If you’re new to the world of digital marketing, Google Ads may sound like a whole lot of gibberish to you. And while it is a little on the complex side as a marketing tool, it is incredibly powerful in boosting your brand presence, brand awareness, and in turn, your business sales. If you’re curious about how it all works and either want to explore its marketing benefits yourself, or want to understand it so you can trust a marketing agency like us to do it for you — you’ve come to the right place. Read on! 

What is Google Ads?

Considering how enormously popular Google.com is, you almost certainly will have come past Google Ads in your lifetime. And if you haven’t, we’ll have to assume you’ve been living on some sort of desert island. Google ads is a paid advertising platform where you, the business owner, pay per click on your ad (PPC) or pay per impression your ad has. It’s one of the most effective ways to drive traffic to your business and increase your brand visibility, which is why it’s so highly rated by its users. It encourages people to go to your website, contact you, and in many cases, can increase your in-store visits.

Search Ads: What are they?

Let’s break these terms down. Google search ads are used to target people that are already looking for a solution to their problem. They use keywords and a bidding strategy, a bit like an auction, where they compete to show above and below organic (not-paid-for links) content on Google search. The aim is to get your ad in amongst the first three results that come up when someone searches similar keywords to what you’ve included in your ad on Google. Search ads have three main components — a headline, display URL, and description text. Ad extensions can also be included to provide users with additional information. How often search ads appear, how they rank and the cost per click all depend on the bid amount and the quality score of the ad. 

Display Ads: How they’re different from search ads

As for display ads, they’re used to target people that have attributes, values and characteristics similar to your existing customers or your target audience. These are different to search ads in the sense that search ads are only visible to people who are already searching for your product or service, while display ads are paid placements that can appear in various places. In fact, millions of different sites. Think of times when you have seen an ad pop up on your Facebook or Instagram feed, or even when you’re reading an article on your daily news — those are display ads. 

The two main things to consider when it comes to deciding whether or not to run search ads or display ads is the difference in cost per click and their conversion to sales rate — these can vary quite significantly. If you’re looking to boost your brand visibility, get people to engage with your marketing and then turn that into a return on investment, we can help!

Are you ready for us to lend you a hand? Contact us here.