What is Google Ads?
“When I was asked to run Google Ads campaigns, I had the same question on my mind. It was my first job, and I had joined for a role in Market Research. Google Ads was a concept that seemed completely new”.
Google Ads is an online advertising service developed by Google, where advertisers pay to display brief advertising copy, product listings, and video content within the Google ad network to web users. This system is based on keywords determined by advertisers.
Google uses these characteristics to place advertising copy on pages where they think it might be relevant. The Ads program enables businesses to set a budget for advertising and only pay when people click the ads. Partner websites receive a lot of the produced income.
The Ads program includes local, national, and international distribution. Google’s text advertisements are short, consisting of two headlines with a maximum of 30 characters each, a description with a maximum of 80 characters, and a display URL of 40 characters.
These are called Ads expanded text Ads. These mimic what the average search result looks like on Google. Image ads can be one of the several different standardized sizes designated by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB).
In May 2016, Google announced it is reformatting ads to help consumers and advertisers succeed in a mobile-first world. The new format, called Expanded Text Ads, allows for 23% more text. This new format is available on both the Google Search Network and the Google Display network.
It features two headlines with 30 characters each, replacing the standard of a single headline with 30 characters. The display URL has been replaced with two 15-character paths, not including the root domain.
Why Google Ads?
→ More customers can be attracted
If you are looking for new visitors to your website, grow online sales and get the phones ringing or keep customers returning back for more, Google Ads is the right place.
→ Right people at the right time can be reached
People on Google find your business exactly when they are searching for the things that you offer.
→ Advertisement can be done locally or globally
Target your ads to customers in certain countries, regions, or cities – or within a set distance from your business or shop.
How do ads work?
♦ Choose how you want to reach your customers.
With text-based search ads, graphic display ads, YouTube video ads, or in-app mobile ads, you have plenty of ways to reach your target customer with Ads.
1. Search Ads
Your ad appears next to search results on Google.
2. Display Ads
With text and banner ads across Gmail and a network of over two million websites and apps, your ad can show up where your customers are.
3. Video Ads
Your business comes to life in front of new customers on YouTube. It is a unique way to share your story.
4. App Ads
Promote your app by running ads across the entire Google network – no design experience required.
♦ REACH WHO YOU WANT
Reach out to potential customers within a few kilometers of your business, or broadcast your ads to entire regions or countries. With Ads, it is up to you.
♦ MEASURE PERFORMANCE
a. See how your ads are doing.
With Ads, you will check how many people show your ads, visit your website, or call your business. You can even target specific types of people if your business is specialized.
b. Put your ads to the test.
Once you have found what is working and what is not, you can tweak your ads and test your changes to see if they work better.
c. Stay in control of your budget.
Adjust your budget whenever you want. In addition, with no contract, you can end your campaign anytime without cancellation fees.
♦ Pay only for results
→ No visit, no fee
Signing up for Google Ads is free. You only pay when someone clicks your ad to visit your website or calls you. In other words, when your advertising is working.
→ Start with any budget
You set your own budget, so your costs will depend on what you are trying to accomplish with your advertising. Some businesses spend tens of thousands of dollars a month, and others are comfortable investing several hundred
Read more: How to Create the Best Google Ads Campaign?
Two Reasons to Use Google Ads for Your Cleaning Business
Why should I spend money on Google Ads for my cleaning business? We get this question occasionally, so here are two unsuspicious reasons:
- Ads will get you leads, which you cannot get anywhere else.
- Ads are quick and trackable.
How to get leads from Ads you cannot get any other way.
Reasonably, you can rank well for 1 to 3 keywords for each page on your website. This means you would need a website with unique content to start approaching the keyword traffic you can reach with Ads.
More importantly, Google’s data from 2012 indicated that about 20% of online searches are locally focused. In other words, roughly 80% of people will search for a household service like “carpet cleaning” while only 20% will search for “carpet cleaning San Diego CA”.
For a small business to get on the first page of Google for a non-local search like “carpet cleaning” can be tough depending on the competition. To get on the first page of Google for 500-1000 keywords is simply not possible. The only realistic way to reach those potential customers is with Ads.
The Massive Importance Of Ads Tracking Technology.
Ads are a major part of the online marketing laboratory we set up for our clients. Often, clients will start getting web contacts the very first day because, once we launch Ads, you can be on the top of Google in a matter of minutes. As far as tracking, there is no cheaper, faster way to learn what marketing works and what does not than Google Ads.
Let me give you an example.
Let us say you want to test a $5 off against a 5% off offer to see which gets you customers that are newer.
You can run an experiment on your website where you test the 2 offers against each other to see which one converts more of your website visitors to contacts. With Ads, you can do the same thing a lot more quickly.
Let us say you create two different Ads for some closely matched search terms – one with $5 off and one with 5% off. Let us say each ad is shown 500 times in 1 week with the $5 off getting 20 clicks and the 5% off getting 5 clicks. That is enough information to declare the $5 off Ad is the winner with 99% certainty.
However, that activity only sent 25 total visitors to your website. Assuming your website has the same Conversion Rate as the Click-Thru-Rate on Ads, to reach the same 99% statistical significance you would have to send 500 visitors to your website experiment.
If half of your website visitors are from traffic sources other than Ads, that’s still 12x more Ad traffic and 12 more weeks of waiting to come to a conclusion.
Additionally, Ads can tell you, which words, phrases, and headlines your customers respond to much more quickly and effectively than a landing page experiment. It’s the most powerful marketing tool ever created for small businesses when you understand how to leverage vast amounts of data.
Let us check out a Google Search Result Page for Carpet Cleaning.
The image below is an example of what a customer sees when searching for “Carpet Cleaning” in my area on Google. As you can see, the only search results on the screen are paid Ads.
To get to the map section and then finally to the organic listings below the three map listings, the user will have to scroll way down the page. Moreover, this is only page one.
The reality is that the listings on the top of the page get the most attention (and clicks) and hardly anyone ever goes on to the next page. In fact, the top four listings on the first page typically get 70% of the clicks. The next 11 listings on the page compete for the remaining 30% of the clicks and page 2 does not even count.
The image above is likely that customers see it on a desktop or laptop. However, people are conducting searches on their mobile phones and this is where Google Ads advertisers have an even bigger advantage – particularly since more people are searching on mobile phones than desktops.
Here is an example:
The only thing on the screen you can see – without scrolling way down the page is the Ads section – and each listing has a “CALL” button. Google is making it easy for customers to find and call services like carpet cleaning, but the top-of-page listings always go to the carpet cleaning businesses using Ads.
If your competitors have Ads in the top positions and you do not, I can guarantee you they are getting the massive majority of the calls for carpet cleaning in your area. Now you know where the calls that you should be getting are going! Test this yourself. Go to a browser on your mobile phone and search for “carpet cleaning”.
Now think like a customer – not like the owner of a carpet cleaning business. Whom do you think a potential new customer will call? Who do you think will get their business?
You also need to make sure your landing page(s) are properly set up and fully optimized. It’s money down the groove if the page your ad links to does not generate business. A huge mistake I see repeatedly is an ad that clicks to a home page of a website.
The bottom line is that Ads work and you will get results, a great ROI, and dominate your competition if your account is set up and managed correctly. In addition, you can have one of the top four listings on the page in a matter of hours – guaranteed!
Unfortunately, Ads are not a self-explanatory, easy-to-understand system. It takes time, study, and experience to understand the ins and outs of Ads and paid search in general.
Download Free Guide: How Google Ads Can Grow Your Small Business (Ultimate Guide)
