Google Ads advertising opportunities

Google Ads advertising opportunities – why should you use them? The answer seems obvious: in July 2020, Bing’s search engine accounted for 6.43 percent of the global search market, Baidu at 0.68 percent, while Google accounted for 86.86 percent. This means that most people go through Google when searching for information on the internet. Today, most of the giant’s revenue is generated by advertising, around which the company has built an entire ecosystem, expanding its services to include e-mail, messaging and analytical tools, etc. As a result, Google is considered one of the most valuable brands in the world, next to Apple and Amazon.

Especially the latter may be problematic for Google. Because – although the search advertising market undoubtedly belongs to Google – Amazon is the only one that has the potential to shake this status quo. EMarketer analysts predict that over the next two years, Google’s share of search advertising revenue will decline, while Amazon’s share – on the contrary. Why? Google knows almost everything about us, but Amazon knows what we want to buy, and it is the purchase intentions that are easiest to monetize.

Google is aware of the threat and does not intend to give up the field without a fight. Recently, we could observe the intensified Google Shopping offensive, which is slowly becoming a fully-fledged marketplace, as well as Google Image, which supports the still fledgling but promising trend of visual search.

However, there is still a long way ahead. What advertising opportunities does Google Ads give here and now to small and medium-sized businesses?

What is Google Ads and how to use it?

Google Ads (formerly: AdWords) is a Google advertising platform launched on October 20, 2000, under the name Adwords. In 2018, it changed its name to Ads to indicate that text advertising is no longer the dominant form at a time when users are increasingly using the Internet on mobile devices. People quickly move from searching for products to watching videos, browsing content, playing games, and many more Google has translated in press releases.

Google Ads allows you to display ads in:

Thanks to advertising on Google, we can reach – on the one hand, a very wide range of recipients, and on the other – segment them by gender, age, or online behavior. This allows you to target your ads to the audience that may potentially be most interested in purchasing a given product.

How to use Google Ads advertising opportunities?

The entire system, while it may seem overwhelming at first, is very democratically designed. First of all – we pay only for the effect, i.e. per click or impression, so campaigns can be run even with minimal budgets.

Secondly, for some time now Google has been pushing hard for automatic solutions to help optimize the campaign so that it brings the best results. Thanks to this, the entry threshold in Google Ads is really very low, because many elements (e.g. rates for clicks) are regulated automatically based on information that is entered into the system.

This saves a lot of time and, according to Google, also money. According to the giant’s internal data, thanks to the use of intelligent solutions, advertisers record an average increase in the number of conversions of 30%.

Advertising in search results (Google Search Network – GSN)

Search results advertising is the most basic advertising format in Google Search. It includes the so-called paid (or sponsored) search results that appear above the organic ones, i.e. those that have naturally earned their position.

Sponsored results appear in response to given keyword phrases entered by users, but with targeting, you can specify who is to see them. You can narrow down the audience to users with specific interests and needs, as well as select devices on which to display it.

Ads on the search network (Google Display Network – GDN)

Google Ads advertising opportunities appear not only in search results. It can be displayed also in the so-called search network (Google Display Network – GDN). Hundreds of blogs, websites, forums, and information services are associated with this network.

Search network ads differ from text ads mainly in form. These can be text, graphic, or multimedia ads, targeted by, for example, age, gender, interests, but also the place of emission. Therefore, the network allows us to increase the reach of our advertisements, which makes this advertising form suitable primarily for building brand awareness on the Internet.

Gmail ads

Gmail ads appear in your inbox on the “Offers” and “Social” tabs. They are marked, but when clicked, they open in the same way as e-mails. They may contain graphics, videos, or forms.

YouTube ads

YouTube is the second – largest internet search platform (right after Google) and offers more and more advertising opportunities.

Depending on your goals, you can use:

• Skippable in-stream ads
• In-stream ads that cannot be skipped
• Bumper Ads
• Discovery ads
• Masthead Ads

YouTube ads can be targeted using keywords, use demographics such as age, gender, or create audience segments based on your own guidelines. YouTube also allows you to reach viewers based on their past interactions with selected videos, TrueView ads, or a YouTube channel.

Google Shopping

Google Shopping is a sales platform that – once treated in a neglected way – today is gaining momentum and is becoming an increasingly important channel for e-commerce. Why? It responds to the needs of the most determined users who already know what they want and want to pay for it. In Google Shopping, they can immediately see how much they will need, which shortens their path to conversion.

Be careful and don’t commit any of the 6 most frequent mistakes entrepreneurs make in Google Ads!