 What Is the Google Ads Keyword Forecast Tool? It’s one thing to know what’s trending now. That’s a valuable asset for any digital marketer. But what about what’s going to be trending tomorrow, or farther into the future? How do you even predict that? The Google Ads Keyword Forecast tool does just that. It’s an awesome option for anyone looking to up their SEM and SEO game by narrowing down future potential for any keywords or groups of keywords. According to Google, they update their forecasts on a daily basis, with data from up to 10 days past. This data includes market changes that occurred throughout this time. It also takes seasonality into consideration, so you’re not confused by natural market fluctuations. In short, Google Ads Keyword Forecast is a pretty cool tool. How (& Why) to Use the Forecast Tool The forecast tool is a multifaceted part of Google Ads, and it just goes to show how useful the Ads platform is as a whole. It goes well beyond today’s data and delivers insights for the near future. So what does this forecast tell you? The forecast tool will help you figure out how your keywords will perform in optimal settings. You can:
Your forecast has a date range, and you can change the time frame to see how it affects your forecast. There are two ways to see forecasts on Google Ads, so let’s break the Google Ads Keyword Forecast tool down for you, step by step. How to Use It for Forecasting Within the Google Ads Keyword Planner, you’ll find something called a forecast.  Instead of clicking Discover new keywords, you’ll click Get search volume and forecasts.  Once you’re here, you can enter an individual keyword or a group of keywords that are separated by commas or line breaks.
You can also upload a spreadsheet file to quickly transport keywords into the forecasting tool (as any SEO or SEM professional ought to know, there’s nothing wrong with a good shortcut!). Once you enter your keywords and click Get Started, you’ll come across a page with a few tabs. For the forecasting side of things, you’ll obviously want to stay under the first tab. Based on the keywords that you entered, you’ll see a selection of forecast data. Automatically, Google Ads tells you:
You can also add your own conversion metrics to tailor your forecasts to your brand’s unique marketing plan. This is an important trick for anyone who wants a nuanced forecast that’s perfectly fit for them. To do this, just click Add conversion metrics. In the end, you’ll be left with a pretty nifty graph and data chart that showcases future predictions (or forecasts) for your selected keywords. This helps you determine the best plan of action for campaigns to come, and even lets you know if you should adjust existing campaigns based on consumer queries and behavior. Keep in mind that the numbers you see associated with each metric is what you’re likely to achieve for your keywords or group of keywords based on your ad spend. These numbers will change if your budget changes, proving just how holistic Google’s approach really is. However, Google makes it very clear that spending more doesn’t necessarily equate to better conversions. When you’re done, take one or all of these steps:
Is This the Only Way to See Forecasts On Google Ads? Short answer: No, it’s not! Long answer: There’s another way, and you can find it by clicking Discover new keywords instead of Get search volume and forecasts at the start. When you use Discover new keywords, you can:
But in addition to these, you can also see a performance forecast once keywords are on your plan. As an optional measure, you can create a new campaign based on positive forecasts. Or, you can use them to beef up your existing campaigns. If you want to add keywords to your plan from Discover new keywords so you can forecast their performance, you can follow a few simple steps:
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 Want to improve AdWords click-through rates? Getting your AdWords campaign up and running is pretty easy. But, if you don’t optimize your ad campaigns well enough, your click-through rates could be low, making your entire AdWords campaign less effective.
In this article, we’ll show you how to optimize your AdWords campaign to boost click-through rates. 1. Use Ad ExtensionsAdd extensions are additional information you can include in your ads to entice people to click on your ads and make them choose your business over your competitors. Some of the useful ad extensions are: Call extension: If you’re promoting a service using AdWords, adding a call extension could significantly increase your click-through rates. People can tap or click a button to call your business directly from your ads without having to visit your landing page. Review extension: Attract new customers to your store by adding a social proof right in your ads using review and rating extensions. Price extension: The Price extension appears below your text ad, giving you more space to tell more about your offering. 2. Optimize Your Display URLA display URL is a web address that your prospects see in your pay-per-click ads. It gives people an idea of where they’ll arrive after they click your ad. When creating an ad campaign, keep in mind that your actual landing page URL does not have to match your display URL, but should be in the same domain. A few ways to optimize your display URL to increase ad relevancy are: Use a keyword: Include a keyword in your display URL. Google bolds the keyword in your display URL when it matches the search query. Use a call to action: Hyatt, for example, uses the call to action Book now in their display URL to encourage clicks. Make it readable: Use camel case and hyphens in your display URL to make it more readable. 3. Personalize Your Ad CopyAdWords allows you to personalize your ads to a great extent to match your ads with the search query. If you’re a local advertiser, you can use geo-customizers to dynamically update your ad based on the searchers’ physical location or location of interest. You can also personalize the copy based on the following dimensions: device, time, audience, gender or age. 4. Create Tightly Themed Keyword GroupsGoogle AdWords allows you to include multiple keywords into your account and ad groups. While this helps you win a chance to reach your ads to your target customers, at times your ads won’t contain the keyword that people were searching for, which would adversely affect the click-through rates and quality scores. To increase the likelihood of your keywords to appear in your ads, you might use tightly grouped themes or keywords into smaller ad groups rather than a broader ad group. 5. Use a Countdown TimerFinally, your ad clicks won’t mean anything if those visitors don’t convert on your site. Creating a sense of urgency is a great tactic to persuade users to act quickly. Urgency works because it causes people to suspend deliberate thought of procrastination. Obviously, no one likes to miss out on a cool offer. If you want to boost clicks on your ads by creating a sense of urgency, AdWords allows you to insert a countdown timer in your ads to highlight your upcoming events. The ads with countdown timer are proven to perform at a significantly higher rate than other copy. After clicking on your ads, your prospective customers will expect the same tone and message on your landing page as well. If you’re using a countdown timer in your ads, it’s in your best interest to use a similar timer on your landing page as well to meet your prospects’ expectations and boost conversions. Using a countdown timer is a great strategy for eCommerce stores to boost ad clicks and conversions. You can use a countdown timer to promote…
We hope this article will help you improve the click-through rates of your next AdWords campaign.  Google Ads is arguably one of the most misunderstood platforms for paid advertising. Many business owners promote their wares with sponsored posts on social media sites like Facebook, but underutilize Google Ads, despite the unique opportunity it offers to advertise their products and services directly to people actively searching for them.
Google puts a large breadth of advertising tools at your fingertips. It also gives you access to users of the world’s two largest search engines—Google and YouTube, respectively—and a network of millions of websites to advertise on. Unfortunately, Google Ads has a complicated interface and a steep learning curve. If you don’t know what you’re doing, you can end up targeting too broad of an audience and spending money without turning a profit. But everyone has to start somewhere, and whether you plan on managing your own Google advertising or outsourcing it to an expert, it’s best to begin by learning the necessary terminology and knowing not only the campaign and ad types available to you, but what you can realistically expect from them. That way, you’ll understand exactly what the platform can do for you. Why use the Google Ads platform?Google Ads has a lot in common with many other paid advertising platforms. With it, you can:
1. Search adsConsumers generally use search engines—unlike social media—with a specific intent in mind: to search for answers, get solutions to their problems, or find specific products or services. This makes Google a powerful marketing channel for a variety of businesses. You can inform how you advertise on Google based on the average volume of monthly searches for a given query, the estimated cost you would pay per click, and other data Google makes readily available. You can run search ads that promote your products and services directly in the search results of a specific query and even narrow your targeting to users in a certain geographical area. Say you’re selling plant-based protein powder. More than 200,000 people search for “protein powder” on Google every month, but there are far fewer searches for “vegan protein powder.” Google will let you bid (more on this below) to advertise your brand on both of these phrases individually, but the more specific search term likely will convert better because it’s more relevant to your product. You can create text ads, which display in search results marked with the word “Ad” in a small box, or Google Shopping ads, which surface key purchasing information, such as product photos, prices, and ratings—something that makes them perfect for many ecommerce brands. You can see both text and Shopping ads in action below. 2. Google Display NetworkYou can also advertise your products or services to potential customers through the Google Display Network. Display advertising gives you the option to reach people outside of Google’s search engine results, through text, image, and video banner displays that appear as users browse the web, use apps, or watch videos. While many advertisers turn to Facebook for their display advertising, Google is also a viable option. The Google Display Network reaches 90% of all internet users around the world and consists of ad space on more than 2 million sites and 650,000 apps. Visit any news site and you’re likely to see Google display ads at the top, in the sidebar, or even throughout the content itself. 3. YouTube adsThe Google Ads platform also lets you advertise on YouTube, which is owned by Google. Technically, YouTube is just one site in the Google Display Network but, measured on its own, it is the third most-visited site on the web, after Google and Facebook. Users watch more than one billion hours of YouTube videos a day. That makes for a lot of opportunities to engage potential customers. You’re probably familiar with the pre-roll ads that play before YouTube videos, but there are also banner and overlay options. As you can see, Google offers a variety of ad types. But before you choose between text, image, or video, you need to understand where your ads will be shown and who will see them. How the Google Ads auction worksMany of the campaign types available through Google Ads operate on an auction system. Advertisers compete for a position or “rank” on the search engine results pages by bidding (usually) on clicks. The amount you bid and how you set up your keywords will determine your placement in relation to other bidders. However, the highest bidder doesn’t necessarily win the top spot; relevancy is also a determining factor. Google wants to show ads that are useful and relevant to its users, and you want to advertise to relevant users who are searching for your business or terms related to what you’re selling. So Google assigns an Ad Rank based on various factors, such as the relevance of your ad copy and ad format to the keywords you’re buying, the webpage you’re sending visitors to, and more. As an advertiser, the more relevant your business is to the terms you’re buying, and the more relevant your ad messaging is to users searching for those terms and the page you’re sending them to, the cheaper it will be for you to rank for that traffic. Before you dive headfirst into the world of Google Ads—or hire a professional to manage your marketing on the platform—there are some key concepts and campaign types you’ll need to understand. Google Ads terms and conceptsPaid marketing—Google Ads in particular—comes with its own vocabulary of terms and concepts. Here’s a glossary you can reference if you encounter a term you’re unsure of: Paid marketing terms to learn
Keep in mind there will always be trade-offs and other dependances to consider. For example, certain campaign types sacrifice segmentation—bundling various audiences together, making it hard to isolate specific high-performing groups—but will be easier to set up yourself or through an app or integration with Shopify. Other campaign types might be harder to execute successfully, requiring more manual set up and ongoing optimization, especially if certain audiences or keywords are highly competitive. These campaigns will require more technical expertise, time, and money. For this reason, any ranges or estimates given here are meant to serve as guidelines. Your actual cost per click or expected return will depend on many variables, such as how well your website converts, your average order value, and how much scale there is for a certain type of keyword or audience. We’ll outline each campaign type according to the following information:
Not all businesses will be able to take advantage of all campaign types, and some of the more competitive campaigns often require a lot of human capital and time to manage. They can also be expensive, especially in the beginning. Note: Since Bing and Yahoo! share similar features with Google, many of the campaign types below can also be run on those platforms. The Google Ads playbook: 13 campaign types1. Branded search
You might not think to bid on your own brand name, especially if your site already appears organically at the top of search results, but doing so lets you promote specific information (using Google’s ad extensions) and set the exact page where you want people to land. It also protects you from competitors who might bid on your name or other branded keywords. CPCs for branded search generally will be lower than for any other search campaign, since your URL and your ads will be highly relevant to users who search for you. At the same time, be wary of your ad appearing for similar but irrelevant keywords. In the example of Apple advertising iPhones, you would exclude keywords such as “apple picking” or “apple cider,” or even “how to update my Apple iPhone” and narrow your targeting using the appropriate keyword match types and negative keywords. Since your ceiling for sales from branded search depends on how many people are actually looking for you, branded search campaigns can complement brand awareness campaigns. A pop-up shop or a viral Facebook video, for example, can translate into more searches for your brand name. Ease of implementation: This type of campaign can be hard to implement if you’re not familiar with search engine marketing. Agency or in-house resources may be required. However, branded search isn’t that labor-intensive to manage, so make this a priority if you can. 2. Non-branded search (generic)
The goal of this campaign is driving new visitors and new customers to your site as efficiently as possible. But these campaigns can also have a positive ROAS for advertisers and a massive amount of potential scale. Keep in mind that the true value of a customer is not their initial purchase but their lifetime of purchases from your brand. Ease of implementation: As with all search campaign types, this one can be difficult. These campaigns require a lot of human resources to manage and test your creative and landing pages, plus a lot of money to drive results. It’s best to hire help to ensure these campaigns are managed correctly. 3. Non-branded search (niche)
If your business and products are a fit for niche marketing, then this campaign type is worth exploring. Niche marketing, even outside of the context of Google Ads, gives brands a much easier time of getting traffic and, potentially, a positive ROI, because it offers a specific audience that’s easier to identify and focus on. Niche non-branded search often is lumped together with generic non-branded search. But, for the reasons given above, it makes sense to segment this traffic in its own campaign and discuss it separately. If you sell third-party products, you can also apply this campaign type by bidding on the specific branded keywords associated with them. When buying these keywords, you can even use these brand names in your ad creative as long as you link directly to a landing page that has those products visible. Ease of implementation: Similar to other search campaigns, this campaign type isn’t easy to undertake and will require appropriate resources to set up and maintain. If you don’t understand keyword match types and how to build and optimize search campaigns, ads, and landing pages, we would recommend hiring an expert who does (more on that later). 4. Competitor search
Stealing traffic from your largest direct competitors’ keywords sounds like a smart strategy, but it can also be a relatively expensive one because, in this case, you, a competing brand, aren’t the most relevant thing searchers want to see. Typically, this strategy is employed by brands that can justify the higher costs of acquiring a new customer who might have a relatively higher average order value or lifetime value. Otherwise, you may experience little success with this strategy. If a brand isn’t buying its own traffic or doesn’t have a lot of brand loyalty among its customers, and if your product is an equal or better alternative, this could actually be a very profitable campaign for you. (Part of the reason we highly recommend buying your own branded terms is to prevent this type of disruption from a competitor.) Note: You shouldn't use dynamic keyword insertion in ads when buying your competitor's branded keywords, nor can you use their name in your ads if you don't sell their product on the page you drive traffic to. Ease of implementation: As with all search campaigns, this one is not easy to do and could be very expensive. You would want resources dedicated to managing this. 5. Google Shopping (branded)
In terms of new customer acquisition as an ecommerce business, this is at the top of your list of campaigns to try. Users who specifically search for your brand are more likely to convert, so if you’re able to set up branded Shopping as a separate campaign, you can maximize your traffic from this source and be able to budget more effectively. Otherwise, Shopping campaigns will include both branded and non-branded traffic by default. Without a segmented campaign strategy, there will always be more non-branded than branded traffic, and the majority of your budget will likely be spent on non-branded terms that are less likely to convert. That’s why, if you can (and have the traffic to take advantage of it), it’s worth separating branded traffic into its own Shopping campaign. Ease of implementation: Shopping campaigns generally are easier to set up than search. To create a working product feed Google can pull from, you either can install Google channel for Shopify or set things up manually in the Google merchant center. You’ll need to create individual campaigns for branded and non-branded traffic, apply negative keywords, and prioritize keywords to exclude your ads from displaying for certain queries to isolate branded search traffic. 6. Google Shopping (non-branded)
Non-branded shopping campaigns work similarly to non-branded search campaigns. If you have the budget, they are something that almost always makes sense for ecommerce businesses to try. If you don’t have any branded products, a normal shopping campaign essentially will be a 100% non-branded campaign. Ease of implementation: Separating out branded and non-branded traffic requires a bit of set up, but once done you can have separate non-branded Shopping campaigns and dedicate a specific budget for each. 7. Retargeting (text, banner, video)
Retargeting is a strategy that lets you continue to reach these visitors off-site, often at a lower cost, to bring them back to your site through different, more specific messaging. Retargeting is a powerful feature that helps you turn first-time visitors into return visitors and, ultimately, into first-time buyers. It can also be used to generate repeat purchases by advertising to existing customers. For example. you can apply retargeting to YouTube with video ads for users who have visited your site. This makes a stronger second impression and can be very powerful if bundled into an existing strategy. Unlike with the other display campaign types covered above, where your ads appear matters less since you’re targeting specific users that will recognize your brand no matter what site it appears on. However, maximizing your retargeting efforts will involve a lot of additional segmenting based on users who have more recently visited your site, explored your product pages, or abandoned their carts. Simply targeting all users who have been to your site in the past 30 days might result in you reaching buyers without any intention of purchasing. Similar to how there can be a wide range of search terms to consider for non-branded search, how you target a user who saw a specific product and added it to their cart in the past 24 hours will be different than a user that was on your homepage 40 days ago. Your expectations should vary accordingly. Ease of implementation: This type of campaign isn’t too difficult to set up if you know how to create negative audiences and load ads and targeting into Google Ads. However, you will want to dedicate resources to maintain it, since the goal with retargeting is to create a profitable mechanism you can use to convert past visitors into customers. Also, If you want to use YouTube retargeting for video ads, you'll need your own channel with video assets uploaded to YouTube. 8. Display ads (topics and interests)
While you have a few targeting options at your disposal here, the broadest will be based on topics and interests, which can range anywhere from autos and vehicles to travel to home and garden. With topic-based targeting, your ad will be served on any of the sites belonging to that category in the Display Network. With interest-based targeting, your ads will be shown to users who have recently started researching those topics using sites in the Display Network. If you’re considering these types of display campaigns on Facebook, it might make sense to put some of your ad testing budget into Google’s equivalent. Ease of implementation: Setting up a display campaign is relatively straightforward, but you’ll need to exclude certain keywords and placements (using negative keywords and negative placements) to really optimize its effectiveness. 9. Display ads (contextual)
The majority of a user’s time online is spent consuming and engaging with content, not searching on Google. Because of that, getting in front of users as they engage with content relevant to your product or service is always a potentially viable approach to test and measure lift. While not necessarily a priority over higher intent search campaigns, the ability to showcase your ads (image, text, video, etc.) to potential users without having to pay unless they click is a great opportunity. Contextual campaigns are a great way to start on the Display Network because they let Google show you niche sites that might be available for you to directly target your audience on. Note: You can get contextual campaigns and the Display Network as a part of your other search campaigns. However, we would always advise turning the Display Network off for search campaigns and turning search off for display campaigns. They work very differently, and so should be separated and budgeted as such to give you more control over how much money is spent on what effort. Ease of implementation: Generally, if you understand how to group a few contextually relevant keywords and set up an ad through Google, you could start running this campaign. It’s not as hard as search ads, though there’s also no app or direct integration to automate set up. 9. Display ads (managed placement)
Typically, you would execute this type of campaign after identifying the specific website placements that were effective in your contextual or topic/interest display campaigns. Ease of implementation: Generally, this is an easier campaign to set up if you have some experience and can navigate around the Google Ads platform. 10. Google Smart Shopping
This campaign type chooses which products to advertise, how much to bid, who to target, and which creative to show. Shopify’s integration with Google Shopping lets you pull your products and product feeds automatically into these campaigns—you can even launch directly from Shopify using Marketing in Shopify. Your performance here will depend on how many users search for your brand, products, product categories, or branded keywords. The amount of retargeting you can do and the branded traffic you can drive through Shopping ads also depends on the search volume for your branded keywords and the size of your retargeting audience (i.e. how many people have visited your site already). Ease of implementation: Smart Shopping represents a very easy way to get involved with Google advertising, whether with Shopping or retargeting ads. If you see success, there may be a greater opportunity to transition to a more segmented manual campaign strategy in the future. Marketing in Shopify: Grow your business with Facebook and Google Ads Marketing in Shopify is a new place to help you create, launch, and measure campaigns. We’ve streamlined the process to make running a successful Facebook carousel ad or Google Smart Shopping campaign easier than ever. Run your first campaign on Shopify11. CRM (search, YouTube, Gmail)
This audience is highly qualified, so you can expect a great ROI if you execute your campaign properly. The one caveat is that you need to have an established customer base (i.e. thousands of emails), so this approach will not work for newer merchants. These are hyper-targeted campaigns that leverage the information you have about your customers in your CRM. You can extend specific messaging to different segments of customers, targeting placements in Gmail, YouTube, or search. About Customer Match Rate: Not every email you upload will match with Google’s database. For example, if you upload a list with 4,000 emails, Google may only be able to match 2,000 of them. Gmail addresses are more likely to have a match, but you can expect a sizable portion of your list won’t be targetable. Ease of implementation: Not only do you need an established customer base to execute this campaign, you would also need the knowledge and experience to segment your list to speak to different customers differently If you have those elements, navigating Google Ads to upload your seed list and set up your ad types is pretty manageable and well-documented online. 12. Similar audiences
Google Ads is able to take similar interests shared from your seed audience and match your ads to target other users on the Google Display Network who also share those interests.. Ease of implementation: We recommend trying intent-based campaigns first, but if you’re trying similar audiences on Facebook, this might also serve as a viable option to test and review performance. 13. Dynamic search ads
There’s no out of the box segmentation in this campaign so, like other campaigns that bundle together your traffic, we don’t recommend this as something to keep forever and scale but rather as a starting point to eventually segment manually as you gather performance data. Ease of implementation: This is a great quick and easy way to get a search campaign online. However, while it’s easy to implement, there’s a large possibility dynamic search campaigns will contain irrelevant keywords that are on your site but that you would never manually buy to gain traffic. Budgeting: always-on vs. testing campaignsWith any form of paid marketing, budgeting is an essential consideration that raises many questions. How should you set your budget? How long should you test a campaign/ad? How can you even tell if a campaign is achieving its intended purpose? To answer these questions, you need to understand the two main categories of campaigns you’ll be running. Always-on campaigns focus on profitability and high potential sales from shoppers who show intent to buy your brand/product/service. These are campaigns you’ll want to run continuously to capture your lowest hanging fruit. They include:
For example, if you have only $10 a day to spend on marketing (or a fixed budget that you could spend 100% of), an always-on campaign might be the best use of that money—unless you have specific customer acquisition or awareness goals on which that money would be better spent. Beyond converting your warmest audiences, you can also spend money to drive new customers to your site or drive awareness about your products/services to a specific audience. That’s what testing/flexible campaigns focus on—driving new customer acquisition, awareness, and engagement with your site and products. They include:
If you’re managing your own Google ads, be mindful of your level of expertise with all of the above. You can get set up quickly with Google Smart Shopping or dynamic search campaigns to get you started, and then reassess what is best for your brand based on all the possible options and best practices explained above. This always-on vs testing approach to budgeting can also be applied to other forms of paid marketing, from Facebook to influencer marketing campaigns, to decide how much budget to allocate and where. How to hire help to manage your Google AdsIf you feel overwhelmed, you’re not alone. Many entrepreneurs who can’t afford the time or money it would take to successfully learn and manage their own Google advertising, outsource it to agencies or experts who specialize in paid advertising. Here are some things to keep in mind when outsourcing your Google Ads:
Final thoughtsWe won’t sugarcoat it—succeeding with Google Ads isn’t easy. There’s a lot of nuance to each ad campaign type, with even more campaign types and variations that weren’t explicitly covered above, not to mention attribution, which is a key topic for another article. But the Google Ads platform has benefits for any ecommerce business willing to figure out how to advertise to its massive user base based on search intent and a variety of other targeting options and placements. Hopefully, you now have a better understanding of what’s possible on the Google Ads platform, what to expect from the different campaign types available, and how they can work together with the rest of your marketing engine. Whether you invest the time and money into learning how to run your own campaigns, or lean on an agency's or expert's services, getting to know the platform and your options is a great first step in the right direction. This post was originally published by Shopify Blog.  Facebook Ads and Google Ads are the two top players in PPC advertising. Although the two have a lot of common ground, no two platforms are exactly alike and no matter how small these differences are, these could be your determining factors as to what platform your business should invest in. Facebook Ads vs. Google Ads: What's the difference? Before we get into specifics and strategies, you should know where your money is going and what it will be used for. Facebook and Google are both advertising platforms working on a pay-per-click basis. Upon creating an ad on either, you enter a bid on how much you want to pay for an ad space. Then, you will be charged a certain amount of money whenever someone clicks on your ad. Google Ads is paid search. Paid search means that you're paying to have your listing featured on a search engine result page (SERP). With paid search, your ads are placed on top—at the exact moment a consumer needs you— of a SERP based on the keywords you have made a bid on instead of a specific audience based on interests and demographics. Facebook Ads, on the other hand, is paid social advertising. With the continuous development of the platform, businesses get a hard time putting their brands organically in front of consumers over the years. With Facebook Ads, you can get your products and services in front of potential customers—even when they don't need it yet—in a faster and easier way. Awareness or Conversions? If you are looking into introducing a new brand to the market or simply wanting to expand your customer base, Facebook Ads might be the right medium. If you are a seller of retail items or services, launching ads on Facebook might just be the best marketing effort to grow your business. Facebook Ads are passive. These are displayed even without a user's need for a specific product or service. However, this type of ads spark interest that can eventually convert a user to a customer in the long run. Once your ads have been shown and awareness has been established, users will more likely resort to your brand once their need for it arises. On the contrary, Google Ads are active ads. This platform has been proven to work effectively because people are searching for something that they need at the exact moment. Thus, the high chances of getting a conversion rather than passive advertising. For example, if you need a tailor, you are probably going to "Google" one in your area rather than scroll on your Facebook feed in hopes of finding one. Services work well with this platform since customers are already looking the business instead of the other way around.  Which one works best?
I would say that depends on your personal preference. There is no specific situation where in one platform is better than the other. It is important for businesses to know their options and goals before investing into either platforms in order to get desirable and aligned results. While both Facebook Ads and Google Ads prove to be excellent choices for PPC advertising, they are also found to work best when they are used together. If you'd like to know more about Google Ads and other marketing strategies, you may follow CPC Ninja on Facebook. If you're interested in getting an agency that could help you get better ad results, shoot us a message.  In the last few months, the world seemed to have slowed down, if not entirely put to a stop. Borders and establishments were closed, people were contained, and lockdowns were implemented causing some businesses to shut down and permanently cease operations.
The outbreak of Covid-19 has forced us to see things on a different aspect and quickly adapt to the changes the pandemic has bring forth. As marketers and business owners, we often ask "how permanent are these changes and how do I keep the business afloat despite them?". If you were to take things on a more optimistic light, the pandemic has given us a gift: the evolution of digital marketing. Nowadays, you can see people practically stuck to their laptops, tablets, and phones browsing almost 24/7. Meaning, this is an opportunity for us to sell to them and we definitely should take advantage of it—through ads. If you're a business owner who is currently running Facebook Ads, then investing on Google ads might be a game-changer for you! Here are 5 good reasons why you should put your money on a Google Ads basket: 1. The traffic is ready for you. These days, "Google it" has become one of our common routine when we are trying to search for answers. Most often than not, people who are searching for services on Google are practically the ones who are "ready to buy" or "already close to buying". To compare it with Facebook ads, a user comes across your shampoo ad, stops to read, maybe clicks the ad to know more, and saves it for later should she need a different shampoo next month or next year. But that doesn't mean that it's a waste of ad spent. With Google ads, a user will first have to search for the "best shampoo for dry hair" or anything of that sort before your ad pops up on her screen. She then clicks it, thinks it's a good shampoo, adds the product to her cart, and BAM! Ka-ching, ka-ching! You got to close a sale on a significantly shorter period of time. Timing is the best thing Google Ads can offer that no other advertising platform can. With Google, your ads will be pushed out to the right people at the right moment. 2. You get what you pay for. Unlike Facebook, Google charges you for the number of clicks your ad incurred instead of the number of times it was shown on users' screens. This is definitely a bang for your buck because you do not necessarily have to pay for people who see your ads and don't click them. Although the average cost-per-click on Google may be a little higher than on Facebook, you can be reassured that you are getting quality and strategic clicks. With more quality clicks, come more quality leads, and more sales eventually. 3. You have COMPLETE control over your ads. I am not exaggerating on this, but yes, hats off to Google for giving advertisers the total freedom to plan and play with their ads. With Google Ads, you'll get the liberty of bidding on your desired keywords, with your desired budget, and your desired placements. How does it work? Simple. Once you set up a campaign with Google, you can choose the keywords and maximum cost-per-action (CPA) that you think will best push out your ads to the right people at the right time. For example, I only chose the keywords "best shampoo for dry hair" and "dandruff shampoo" for my ads with a maximum CPA of $5. Google will then start pushing out my ads only to the people who are searching for the keywords I have placed a bid on. What if there is competition? Let's say there is another shampoo brand bidding on the same keywords with a max. $3 CPA. Of course, my ads will be pushed out first since I bid $2 higher than them. Do I have to pay $5 then? No. Google will only charge me $3 for each click since I outbid my competitors at a maximum of $3 CPA. 4. You are in for a BIGGER competition. You may think that this is a disadvantage, eh? Well, I guess that depends on your preference of seeing things. Any starting business have dreamt of being side-by-side and in competition with bigger and more well-known brands, right? Google can make that dream come true! With Google, you will have the opportunity to work your way to make it to your competition's placement ranks or even better them at it with just the right keywords and strategic budget. Unlike in SEO, it can take months or even years to get your business rank high in Google. On the other hand, Google Ads can make your business #1 within hours with just the perfect keyword and budget combo! 5. It complements and boosts your other marketing efforts. As a business owner or an advertiser, you may now be thinking of investing on Google Ads and completely putting your other digital ads to a stop. DO NOT DO IT! That would be a total mess and a marketing sabotage! Facebook and Google ads work best when they are done together. One important strategy that may help boost the performance of your ads is build brand awareness with Facebook and close deals with Google. Simply put, when users see your ad on Facebook, they will somehow have an interest in your offer but still do not know what your brand is about. The next thing they would want to do is conduct a little research on Google and that paves the way for you to convince your warm audience to buy or take action. The key here is coherence. When a same offer or message is conveyed across different channels, taking action is going to be more likely and closing deals will be much easier. That way when someone sees your Google ad after seeing your Facebook ad, they will know what to do and where to click. In closing, the uncertainty of the future for marketing is understandable. Collaborative efforts on different marketing platforms could either be your business' holy grail or not, depending on how you see it and work your way around it. But one this is for sure, this too shall pass and as marketers, with every crisis comes an opportunity waiting to be taken. If you'd like to know more about Google Ads and other marketing strategies, you may follow CPC Ninja on Facebook. If you're interested in getting an agency that could help you get better ad results, shoot us a message. |
