Understanding Online Advertising Models (CPC, CPM, etc.)

Demystifying Google Ads

Understanding Online Advertising Models

Welcome, aspiring Google Ads specialists! This chapter peels back the layers of Google Ads, unveiling the exciting world of online advertising. We'll explore different pricing models, understand how Google Ads functions within this ecosystem, and equip you with the foundational knowledge to navigate this powerful advertising platform.

From Curiosity to Mastery: A Common Google Ads Journey

Many embark on a Google Ads journey filled with initial intrigue, followed by potential frustrations, and finally, the realization that success requires knowledge and strategic application.

• Intrigue: "Google Ads? Sounds interesting!"
• Frustration: "Oh! Google Ads isn't working." or "They just want my money."
• Mastery: "Google Ads is like any other skill. You need to learn it first." or "It's a double-edged sword. A great weapon, but know what you're doing."

If you're at the beginning of this journey, this chapter will be enlightening.

The Power of Targeted Online Advertising

Imagine running a bakery famous for its decadent chocolate chip cookies. Traditionally, you might advertise in a local newspaper. However, the online world offers a more targeted and measurable approach: online advertising.

Here, you can reach potential customers actively searching for what you offer. This is where Google Ads comes in. It's an auction-based advertising platform developed by Google that allows businesses to display targeted ads across various channels.

Understanding How You Pay: Online Advertising Models

Understanding different online advertising models is crucial for effective Google Ads usage. Here are three main models you'll encounter:

• Pay-Per-Click (PPC): This is the most common model. You only pay when someone clicks on your ad. It's like paying in the bakery analogy only if someone walks through the door after seeing your ad. This model ensures user interest – they clicked because they're curious about your product (cookies!).

  • Example: You create a Google Ad targeting "freshly baked cookies." When someone searches for this term, your ad might appear above search results. You set a maximum bid (like an imaginary price per click) you're willing to pay if someone clicks your ad. Google conducts a real-time auction. Factors like your bid, ad quality, and landing page relevance determine your ad's position and visibility. If your ad wins and someone clicks, directing them to your website, you get charged.

• Cost-Per-Thousand Impressions (CPM): This model focuses on impressions rather than clicks. You pay a set fee each time one thousand people (one thousand impressions) see your ad.

  • Example: Imagine placing an ad banner on a local news website with a CPM model. You might pay a fixed price for every thousand people who see your banner ad showcasing your cookies, regardless of clicks.

  While less common in Google Ads (focusing on clicks), CPM can be beneficial for brand awareness campaigns.

• Cost-Per-Acquisition (CPA): This advanced model involves paying only when a specific desired action is taken, like a purchase or a signup.

  • Example: Imagine partnering with a food delivery app to promote your cookies. With CPA, you might pay the app only when someone successfully places an order for your cookies through their platform.

  CPA is great for driving conversions but requires a deeper understanding of campaign optimization and conversion tracking within Google Ads.

A Win-Win Ecosystem: How Google Ads Functions

Now that we've explored these models, let's understand how Google Ads uses them to create an advertising ecosystem that benefits both advertisers (like you) and users (people searching for cookies).

• Advertisers: You create targeted campaigns, set budgets, and choose the most relevant pricing model (PPC for beginners) to reach your target audience. Google Ads provides detailed analytics to track your campaign performance and optimize for better results.

• Users: When users search online, Google conducts an ad auction and displays relevant ads alongside search results. These ads are clearly labeled as "Ads" to avoid confusion. Users only pay when they click on an ad (PPC model), making online advertising a user-friendly experience.

By understanding these models and how Google Ads functions, you've taken the first step towards becoming a Google Ads expert. In the following chapters, we'll delve deeper into campaign creation, keyword research, ad copywriting, and the exciting world of Google Ads optimization!

Unlocking Google Ads Success with a High Quality Score

Learn how to improve your Google Ads Quality Score to increase ad visibility, lower costs, and achieve better campaign results. This comprehensive guide covers everything from understanding the factors that affect Quality Score to actionable strategies for optimization.

Introducing Google Ads Quality Score

Your Google Ads Quality Score is a critical factor in determining your ad's position and cost-per-click. It reflects how relevant and useful your ads, keywords, and landing page are to users. A high Quality Score can significantly improve your ad campaign's performance.

Why Quality Score Matters

• Higher Ad Rank & Visibility: A good Quality Score boosts your ad's position, increasing its visibility to potential customers.
• Reduced Costs: High-quality ads often enjoy lower cost-per-click, stretching your advertising budget further.
• Improved ROI: With better ad placement and reduced costs, a high Quality Score ultimately leads to a higher return on your ad spend.

Factors That Influence Your Google Ads Quality Score

• Expected Click-Through Rate (CTR): How likely users are to click your ad based on its relevance and past performance.
• Ad Relevance: How closely your ad matches the user's search query and intent.
• Landing Page Experience: The relevance, usefulness, and ease of navigation on the page users land on after clicking your ad.

How to Improve Your Google Ads Quality Score

• Targeted Keyword Research: Use tools like Google Keyword Planner to find relevant keywords with high search volume and low competition. Consider incorporating long-tail keywords that specifically address user intent.
• Compelling Ad Copy: Craft clear, concise, and engaging ad copy that speaks directly to your target audience. Highlight the unique benefits of your product or service and include a clear call to action.
• Landing Page Optimization: Ensure your landing page is relevant to your ad, loads quickly, is easy to navigate, and provides valuable information to visitors.
• Ad Extensions: Use ad extensions like sitelink extensions, call extensions, and location extensions to provide additional information and improve your ad's visibility.
• Continuous Monitoring & Testing: Regularly review your Quality Score and A/B test different ad variations to see what resonates best with your audience.

Click on "Search keywords" under "Audiences, keywords and content" to show this screen

Monitoring and Analyzing Your Quality Score

Keep a close eye on your Quality Score in your Google Ads account. Identify areas for improvement and implement the strategies mentioned above to enhance your score and overall ad performance.

Achieving a 10/10 Quality Score

While achieving a perfect 10/10 Quality Score can be challenging, it's achievable with diligent effort. It requires meticulous account organization, highly relevant keywords and ads, regular A/B testing, and a user-friendly landing page that delivers on the ad's promise.

Conclusion

Understanding and optimizing your Google Ads Quality Score is crucial for maximizing the success of your PPC campaigns. By focusing on relevance, quality, and user experience, you can achieve higher ad rankings, lower costs, and ultimately drive better results for your business.

Two Reasons Google Ads Lead Form is Rejected

An Investigation on Why the Google Ads Lead Form in My Google Ad Got Rejected.

I just found out two reasons Google Ads lead form is rejected by Google. Before I get to the point, here is the story. [If you are in a hurry, skip to the last paragraph of this article.]

I know from my experience that Communication or rather the lack of it, is the Reason for most, if not all of the World's problems.

Google ads, is a case in example. :-)

We all know Google is making billions through its ads and its communication is impeccable.

But, wait, don't get into hasty conclusions. Enter Google ads.

I do not claim to be an expert in Google ads. But, we generally use it to promote our business. I assume you know more than a little aboug Google ads. Hence, there is no introduction offered here.

So, recently, we created a responsive search Google ad, with a lead form to try and capture some leads.

It was an ad to promote one of the largest wedding venues in Chennai.

What is a Google lead form?

A Google lead form is one of the extensions to a Google ad. Here, a prospect can fill in their contact details, to know more about the product/service on display.

Sitelinks, callouts, structured snippets, and one-click calling are other extensions. Like these other extensions, lead forms are also shown directly under search ads.

For each campaign you need to create a lead form, if required. Of course, a lead form thus created could be used in multiple ad campaigns.

Filling the Google Ads Lead Form

Here, the lead form had a "Headline", the "Business name", a "Description".

I filled in all three.

Of the many listed, I chose three contact details, such as name, phone number and city, for the visitor to fill in. These are by default, pre-filled automatically.

Lead Form Qualifying Question

From my earlier experience of using Google lead forms, I found out the disadvantages of a plain form. Without a qualifying question, you generally tend to attract a lot of junk enquiries. I do not know the exact reason, though.

To avoid that I included a mandatory qualifying question, which will ensure that the visitor indeed posted the enquiry. He/she is forced to choose an answer from a dropdown, or fill in a text box with some information. I assumed that just the submit button without the qualifying question was the reason for the junk enquiries.

Most of them we called, would say, "What enquiry? I didn't post any enquiry. Call again and I will report you!". Paying money and inviting trouble :-)

While Google lead forms may appear to be a convenient solution for lead generation, there is a lesson here. It is that the quality of leads collected probably isn't as high as with a personalized post-click landing page. By having a well-designed personalized page experience, we can achieve the same results as Google lead form extensions can. Furthermore, a dedicated page gives prospects a more comprehensive introduction to the offer and your brand. It gives them relevant details to assist in making an informed decision.

Once I filled in all the requisite details, I saved the form. And waited. Google Ads responded after a little while with the message

Not eligible
Disapproved
Ad violates policy and can't run:
Unacceptable spacing

What Did I Miss Out On?

I clicked on "Read the policy". Here's the link to the lead form requirements. I went through it with a fine toothcomb and couldn't find anything untoward in my lead form content.

Now, I did not give any extra spacing or miss a space between words as given in the example in the policy. So, what was the real issue? It looks like Google ads wants us to find out the reasons, the hard way.

Google could have told us that there is a problem with the Headline. Or the qualifying question, or wherever. But, it chose to just limit the response to "Unacceptable spacing", that's all.

I started looking at each word and letter individually, to rule out any error. I checked for a spelling mistake or an extra space that I might have put in there. At the end of this exercise, I found that I was using an exclamation mark "!". Could that be the problem?

Assuming that the "!" could be the culprit, I removed that. And submitted the ad. After sometime, I found the ad was again "Not eligible".

Not finding anything untoward, I clicked on "Appeal" and disputed the decision.

Again no luck. Rejected again. Totally confused now, I assumed that the messaging was grammatically incorrect.

I wrote the head line "Top Wedding Hall 500 Guests", in order to adhere to the 30 character limit. So, I changed it to "Top Wedding Hall in Chennai" and submitted again.

Two Reasons Why Your Lead Form Could Be Rejected

Voila! The ad got through. So, these are the culprits. The insight here is that you cannot use the exclamation mark(!) and the statements you make in your ads, have to be grammatically correct.

And, finally my Google ads lead form finally got approved.

Maximizing your Google Ads Performance

Maximizing your Google Ads performance

Google ads are one of the most cost efficient ways to promote your business. But, maximizing your Google ads performance, takes a little effort and focus.

What is Google Ads?

Unlike the traditional method of advertising, which is like shouting from a roof top at people around, who may or may not be prospective buyers; it is like broadcasting; not everybody be listening; and not everyone that is listening need be a prospective buyer.

Contrast this with selling in a street full of people who are interested in products like yours; how easy would that be; that is Google ads for you.

How much does Google Ads cost?

Google ads is one of the cheapest way of shouting out at people who are in line with your business, that is, those who want to, who are considering to, or those who would want to in the near future, to buy products or services that are similar to yours.

Since, Google ads is targeted, it is only when people click or watch your ad (in case of Youtube ads) that your account is charged. The advantage of Google ads is that you know where your money went and how effective it was to your purpose.

There is also scope for analysis and refining your ads, change the scope and change your target audience and so on.

This is what we are talking about, when we talk about maximizing Google ads performance. This also effectively and essentially means that we are going to spend a much lesser amount that traditional advertising.

But still, if one isn't careful, we may end up spending far more than what we should have to achieve a target. But first, let us talk about how Google ads finds me business.

How does Google Ads find me business?

As you know, people the world over make use of Google as a search engine to look for their requirements. It may be information, knowledge, product comparison and even for purchase of products and services.

So, it knows what you are looking for, based on your search terms. It also knows who has a certain product that matches your search terms. So, as you type in your search requirement, Google checks its list of service providers and shows an advertisement that is relevant to you.

If you click on the link that is shown, it takes you to the service providers page. If you like it, you make and enquiry. If everything goes well, you make a purchase. It is a win win for everybody.

That is Google ads, in simple terms.

WHY IS IT THAT I AM SPENDING A LOT, BUT AM GETTING LESS LEADS?

There are various factors that contribute to lead acquisition. They are geography, product category and most importantly filtering out abstract and unproductive searches.

When you are just using a set of key phrases without any customization, a lot of people who are looking for something similar, but not your product or service may be seeing your ad. This leads to avoidable and inadvertent clicks, for which you end up paying, but they end up being wasted.

TARGETING GOOGLE ADS FOR A GEOGRAPHY

If you are a local vendor servicing a small community, it becomes essential that you leave away the rest of the world and focus only on your locality.

Google tells you to broaden your search and to widen your search net in order to increase clicks and thereby increase the chances of you getting the right customers. Even though the logic looks good on paper, it might get people who may be interested, but aren't in your locality, are looking for a different product in the same genre, or looking for a specific brand and so on.

So, you need to keep your keywords specific and to the point. Over a period of time, you may refine the list of key phrases, to improve your hits. So, even though you may be getting lesser hits and enquiries, most of them would be relevant and so, the chances of conversions are more.

The positive side of this is that you get to spend lesser, because you have shrinked your net and unrelated clicks are avoided.

The step by step process of reducing Google ad spend, while increasing your chances of getting conversions will be explained in a later episode.