Now that we’ve covered the first set of Google Ads basics, it’s time to take a deeper look at this powerful marketing tool. We’ve set up our new Google Ads account and chosen a campaign type that fits our marketing needs. Next, we’ll need to dive into how to create and organize your ads, pick effective keywords, set your bids and budget, and more!
Setting Your Budget
Google Ads allows you to set an average daily budget for your campaigns which you can change at any time. The daily budget you choose is the average amount you’re willing to spend each day over the course of the month. Most people like to set their advertising budgets monthly, and to determine what your daily spend will be you’ll have to divide your monthly budget by the average days in a month (30.4).
For example, you’d like to spend $500/month on your campaign. To set the daily budget you’d calculate 500 ÷ 30.4 giving you an average daily budget of $16.45
As the month progresses you may notice that certain days will go over your average daily budget, but don’t worry! Google Ads will never charge you more than your monthly spending limit. On the days that your ads are performing well, Google Ads can determine that you’d benefit from going over your daily budget to bring you the most traffic possible. Google Ads can charge up to 2 times your daily average depending on day-to-day traffic fluctuations, while never exceeding your set monthly limit.
Creating Organized Ad Groups
One of the most important aspects of a successful Google Ads campaign is keeping your account organized. By taking the time to sort out each campaign, ad group, and ad type you will be able to easily navigate through your Google Ads account and produce informative analytics reports.
What is an Ad Group and How Do They Work?
Ad Groups contain one or more ads that you set to target a set of shared keywords. By organizing ads which share a common theme, you’ll be able to fine-tune the effectiveness of your chosen keywords.
A common way to organize your Ad Groups is to base them on the sections or categories that appear on your website, or by the specific services you provide. For example, you own a clothing boutique. You’ve already created your Google Ads account and have set your campaign type to the Search Network. You just updated your website with brand new shoes, and you want your campaign to reach Google users searching for the types of footwear you carry. In this example, you would name your campaign “Shoes”, and create Ad Groups within that campaign that cater to specific shoe styles.
Once you’ve titled your Ad Group, you’ll need to pick good keywords to make sure your ads are shown to the right audience on Google. We’ll dive into using Google Ad’s keyword planner later in this article. Below is an example of an Ad Group for women’s shoes with a handful of keywords.
Ad Group: Women’s Shoes
Keywords: Women’s Shoes, Women’s Footwear, Women’s Sandals, Boots for Women, Trendy Shoes for Ladies
Choosing Effective Keywords
Keywords are what will determine who your ads are shown to on SERPs (search engine results pages). It’s important to select keywords that are specific and relevant to the product or service your ad group is featuring. One of the great features of Google Ads is the Keyword Planner tool.
Using the Keyword Planner
The keyword planner can be reached in two areas. Google Ads conveniently includes the Keyword Planner on the right-hand side of the page when you begin setting up a new Ad Group. You can enter either your website URL (or a relevant website URL) or enter a product or service you provide, and the Keyword Planner will show you a list of keywords suggestions as well as the number of monthly searches each keyword gets.
Setting Your Keyword Match Type
Setting up a match type for each keyword is incredibly important because it will determine how each keyword triggers your ad on SERPs. There are 5 keyword match types
Broad Match: This is the default match type. When you add a keyword to your list without any added symbols, it will be set to broad match. Broad match keywords will trigger your ad to display on searches that include misspellings, synonyms, related searches, and other relevant variations. For example, if your keyword is Women’s Shoes your ad could display for a user searching for Buy Ladies Shoes.
Broad Match Modifier: Add a plus sign (+keyword) to modify a broad match keyword. This trigger this keyword for searches that include modified broad match keywords (excluding synonyms) in any order. For example, if your keyword is +Women’s +Shoes your ad could display for a user searching Shoes for Women.
Phrase Match: Add quotations around your keyword (“keyword”) to create a phrase match. Keywords with this match type will show up on searches with close variations with additional words added before or after your keyword, but not to the middle of the phrase. For example, if your keyword is “Women’s Shoes” your ad could display for a user searching for Trendy Women’s Shoes.
Exact Match: Add brackets ([ ]) around your keyword to create an exact match. Keywords set up as exact matches will trigger your ads on searches that include the exact term or close variations (including reordering of words as long as keyword meaning is not changed, and the addition/removal of function words like prepositions, conjunctions, articles, and any other word that won’t impact the intent of a search). For example, if your keyword is [Shoes for Women] your ad could display for a user searching for Women’s Shoes.
Bid Settings, Ad Creation, Ad Extensions, and More
In this article, we covered setting your Google Ads budget, creating Ad Groups, and selecting effective keywords and their match types. Stay tuned for part 3 of our Introduction to Google Ads series where we will go into the next steps of your account from setting your bids, creating great ads, and more!
