Google Ads Campaign Structure and Key Metrics

Let's continue with Google Ads terminology. And we'll start with the terminology that is relevant to a Google Ads campaign. A campaign is a set of ad groups that includes ads, keywords, and bids that share a budget, targeting settings, and other parameters.

And we're gonna go to the Google Ads Manager and see exactly how you set up a campaign and identify the budget, set your targeting settings, and the other steps involved in setting up a Google campaign. Now each Google Ad campaign is divided into ad groups. An ad group is a collection of ads and keywords that are related to a common theme or topic within the campaign.

Each campaign has to have at least one ad group, but can have multiple ad groups, potentially targeted at different keywords, to different marketers or audiences. And when we set up campaigns, you'll see how that is structured. And then finally, ads.

The actual ad that appears in Google's search engine results, on a display network, or on YouTube. Ads typically include a headline, a description, a display URL, and optional ad extensions. Those are the Google search ads, right? And we're gonna break down the anatomy of a search ad and explain how to maximize each of those different segments of a search ad.

And then keywords. Keywords are the words or phrases that advertisers bid on in Google Ads. These keywords trigger ads to appear when the user searches for those terms in Google, all right? And then there's the bid.

The maximum amount an advertiser is willing to pay for a click on their ad. So this is a cost per click campaign, which is how it is structured. So you get to set how much you're willing to pay for each click that you get, right? And that's a bid.

Bids can be set at the keyword level or through automated bidding strategies. And we'll set up a campaign and show you how to set up your bid. And finally, quality score.

It's the metric that measures the relevance and quality of keywords, ads, and landing pages, or the website you're sending the traffic to. And this is gonna influence the ad position, the ad rank, as well as the cost per click. Now here's some additional terminology and these relate, the first few, to the actual results or performance of the campaign.

Impressions. The number of times an ad is shown to users in Google SERPs or on a display network. Clicks.

The number of times a user clicks on an ad. The click-through rate. The ratio of clicks to impressions is expressed as a percentage.

In other words, if you have 100 impressions, 100 times that ad had been seen in search results, and 10 times that ad was clicked on, then that click-through rate would be 10%. And it's a measure of ad performance because, of course, the higher the click-through rate, the better that ad is. The better the ad is at drawing people to click through it to the website, which is the ultimate goal of your ads.

Cost per click. Well, how much are you gonna pay for each of these clicks, right? So if you budgeted $100 and you have 10 clicks, you're paying $10 a click, right? If you got 20 clicks out of the same $100, then your cost per click will go down to $5. Conversion.

The action taken after clicking on an ad, particularly on a landing page that you're sending the traffic to that could be a purchase, a subscription, or a form completion, right? Those are common conversions. Conversion rate, similar to the click-through rate, percentage of ad clicks that result in conversions, a measure of campaign effectiveness. So if 10 people click on your ad and three people, once they click on the ad and on the landing page, they make a purchase, well, now you have a 30% conversion rate.

And the higher the conversion rate, the more effective that campaign is. Then there's cost per acquisition. The average cost of conversion dividing the total campaign cost by the number of conversions.

So back to the same example, if you spend $100 and let's say in this scenario, you were able to sell five ads, I mean, you were able to sell five items as a result of people clicking through your ad, then your cost per click would be, your cost per conversion would be $20, right? So it's sometimes called cost, generally called either cost per acquisition, CPA, or cost per conversion or something along those lines. And then you have ad extensions. These are features added to ads to provide more context or encourage engagement.

And as we set up ads, you can see how important ad extensions can be and how it can impact the performance of your ad campaign and drive more clicks to your website through your ads. And finally, remarketing. It's a targeting strategy that allows advertisers to show ads to users who have previously visited their website or interacted with their brand.

It's essentially creating audiences of people who previously visited your site or previously converted, and then being able to show ads to those people when they make searches or on certain websites that are part of your Google network advertising campaign. All right, we're gonna go into details on all of these factors. Let's discuss some benchmarks.

Google Ads can be a very effective marketing platform because the average click-through rate for Google Ads sits at 4% or 6%. Now, by way of comparison, the average click-through rate for Facebook is less than 2%. Instagram, less than 1%.

TikTok, the same thing, about 0.84%, nearly 1%. YouTube, less than 1%, about half a percent. Twitter, about 2%.

And LinkedIn, less than 1%. So what we're saying is that whereas less than one, or in some cases, up to 2% on average, people are clicking when they see an ad on these other platforms, you know, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, whichever, when they see a Google search ad, the rate is higher. Now, this relates to the reason why this relates to one of the more significant aspects of Google, or the differentiating point between search ads and what we'll be studying in this course, to social media advertisements, the difference between push and pull advertising, right? What is the one distinction, particularly regarding search ads or searches? When someone types in a keyword, it's showing that that individual has intent.

They're either looking to research something about that, you know, related to that keyword, brands that offer that product, service, or solution, or they might be actually ready to purchase. So there's intent there, right? So you send these ads to be able to influence them to come to your website, as opposed to one of your competitors' websites. So that is considered pull.

There's already some interest there in your pulling, and this term push versus pull marketing or advertising is a very traditional marketing terminology, you know, even predating digital marketing. But what about social media ads? You target social media ads based upon some aspect of that social media user, the audience that you're targeting, based upon demographics or some interests, but you don't necessarily know intent at the time. So an ad may show up in your social media feed for a product or service that you might enjoy buying or using, but at that moment, maybe not so much.

Whereas at the moment that you are making that search on your Google search, you are indicating that, hey, I do want to look at a website related to this. So that is why you see higher click-through rates and frequently higher conversion rates through Google ad campaigns because it's starting from a point of intent or interest. All right? The average click-through rate for the top-ranking ad in Google search results is 7.94, right? So that's even appreciably higher than the overall click-through rate.

So what does that mean? If you can get your ad to rank high among the other advertisers, you're one of the top positions, you have even a greater chance of success. And we'll talk about the factors that affect the ranking of ads in search results. The average Google ads conversion rate is three to 6%, right? And again, that's higher than most social media, than other social media platforms.

The average cost per click for the Google search network is 11 cents to 50 cents. So it makes it even a price-effective platform. And that's gonna vary on a number of factors, seasonality, during times of the year when there's more purchasing activities, such as the holiday shopping season, right? You know, at the end of the year, the cost per click might be higher.

It also varies by industry and market. Some markets, the cost per click can be, it might be appreciably higher than other markets, right? You know, e-commerce, you might get a lower cost per click, but with some professional services, business services, like legal, you'll likely get a high cost per click. And one of the reasons for that, several reasons, one might be competition, more competitive markets, you get a higher cost per click, but also the value of that conversion, right? If it's a legal, say, a personal injury, in short, a legal firm, if they do get a lead, and that lead leads to a case, and that case leads to a judgment, we're talking about a lead that might potentially be worked in the tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars.

So those firms might be willing to bid higher amounts to get that particular lead than a brand that is selling something with a much lower margin or overall potential value, all right? So it depends on your industry, and that's certainly gonna impact your budget, the cost per click. The higher the cost per click, generally the higher the budget, your budget is gonna have to be to get the results that you're looking for. Paid ads allow businesses to increase their brand awareness by as much as 33%.

Consider this: sometimes the first time you are aware of a brand is when it shows up in your Google results. And if it shows up a few times, even if you don't click on it the first time, you may eventually click. So that's certainly brand awareness, being able to consistently show up in search results, particularly in top position, among the ads at the top of a page, so the user is most likely to notice you.

So what is the role of Google Ads within marketing campaigns? Google Ads campaigns provide important benefits for brands, including they drive website traffic, right? They generate leads and conversions. So those two things, when we look at that together, overnight, once you start a Google Ads campaign, you're gonna see an increase in, if nothing else, website traffic. When you show up at the top of pages on searches, when normally you might show up at the bottom of the page or on the second or third page, it's certainly gonna impact the amount of traffic coming to your website.

And as we were explaining, this traffic has intention. So they're more likely, when they get to your website, to fill out a lead form or convert with a purchase enrollment, whatever the conversion is. Increases brand awareness.

Again, regularly showing up in search results will have that effect. And you can also do targeted advertising, right? Targeted at a number of factors, including demographics, but also interests and behavior. Targeted on the basis of whether they visited your website before or even visited the website of a competitor, whether they purchased from you before, whether they visited your website and not purchased, whether, you know, all factors that you can target on.

And we'll break that down when we discuss audiences. Regularly running Google Ads campaigns allows you to collect robust customer data and insight. And we'll see how we can translate that insight into the optimization of your marketing campaigns, your Google Ads campaigns.

So let's look at the Google Display Network. This is one of the options that you have when you advertise on Google. You can do search ads, which show up in search results, but you can also advertise on the Google network.

You can also advertise on YouTube as a sort of separate consideration. But the Google network is a vast network of websites, mobile apps, and digital properties where Google serves display ads, such as banners, images, and videos. Advertisers have the opportunity to reach a broader audience beyond search.

So if the person, potential customer, doesn't have to be searching, but just engaging on one of the websites that is part of the Google Display Network, you know, as well as when they're watching videos and using mobile apps, because mobile apps are also part of the network. Advertisers give targeted ads on the display network based on relevant audience criteria, including demographic, interests, topics, keywords, and remarketing. One interesting note is that you can actually advertise on Gmail, because Gmail is part of the Google Display Network.

And here's an example of a Gmail advertisement. It's sponsored emails. And you can see the ad here from SEMrush, an online marketing tool set, right? So that is, they use the subject line to, in the same way a headline would be used in a search ad, right? So to draw you in, to click on that, and then click through that to a landing page.