Take Full Advantage of Google Ads Offerings

Are you using just search or taking full advantage of the entire suite of offerings? More likely than not, as an advertiser of Google Ads you've setup, managed, and used search and shopping campaigns, but there's just so much more that is offered on the platform.

Beyond Search Campaigns

Google Ads has grown to be a lot more than just search campaigns utilizing keyword bidding in ad groups, shopping campaigns utilizing products, or general display campaigns buying impressions on the GDN (Google Display Network).

Side-bar: Now manual CPC (cost-per-click) bidding on keywords is also a dinosaur of PPC (pay per click) glory days. Have you heard of enhanced CPC?

Advertisers of all sizes have access to a wide range of campaign options within Google Ads; search, shopping, display, gmail, video, and app. Focusing only on the first two leaves a lot of opportunity on the table for advertisers.

Not Just For Branding

It used to be the thinking that display and video campaigns were great for branding purposes and horrible for conversion. Google, and the digital marketing community as a whole, heard this and rolled out campaigns such as TrueView for action for YouTube advertising.

There's a two assets an advertiser will need prior to taking advantage of this campaign type such as conversion tracking and an in-stream video ad. If you have those two assets you and your team need to go and test TrueView for action campaigns today. Google also offers their own proprietary in-market data on users that will help tailor who see's your ad to have the biggest impact.

The use of TrueView campaigns in Google Ads allows for real-time, quick adjustments to campaigns. Target your budget to mobile devices to drive clicks on your ad at the highest rate possible and measure the success. After analyzing initial results, double-down on what is winning.

Utilizing Custom Intent Audiences on the Google Display Network

Custom intent audiences is a topic that deserves its own post. There is plenty of nuance and opportunities to test new ideas with the audience type that is exciting for all PPC advertisers.

Generally, this new audience allows to target users based on search term activity on Google. If users are searching for a particular product or service on Google, that activity can then be used as a targeting option for campaigns on the Google Display Network.

The use of custom intent audiences paired with 1st party data can be a real game-changer to your current display campaigns. No longer are Google display campaigns just for buying impressions on users after they been to your site. Now you can utilize quality data signals to create a display campaign that converts with the use of well manage audiences.

I recommend the creation of multiple ad groups targeting designed for one audience per ad group. This campaign structure will allow advertisers to heighten the audiences that are converting and optimize audiences that are lagging behind the campaign average.

Get Into Inboxes

Email marketing doesn't have to be just for email marketers. Now PPC specialists can get in on the fun with Gmail campaigns to advertisers to users as they go to their inbox via the Gmail app or webpage.

Google is increasing their use of this placement by adding it to Smart Shopping campaigns. Now Gmail can be a standard addition to your already running campaigns or a standalone crafted with a specific message for specific users.

As a PPC strategist I fully endorse taking the extra effort it takes to create a standalone campaign that is targeting specific audiences with specific messages. This allows advertisers the ability to communicate with users based on their purchase journey.

You don't even need to go to the lengths of designing a piece of creative, but if you have the ability please do. Google offers as an easy solution of using a logo, image, headline, description, and call-to-action button to dynamically create an ad for a user to interact with after clicking through the offer in Gmail.

It's as easy as creating a text ad, your logo, and a free stock photo to get a Gmail campaign up and running with the intentions of driving sales.

Get Started on New Campaigns

With a logo, stock image, and ad copy you too can have campaigns that convert and drive sales beyond the search engine. It really is this easy to get ads up and running with Google Ads.