic to your site through search engines. First, you start with your keywords. Do your research to see what your consumers are searching for that you can provide them with and use those keywords to structure your first ads. After you find your keywords, it's important to design your ads around those keywords so that your ad is relevant enough for Google to rank high. Not only do your ads need to be relevant, they need to be attractive enough to draw in consumers and make them click through to your landing page. Lastly, you need to get your visitors to convert on your site in some way. Creating a landing page specific to your keywords or directing your visitors to a specific offer will increase conversions. P a y-p er-cl ick (P P C) & Keywo rd Bidding Pay-per-click is the most commonly used payment system on Google AdWords. Because there are so many individuals on Google every day searching, basing your ad spend on impression, also known as views, would be a bad idea for most companies who do not have an infinite marketing budget. Pay-per-click is just like it sounds: you pay for each click on your ad. So ho w do yo u determine wha t ea ch cl ick wil l co st yo u? Google allows you to bid on any given keyword that fits your business or ad. Just like an auction, you place your bid on your keyword and whoever bids the highest (and has the highest quality score) will be the winner!
If you are not the highest bidder, your ad will fall in line behind others who bid higher or after the highest bidder depending on what everyone else bid on the keyword. Don't fret if you bid $5 per click on a specific keyword! You may not have to pay that much depending on what everyone else bid beneath you. The lowest bid will be used as the lowest price for that specific keyword ad and each bid that is higher than the lowest price will have an incremental price added to their cost depending on their ranking. Fo r exa mpl e: The lowest bid was $2.00 so the lowest ranking ad will be priced at $2.00 per click. The incremental price added to each bid after that is $0.05. From there on you will see an increase in price by five cents. If there are only 11 bids for your keyword, the highest price will be $2.50 per click. Wha t Yo u Need to Kno w Abo ut Yo ur Qua l ity Sco re Google uses a quality score to determine how relevant your ad is to your landing page and vice versa. In the beginning of AdWords, Google found out that many people were misusing keywords by bidding on keywords that were completely unrelated and leading searchers to irrelevant ads. Google decided that they needed a way to scan paid ads alongside their landing pages to ensure that a search experience wasn't a complete waste. They came up with Quality Score. Here's ho w it wo rks: Your Quality Score is ranked on a scale of 1-10, where 1 is the lowest rating and 10 is the highest. If you bid on a keyword for $5 and have a quality score of 8, whereas your competition bids on a keyword for $7 and has a quality score of 3, you will most likely receive the higher rank in Google search based on your quality score and relevancy.
Quality score isn't just for Google's analysis. You can use your Quality Score to optimize your keywords and website content. If you see that your Quality Score for a specific keyword is low, you then know that your ad or site is lacking in relevancy and keyword optimization. This means you can either spend time optimizing your landing page or drop your keyword altogether and choose a more efficient keyword for your site. The best thing you can do to get the best Quality Score is to tighten up all of your relationships within your landing page, ads, and keywords to make sure they are both aligned with each other's messages! Step 4 : Crea te Yo ur AdWo rds Stra teg y Choosing a strategy that best suits your product or service is easier than you would think. Google ads base their strategy off of keywords used in search. There are three ways you can select keywords that match what you are selling:
E xa ct Ma tch: Exact match phrases are used to send searchers directly to your ad only if they use the exact phrase you bid on. The words searched cannot be shuffled around and must remain in the order you put them in if you choose exact match. Use brackets [all natural dog treats] to create exact match phrases. Now searchers will only find you if they type in that exact phrase in that exact order. P hra se Ma tch: Phrase match allows your phrase to be found through search but with the additional words if a searcher adds on any extra to their search. Your phrase or keyword must remain in the same order, but they can still see your ad if they use additional words as long as they use your exact phrase. Use "natural dog treats" to create a phrase match. Someone could search 'natural dog treats near me' and your ad will still pop up on their search. Bro a d Ma tch: This is the broadest you can make your keywords. This allows a lot of traffic to come to your ad, but many of these leads will be unqualified. Broad match allows your ad to be displayed when a person's search contains any or at least some combination of your keywords. They can be in any order. To create a broad match keyword, just leave your words as is without any extra symbols (example: natural dog treats). Neg a tive Ma tch: Using negative words to filter out any kind of searches you do not wish to find you is a great way to avoid unqualified leads upping your ad spend. Use a minus sign, -organic, to eliminate any searches looking for organic dog treats. AdWo rds Stra teg y Tip: Start with a mix of broad and phrase match keywords to help you draw in large amounts of traffic in the beginning. After you have a decent amount of traffic, you can analyze to see what keywords are working best for your business and then move those keywords over to exact match keywords.
Step 5: Test, Test, a nd Test So me Mo re Never stop testing your keywords. If your keywords begin to slip or perform really well, continue to monitor them to make sure they are on the right track. If your keywords are not performing well, it's time to try something new! Step 6: Structure Yo ur Acco unt & Budg et Go o g l e AdWo rds Acco unt: It's important to keep an organized AdWord account or you will have a difficult time figuring out what is working and what is not. Google has a few ways you can structure your ads and keywords that make it easier to keep track of everything. Ad Gro up these are just groups of ads that work in one specific area. Use ad groups to identify specific lines of your products or service and direct keywords to those aspects of your business. Example: Holiday Dog Treats is your product line. Your keywords might be pumpkin dog treats, carob chip dog treats, decorated dog treats. Ca mpa ig n a campaign is your overall category that your ad groups go inside. Multiple ad groups can fit inside these generic groups. Example: Dog Treats is your campaign. Your ad groups inside of your campaign might be titled: Holiday Dog Treats, Natural Dog Treats, Organic Dog Treats. AdWo rds Budg et: Don't forget to set a budget for your ads! If you don't set a budget, your credit card bill will rack up at a crazy rate.
Google allows you to set a daily budget for your paid ads. You can tell Google exactly how much you want to spend per day on a certain campaign. You set your budget at $500 per day for your Dog Treats campaign. Google will spend up to $500 per day on that campaign, no more, but it may spend less. Depending on how much traffic your ad drives, Google may only charge you $300 per day instead of the full $500. You can also adjust your budget settings to allow you to spend your money throughout the day and not during just one or two hours if your ad is highly relevant. Step 7: Optimize Yo ur Co py The most important thing about Google ads is that they have a character limit for each line in your advertisement. This means that you have to think carefully about what you decide to use to draw in potential customers through search. Remember these four numbers to get you through the ad copy process: 25, 35, 35, a nd 35. Your headline has a 25-character limit. This is where you draw in potential leads and identify your company. Your display URL link has a 255-character limit, but will only show 35 characters on the ad that the searcher can see. Your first description line has a 35-character limit. This is where you inform the searcher. Your second description line as a 35-character limit. This is your call to action. Here's a great Google ad example for dog treats from Chewy.com:
Wha t did Chewy do rig ht? Chewy started their headline off with "Dog Treats Sale at Chewy.com." This draws in the searcher immediately. Their display URL shows the searcher that they are being directed to a DogTreats webpage. The first description line identifies dog treats, a low price, fast shipping, and 24/7 customer support along the way. This informs the visitor about what kind of service to expect. The second description line gives people a reason to stick around and an incentive to do business because they have high ratings across the board in customer service and selection. Step 8: Ana l yzing Yo ur Wo rk The very last step in this AdWords cycle is to analyze your hard work! There are a few basic metrics you need to keep in mind when setting your goals for your Google ads that can be used with basically any online advertising platform. 1. I mpressio n: a single time that your ad was displayed to a searcher. 2. Cl ick: a searcher clicks on your ad to go through to your landing page or site. 3. Co nversio n: an action taken by the searcher that you wanted them to take such as downloading a free ebook or purchasing a product. 4. Spend: 4. Spend: how much you spend on your keywords, ads, and campaigns.
You will need all of these metrics to figure out the true success of your online ads. Here are a few simple formulas we use to see how successful our ads are here at LeadCrossing. Cl ick Thro ug h R a te (CTR ) = # of clicks / # of impressions Co nversio n R a te = # of conversions / # of clicks Co st P er Cl ick (CP C) = spend in $ / # of clicks Co st P er Acq uisitio n (CP A) = spend in $ / # of conversions P ercenta g e Fo rmul a s With percentage formulas, your overall goal is to increase your end percentage. The higher your percentage the more efficiently your ad is performing. Your CTR is the number of clicks you receive out of all of the searchers who have seen your ad. Your Co nversio n R a te is the number of people who took an action on your site out of the number of people who clicked through to see your landing page. Co st Fo rmul a s With cost formulas, your overall goal is to decrease your end cost. The lower your cost the more efficiently your ad is performing. CP C is how you determine how much it costs you to receive one click through on your ad. CP A is the amount you spend to complete one conversion on your landing page through your Google ad. Befo re Yo u Go...
Don't panic if your ads are barely hanging on by a thread. A lot of trial and error is needed to reach the perfect mix of keywords, but it's important that you continue to power through to keep your business in front of your customers online. If you have any questions at all, we are here to help and want you to have the best success at getting everything right sooner rather than later. Always remember that Google AdWords is just one of the advertising platforms you can use today. Many of the same phrases and ideas can be transferred over to other platforms such as Facebook Ads Manager. If you want to learn more about other kinds of ad platforms, visit our guides on how to create your own Facebook Ad account and get started! How to Create a Facebook Ad Account How to Create a Facebook Ad Campaign How to Create Facebook Ad Sets & Ads