Everyone uses Google on a regular basis. At this precise now, people are Googling themselves. This implies that your consumers are also Googling.

Every strategy has its place in the world of digital marketing, and as always, YMMV. However, in an ever-changing world, breakthroughs in AI appear to be positioning the classic Google Ads pay-per-click (PPC) model ahead of the pack this year, providing maximum bang-for-buck for budding entrepreneurs.

Google Ads and the tried-and-tested PPC

As it says on the tin, Google Ads is Google’s very own advertising platform. Known as Adwords once upon a time, Google Ads offers PPC, only charging when visitors physically click on your ad.

Unlike other forms of online advertising—and if you think about it, any traditional paid forms, too—PPC means your money only goes towards advertising to people who show intent.

Intent is insanely powerful. If your audience is already primed to buy, they’re far more likely to pull the trigger.

Furthermore, you won’t be wasting time interrupting individuals who just want their fill of dog memes, making it a more cost-effective option than, say, Facebook, where you’ll be paying whether or not people click your ad.

Google Ads gives micro levels of financial control with no minimum spend, allowing you to choose your budget every day, month, or individual ad.

In 2021, Google’s AI is smarter than ever

PPC has come a long way since its inception. Digital marketers used to spend hours refining settings for “min/max” campaigns with very specific targets and tactics.

With Google’s AI constantly learning, it’s now more powerful than ever, with more tools like Smart Bidding available to marketers to help generate stronger, more consistent results and forecast potential issues that could affect performance. Think, click-through rates, conversion probabilities, and anticipating consumer behaviour.

Whether you want to focus on clicks, conversions, or return on ad spend (ROAS), Google’s automated bidding strategies help marketers set a benchmark for performance targets and optimise ads to ensure maximum profitability for businesses.

Being plugged in 24/7 means the Google machine can react faster to market conditions and trends in real time. Empowering marketers and businesses to make more intelligent decisions and generate more reliable results so they can scale at an accelerated, yet sustainable, rate. And it’s only getting better, as Google’s machine learning churns through more and more data each day.

Google Ads vs socials—the (digital) age-old debate

Up until recently, Google and Facebook used wildly different targeting strategies for their advertising.

Considering their reliance on SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages), it made sense for Google to focus solely on keywords, and display the relevant ads to whoever searched for those terms. Meanwhile, Facebook uses data to group audiences based on their user behaviour, under the assumption their purchasing habits would align, too.

Google evidently saw the merit in this strategy, and Google Ads now also offers audience targeting, with data pooled from user’s YouTube, Gmail, and Google accounts. That’s a veritable gold mine of highly valuable information.

There are currently three main types of Google Ads, depending on your desired audience.

• Search Network campaigns appear on SERPs when people search
• Display Network campaigns appear on specific websites or apps customers visit and are general image-based
• Video campaigns are short video ads that appear before or during YouTube content

Additional, advanced campaigns are also available, for apps, Google Shopping, and more. For maximum control of your ad parameters, Google Ads is hard to beat.

control

Google Ads campaigns can now be targeted based on ad location, age, geography, and language, in addition to keywords. You can control the days, times, and frequency with which advertising display, as well as the devices on which they appear.

As a result, you’ll be able to fine-tune ad spend and customise campaigns based on data, maximising your return on investment by investing in the areas, demographics, and searches that deliver the best ROI.

With our PPC Agency London services, you’ll get help optimizing your campaigns for each of the tips listed above and more.

You can even retarget prospects on social media who have searched or clicked on a specific website, giving you another way to reach out to clients and raise brand recognition.

Maximum awareness

Google Ads go beyond driving traffic through PPCs on SERPs. They can be an invaluable tool in building brand awareness, and in 2021, branding is everything.

When Google CEO Eric Schmidt declared back in 2008, “brands are the answer, not the issue,” he nailed the nail on the head. What he meant was that a great brand signifies trust in the huge, murky ocean of information and misdirection that is the internet. And, as anyone who pays attention knows, disinformation is at an all-time high, so strong branding is critical to standing out.

Consumers are reluctant, distrustful, and disengaged when there is no strong brand. All of this puts a stumbling hurdle in the way of conversions. Customers’ confidence is reaffirmed, loyalty is created, and sales are made when they see your brand across the whole Ads search network.

It also means you’re spending money in the right place and maximising conversions by only showing up in those markets where there is existing interest in whatever your business has to offer.

Maximum conversions

When the mighty Google algorithm is determining the ads shown to prospects, we know one factor is the “post-click” landing page experience.

Basically, it’s a metric of how well your page provides exactly what the user is looking for.

We can take advantage of this by creating targeted, high-value post-click landing pages, ensuring users are shown highly persuasive, relevant, personalised content designed to convert.

Did you know a personalised CTA is 202% more likely to convert than a standard one?

With Google Ads, you can optimise ROAS because you’re expediting the customer journey and not wasting money sending them to irrelevant or sub-par pages. All you need is a little insight.

Maximum insight

Knowledge is power, and the amount of data provided by Google Analytics is impressive — plus it goes hand-in-hand with Google Ads. You’ll find out exactly how long people spend on your site, and how long they spent researching before they got there. You’ll see when someone clicks on an ad, downloads an app, or calls in an order. And, you’ll discover exactly how much it costs you in advertising for users to perform these actions.

With these techniques, your campaign’s potential for identifying your highest-value clients is enormous.

What’s the best part? Google, like most everything they do, makes understanding and interpreting these data a breeze.

Rise the organic ranks

SEO Services is an increasingly difficult jungle to navigate. While Google’s hard stance has always been you cannot pay to improve organic ranking, you can use Google Ads insights to optimise your pages and building your credibility with the Google crawl bots. With the analytics provided, on-site content can be tweaked and tuned to further increase traffic in line with relevant keywords.

This will, in turn, boost your ranking — and for a lot less than a comprehensive SEO campaign.

The insights gleaned can be tested to send visitors to those landing pages with the highest conversion rates, streamlining the customer journey and maximising revenue.

Plus, as a local merchant, claiming and verifying your Google My Business (GMB) listing is an easy way to improve SEO, visibility, and trust.

Shoppers rejoice

Too many product-based businesses are sleeping on Google Shopping. In 2021, Google Shopping Ads are rocketing ahead of standard search ads, and it is currently one of the most effective marketing strategies in e-commerce.

Luckily, Google Ads integrates with Google Shopping seamlessly. A Google Ads campaign will have products showing on the extended Google network, reaching shoppers no matter where they are searching – even if it’s a competitor’s website.

By using Google Shopping analytics, you can determine the highest converting products and categories, and build brand trust with reviews on listings through easy integration with Shopify.

The privacy wars

iOS 14.5 was a shock to the system for many marketers. Apple’s update introduced significant privacy changes, and for better or worse, meant businesses had to rethink many tried and tested London digital marketing strategies. While socials bore the brunt of this shift, Google has fared considerably better.

It’s no secret that the huge blue social media behemoth is constantly in hot water over privacy issues, but Google has mostly evaded public scrutiny and having to rethink its marketing strategy.

With a more diversified ad network and less reliance on mobile devices – some 94% of Facebook ad revenue is from phone users – Google Ads have not been nearly as disrupted by the iOS 14.5 update.

We’re sure you’ve realised the enormous value Google Ads can bring to your company by now.

please don’t hesitate to contact us! Our team are not only Google Ads experts – but understand the challenges all businesses face. We are the top UK Google Ads agency, Contact us today to get started!