Drive Consideration With Google Ads
How to use Google Ads to drive inclusion into consideration set.
Google provides tools for businesses of all sizes to reach consumers from initial consideration to post-purchase to build loyalty. In this post, I’m going to break down how to use Google Ads to get your brand in the consideration set before consumers are making purchase decisions.
WHY YOU NEED TO BE THERE
When consumers are making a decision on wether to buy a product or service, they are making that decision between the set of brands of which are currently in their consideration set. Consumers are constantly making decisions on which brands to include or exclude from their consideration set based on brand perception which is controlled by the touch points a consumer has had with a brand.
HOW GOOGLE HELPS YOU REACH YOUR CONSUMER
Google’s advertising products allow brands to reach consumers across multiple platforms in contextually relevant spaces. The scale of Google’s digital consumer reach is unrivaled but challenged by Facebook and Amazon while the breadth of products offered by Google is unparalleled.
GOOGLE ADS PRODUCTS TO KEEP YOUR BRAND TOP OF MIND
As a performance marketer, there’s no way I can recommend spending media budget against any tactic that does not increase the brand’s awareness with consumers considering a purchase of the brands product or service categories and can not be tracked.
Google provides four specific products (campaign types) to achieve this increase in consideration of your brand while tracking user to and after purchase. Those four products are Discovery Ads, advertising on YouTube, Google Display Network, and Gmail.
DISCOVERY ADS
Google recently announced Discovery Ads, at their annual Google Marketing Live event (read our recap here), as a new ad type to reach users across multiple platforms but most importantly the Discovery feed. The Discovery feed is located on Google.com, the Google app, and on Google Pixel phones. These ads look and behave just like native ads on Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, or Twitter.
The brand new Discovery ad by Google shown on YouTube’s homepage, the Discovery feed, and Gmail.
The strategy behind these Discovery ads used by brands should be used to capture users as they discover new products, go about their normal online behavior, and watch product reviews on YouTube.
These Discovery ads can be used to drive action beyond the inherent awareness generated. Drive users to your website for more information to continue to nurture or directly to a product to purchase. Being there with Discovery ads in-front of the correct user based on Google’s data is the key to being included in the consideration set and having another brand touchpoint.
The brand new Discovery ad by Google shown on YouTube’s homepage, the Discovery feed, and Gmail.
ADVERTISING ON YOUTUBE
YouTube offers two distinct advertising opportunities on their platform; one being a Discovery ad and the other being In-stream video. Discovery ads on YouTube show up on the homepage when a user logs on to the platform. An In-stream video ad shows before the video a user has selected to watch.
For the best result, use creative that is made for the YouTube and is six seconds in length maximum. You only want to put your brand into the consideration set with YouTube. Google points to short, impactful creative leading to increases in brand message retention and likeliness to buy that brand. The likely-hood of generating a post-click conversion via ads on YouTube is low, but the chances to gain a spot in the users consideration set is high.
GOOGLE DISPLAY NETWORK
Google’s display advertising offering with the GDN (Google Display Network) give unprecedented reach across the internet with content creators and website owners easily having the ability to offer ad space via Google AdSense. On top of the reach that’s available, Google has data from users search history, YouTube watch history, and online browsing behavior via Google Analytics to group users into targetable groups.
Used properly the display network won’t be a pest to users feeling like they’re being followed around the internet constantly but a source of friendly information. You have the ability to “start a conversation” with users by taking into consideration contextual signals of the content a user is interacting with. If you’re a footwear brand, you have the ability to advertise on a blog post about the best running shoes for 2019 and offer your solution (aka running shoes) as the answer to problem a user is trying to solve. Thus, this provides another touchpoint that can help put your brand into a consumers consideration set.
GMAIL
The targetable groups Google creates can also be leveraged for advertising on Gmail which is one of Google’s most popular platforms with millions of daily active users. Gmail ads create a unique opportunity to connect with consumers once they navigate to the promotions section of Gmail, actively looking for promotions from brands.
What better place to reach your ideal consumer than in their inbox looking for deals from your competitors. Beat your competitors to the punch by getting the first place in that users inbox promoting your own deal to insert your brand into the consideration set.
PUT INTO PRACTICE
Using all of these Google advertising products in combination is the best formula to get your brand into the consideration set with consumers mulling a purchase decision. For example; if a user searches for “red running shoes” on Google, you can then take that data and have ads hit users when they look at their Discovery feed for exercise tips, go on YouTube looking for reviews of the shoe they searched for, navigate to a running shoe review site, and go to Gmail promotions tab looking for deals.
The key to making this work is the use of Custom Audiences that live within the Google ecosystem. You have the ability to take into consideration multiple different targeting factors such as search and browsing history, places visited, and Android apps used.
DIFFERENT CUSTOM AUDIENCES
There are two types of Custom Audiences available in Google Ads which are Custom Affinity and Custom Intent. Custom Affinity audiences give the ability to target ads towards users who go to particular websites such as espn.com or even users who visits sports arenas.
Initial setup screen for Google Ads Custom Affinity Audiences
Custom Audiences in Google Ads allows for advertisers to take advantage of the example provided earlier for a user searching for “red running shoes” with Custom Intent audiences.
Custom Intent audience setup in Google Ads.
The best Custom Intent audiences come from your top performing keywords. Google recommends taking your top 50 keywords and creating an audience around those users. If people are looking for your product or services but not engaging with your brand, this type of audience allows you to get in front of them to be put into the consideration set.
GET STARTED
Now that you’ve soaked in this information on how to use Google Ads to get your brand into consumers consideration set. Take this as a guide to go and create custom audiences and use the tools provided to you by Google to reach your ideal consumers.