Google ads are used to reach anyone who uses a Google search to look for something. Google ads can generate leads, increase website traffic, drive sales, and spread brand awareness. These ads can be targeted towards distinct demographics (like previous buyers or a certain age range). They run based on key phrases and range from search campaigns to product campaigns.
Types of Ads
There are a few types of ads that you can run. Search term campaigns, product campaigns, and location campaigns are popular ad campaign types that may be effective for your store.
Google ads can display based on search terms. For example, in the image below (Fig. 1), the user is shown an ad for Food52, a website that this specific user has visited before multiple times. In the second image (Fig. 2), the user does not visit many sites that are advertising for the search term “homemade candles,” so they are instead shown a variety of products from Amazon (and Amazon subsidiaries), a place where this user does shop. In this case, Amazon is running product ads, which have a visual component and take the user straight to the product page. Conversely, the text-based ad displayed for Food52 takes the user to a category page for candles, where they can see all their options.
These two users googling the exact same term are shown vastly different results. Retargeting, or marketing to a user who has already expressed interest in or purchased from your site, is an effective way to use Google Ads to increase brand loyalty and recognition.
Another type of ad is location-based ads. With these advertisements, you’re targeting searches within a certain geographic area. In the search below for yoga studios, the first result is an ad for CorePower Yoga. Even though CorePower is farther from the searcher’s location than the other results, it appears first.
Location-based searches are very helpful for locally-run stores hoping to increase their area foot traffic and brand awareness.
Spending Money on Your Name
It may feel silly to run ads for your own name – after all, you own it! But spending money on both your name and your direct competitors is useful.
In the ad below, a search for Tiffany reveals an ad for tiffany.com, but there is also an ad for Blue Nile underneath. Consider what would happen if Tiffany & Co. hadn’t decided to run an ad for their own name. A user searching for Tiffany would be presented with an ad for Blue Nile as the first result. Most searchers rely on the first 3 results on the SERP. If there were 3 ads in a row, none of them for Tiffany, the traffic could have easily skewed in the direction of the other options. How many users would have clicked on Blue Nile’s ad if Tiffany hadn’t paid for an ad for their own name?
