Google search advertising in 2021

Do you remember when you bought your smartphone? You probably did some research. Which brand should I choose? How much does it cost? Where can I buy it? I bet you Googled something like 'buy a new smartphone. Without you realizing it, this led to a digital auction where businesses place a bid to be on top of the search result. These top results are Google search ads.

What is a Google search ad?

To explain what a search ad is I will tell you more about these 3 important aspects:

• Ad assets
• Targeting
• Budget & bid strategy

Search ads are built from different assets. Write up to 3 headlines, your URL and up to 2 descriptions. For the higher ranked ads it is also possible to show ad extensions. This is a feature that shows extra information about your business, like location, phone number or links of other pages of your website.

Targeting makes sure that the ads show to the right person at the right time. Choose the geographical location, demographics and language of the user and add keywords that will match you to the terms potential customers are searching for.

The last step when setting up a campaign is to choose a budget and bid strategy. The budget is the maximum you are willing to pay on average per day, while the bid strategy focuses on certain actions depending on your marketing goal and how much you are willing to pay for that action. Think about visiting your website, fill out a contact form or purchasing something from your online store.

How does a search ad work?

Remember the auction I mentioned before? Every time a user in your targeted area searches one of your keywords, you enter the auction. This auction determines which ads are shown on top of the page. It is similar to a real auction, except for one difference. The highest bid does not always win.

The bid is an important part of the auction, but which ad shows is also determined by the quality score of the ad and the amount and quality of the ad extensions. Quality score is based on the following:

• Ad relevance for this keyword
• Landing page relevance for this keyword
• General landing page quality (quick, well organized, easy to navigate)
• Expected clickthrough rate (how likely it is that your ad will get clicked when shown)

Using a Google search ad is a way of Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising, which means you only pay for the customers that actually click on the ad to go to the website. Because both the quality score and the bid are important in the Google Ads auction, a low quality score needs to be compensated by a higher bid. A high quality score results in lower costs per click.

How your business benefits from Google search ads?

Google is the biggest search engine in the world. This is a great opportunity that also your business can benefit from. Every day Google processes about 3.5 billion searches worldwide. People that are looking for a restaurant to have lunch, an online Spanish course or whatever it is that your business is advertising. The combination of accurate targeting and PPC means you only pay if the people that matter most visit your website.

Everyone can start a search campaign on Google Ads, but before you start, read articles on the Google Ads Help page to learn about the best practices, because it's important to create an ad of high quality. As you know now, the higher the quality of the ad, the lower your costs per click are. If you have any doubts about creating an ad yourself, we at Lunar Strategy are more than happy to help you.