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Eight common questions about Google Ads answered

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Google Ads are powerful. They can put your business right in front of your perfect target market just when they’re searching for your products or services. But they can be complex too. Here are common questions I get asked about Google Ads.

How do Google Ads work?

When people search on Google, ads are often shown above and below the search results. These ads look just like the organic results, except they have small text that says “Ad” beside the listing.

Google Ads (previously known as AdWords) allows advertisers to select which searches we want our ads to show for. For example, if you run a plumbing business in Hamilton, you’ll want your ad to show up when people search for “plumbers Hamilton”. This makes Google Ads highly targeted.

Google runs on a “pay per click” (PPC) basis, which means that you don’t pay for your ad to show; you only pay when someone clicks on your ad.

Every time ads are shown Google runs an auction to determine which ads will appear, and in what order.  There might be 30 advertisers wanting their ads to show, but Google will only show seven Search ads on the page (four ads at the top of the results, and three ads at the bottom). The biggest factor in determining which ads show, and in what order, is the budget of the advertiser – that is, what are they willing to pay if someone clicks the ad? 

What if my Google Ads campaign spends way more than expected?

One of the very useful things about Google Ads is that we have very close control over budgets. If you’ve run out of budget for the day, your ads will simply stop showing for that day, and will reappear the next day.

If I run Google Ads will that help our organic rankings?

No, running Google Ads has no impact on your organic rankings at all. However, paying for ads means that your ads can show above the top organic rankings.

Why doesn’t my ad always show?

There are a number of reasons why your ad might not show. A common one is your budget – if you’re low on budget for the day because people clicked on your ads, and other advertisers still have budget left, their ads might show and yours not.  Generally, there are more advertisers bidding than ad slots to show, so your ads will not show all the time.

Why isn’t my ad always at the top?

The ads at the top are the most expensive spots. Sometimes a competitor will bid more than you for a particular auction, and their ad will show higher. While being at the top is nice, sometimes being in a lower position means you can get more results because you’re paying less for each click.

How do I know if Google Ads is working for my business?

Tracking the results from your Google Ads is extremely important. If you have an ecommerce site the key figure you’ll be tracking is how much revenue came in from Google Ads traffic.

Alternatively, if your business gets leads from ads, then you’ll track form fills (such as contact forms or quote requests) and phone calls. And by recording which leads came from Google Ads you can measure exactly how much revenue you receive from those customers.

Should I run Google Ads? Will it work for my business?

Google Ads doesn’t work for every business.  In general, if people used to turn to the Yellow Pages to find your products or services, now they turn to Google. An agency can give you accurate estimates of the number of searches per month in your region that relate to your products or services.  These figures can help you determine whether Google Ads is right for your business.

How do we get more leads from our Google Ads campaign?

The biggest secret we’ve found for increasing the number of leads from a campaign is to send Google Ads traffic to stand-alone landing pages, instead of a full website.  Our tests have found that in most cases, using optimised landing pages can generate twice as many leads as sending traffic to a website!

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About Author

Josh Moore

Josh Moore is the managing director at Duoplus - a Hamilton-based digital marketing agency that specialises in helping businesses get more leads and sales by getting found online through SEO, Google Ads and Facebook campaigns. www.duoplus.nz