Inbound Marketing (ES)

Whether your online business involves funding other ventures or creating lots of blogs, you would have to pass the hurdle to create an online marketing strategy. One of the most popular advertising services on the internet is Google Adwords. Made by one of the biggest search engines, making the full use of this platform will ensure visibility and earn more on your platform. In this article, I will show you how to create your first Adwords ad. We will touch upon what Google Adwords is as a service and the detailed steps on how to create an ad after. Before that, watch the short video below on a refresher on the importance of digital marketing for your business: https://www.youtube.com/watch?vNnW0UB8cm6Q What is Google Adwords In this section, we will be talking about Google Adwords. It will be divided into two parts: how it was created and what features it has. History This online advertising platform started on October 23, 2000. It was launched among 350 businesses and advertising agencies throughout the world. Larry Page, Google's co-founder and CEO, said that the platform could help any business create a flexible digital marketing program based on its goals and budget. The marketing tool works similarly to Google's premium sponsorship program, where various businesses can purchase keywords. After purchasing, the company creates an ad related to it. The ad is included in the search results when anyone uses Google with the keyword. An essential factor to be considered here is the cost per mille (CPM), an amount the company pays an advertiser per 1,000 clicks on the former's ad. At present, the rates are 1.5 cents for a top ad unit, 1.2 cents for a middle ad unit, and 1 cent for bottom ad units. Since then, they have added more features on top of the platform's base features. In 2003, it introduced Google AdSense. A year before, they released a better version of the platform and has been adding features on top of it. Since then, they have been adding more features to the platform. In 2005, they integrated the platform with Google Analytics. This is due to being able to use the technology made by Urchin, a company they bought in March of that year. Aside from that, they stepped into video ads, Gmail ads, and offered advertisements for iOS over the years. Due to these developments, they were able to become one of the most prominent online advertisers to date. Features Since its launch 19 years ago, it has a lot of features available to the user. They include the following: Keyword Planner - displays information about search queries and manages existing advertisement campaigns within the platform and where various companies can also bid for certain keywords for their respective campaignsAdWords Express - an automated service that would manage and launch a digital marketing campaign through Google's bots aimed for smaller businessesGoogle Ads Editor - the platform's feature that helps the user make bulk changes to ads and edit ads even when you're not connected to the internetGoogle Ads Manager Accounts - a service intended for advertising agencies on the platform to manage separate clients using Google AdsReach Planner - a special tool that charts the future reach and extent of video advertisements through any of Google's video partnersIP address exclusion - this enabled advertisers to control which ads should be shown based on the visitor's location and language based on their IPGoogle Partners - a training program where any user can become certified in using the platform for professional purposesPlacement-targeted advertisements - enables companies to choose to display their advertisements about domain names, topics, and user demographicsRemarketing - enable businesses to show a certain set of ads to returning visitors on their siteSmart Shopping Ads - a feature that combines Standard Shopping and display remarketing features to improve visibility in Google's Merchant CenterAd extensions - enable advertisers to include reviews, sitelinks, and SMS apps in advertisements on the platform, and has several manual and automated extensions to choose fromGoogle Click-to Call - a service that enables users to contact advertisers from search result pages directlyGoogle AdWords Customer March - lets users on Google show ads that target them specifically based on information they agreed to share with themGoogle Ad Grants - allows certain nonprofit organizations to use the platform Steps on Creating an Ad in Google Adwords From what we have learned from the previous section, Google AdWords is a platform where various businesses can use to buy keywords. They can also post ads on this platform that can be seen by everyone or a particular demographic of users across Google. Now, let us explore how to create a Google Adwords ad. Step 1: Sign up for a Google Adwords Account Before creating an ad in Google Adwords, you would have to create a Google account first. If you own your own business or want to provide advertising services on this platform, it is best to create a separate account. After that, you would go to the Google Ads site while logged into the correct Google account. Step 2: Think about your Adwords budget When you have to spend on your Google Adwords campaign, there are two costs involved. The first one is your daily budget. It refers to how much you want to spend on your entire campaign in one day. This budget comprises another cost, which is called a big. It is the amount you are willing to spend on a keyword and the user's cost clicking on your ad. The general rule is that if you have a budget set aside for your Google Ad account, you should spread it equally among all your campaigns. Then, you should keep an eye on how effective your campaigns are and adjust whenever needed. The budget allotment should also be based on your business goals. When it comes to your bidding budget, choose a bid that would help make your ad more visible in overall search rankings. The right bid also has something to do with which set of keywords per campaign did you choose. It will be discussed in the next section. Step 3: Pick the right keywords Choosing the right keywords to spend on is the key to the successful use of Google Adwords. Before bidding on one with your budget, let us take a look at what kind of keywords exist and which one we should use for our campaigns. Types of Keywords There are two types of keywords: general and specific. For example, if you are selling pet accessories for dogs, a general keyword you can aim for is "pet accessories." However, a specific keyword would include "buy dog treats in Arizona" or "durable leather dog collar." Opting for a specific keyword depends on whether you want to list your ad on exactly which item you are selling, whether you want to let people in your area know that you sell it, or both. Choosing the Right Keyword Being able to successfully use Google Adwords isn't about buying all the general keywords or buying all the specific keywords. Going for this strategy means that you are wasting money on the wrong kind of keywords and confuse your customers on what your business is. Instead of just randomly guessing which keywords you should go for, you can use Google's keyword planner. To use it, here are the following steps: Enter three or four phrases in the "Your product or service" box.Enter the website you want to be seen in the search result.Enter the product or service category.Under the targeting column, make sure to choose the correct information for the country, language, search engine, and negative keywords.Under the "Customize your search" column, include the necessary filters to narrow down which keywords you want to see.Check the dataset you want to collate the average monthly search results under "Date range."Click "Get ideas" for the tool to generate the list of keywords. It would generate a table of results that displays the keywords with the number of average monthly searches, how competitive the keywords are, and the cost per click if you were to bid on the keyword. Choosing a keyword also has something to do with the match types. There are three types: broad, phrase, and exact. A broad match to a keyword means that the results pick up any word related to it. Meanwhile, the phrase match will pick up a keyword that is used in a phrase. Finally, the exact match means that the search results will contain the exact keyword entered. The table below cites an example of how these are applied in Google when searching: \ Source: Neil Patel’s What is Google AdWords Do take note that once you choose a keyword to bid on, that means that you want your ad actually to appear in the search term your future visitor entered. Make sure to exclude any negative keywords that you don't want your ad to appear. Getting your ad in a search result using a negative keyword will devalue your business in the customer's eye. Aside from that, this will help keep your business legitimate too. Step 4: Look over your competition When you open a business, it is expected that you will encounter competition. This includes when you try to get your ad on top of your search results. There are many ways for you to check how hard it is to compete. In this section, I will show you how to gather this information using two tools: Spyfu and Ubersuggest. SpyFu SpyFu prides itself on one of the best keyword research tools that you can pay a subscription fee for. They use data gathered from 80 million domains and 5 billion results while updating this database every day. To use this tool, you just simply enter a keyword through its search bar, and it will generate a result such as the one below for "stationery paper": If you clicked the tab under "Advertiser History," you can check the top three competitors that have ranked under the keyword. Ubersuggest Made by Neil Patel, this SEO tool can also help you look into how websites and keywords do well. As an example, you can go through the app and enter "stationery paper," and can get the following results: Source: Ubersuggest result for “stationery paper” Scrolling down, you can also learn about how many people search this keyword, the demographics of those who looked it up, which clicks were through paid SEO or not, and suggested keywords to help you rank first. Relevant: Read a detailed review of Ubersuggest here Step 5: Create the ad Finally, after researching which keywords to target, the next step is to enter your ad into Google Adwords itself. When you enter the site for the first time after logging into your business Google account, you will be asked what goal you are aiming for. After that, you will be guided through a series of four steps to creating your first campaign. The first step is to fill in your business details. You would just need to fill in your business name and website for it. After submitting your business details, the next step involves creating your first ad. These are the steps into creating your first text ad: Open the "Text ad" section by clicking the pencil.Enter your landing page URL, a web page that you want the ad to redirect to when someone clicks it.Enter an attention-grabbing headline. There are two fields where you can write this and have a hyphen in between. Ensure to include the keyword you want your ad to rank in.Enter a short description of your ad to entice your customers to click even more.If you want your customers to call you directly when clicking on the ad, check the "Enable phone calls from your ad" and enter your business contact number.When you are finished, click "Save." After you are done creating your new ad, you would have to indicate the budget you want to use to fund this ad campaign. This involves selecting which currency and the daily amount you want to spend. Click "Save" and you can proceed to the next page. Aside from that, you can choose between the following when bidding on a keyword to purchase for the campaign: Automated bidding - select the "Automatically set my bids to get the most clicks within my budget" option where Google will determine which keywords to bid onManual bidding - select the "I'll select my bids manually" and enter the amount you want to bid on the keywords You can also edit when you want your ad to appear by editing the following properties: Locations - target customers within a certain geographical area and exclude customers from a certain location at the same timeNetworks - editing this property will help you add your ad within the Google Search Network or the Google Display NetworkKeywords - let your ad be seen once your future viewers search certain keywords The final step in this process is to enter your billing information. This includes your name, business address, and method of payment. After submitting the data above, you will be redirected to your dashboard. However, you would have to wait for a bit until Google approves your newest ad campaign before it can start appearing. Once it is approved, this is also the same time where the service will start charging. Summing up! In this article, we learned that Google AdWords is one of the most popular online marketing tools to make your business more visible within the massive search engine. Aside from learning its humble beginnings, we also checked how to create your first ad through your platform. Creating an online campaign through this platform requires the right tools and money. Using the tool properly will not only help you get more customers and get your marketing investment back. Did this article help you? You can read these articles to help increase your online presence: SEO after COVID-19Guide to A/B testA comprehensive review of Ahrefs Drop a comment below on which online marketing topic you want me to talk about next!