Setting up a Google Ad campaign can be incredibly exciting and can be a huge boost for your business. However, deciding which campaign type to use and how each one can differently effect your business.
The Six Different Google Ad Campaign Types
- Search Campaign
- Display Campaign
- Shopping Campaign
- Discovery Campaign
- Video Campaign
- Smart Campaign
When to Use a Search Campaign in Google Ads
Search campaigns can be a crucial part of how you advertise your business. They allow you to specifically target people actively searching for your product or service. Search campaigns are incredibly easy to set up and are even easier to customize to your specific needs. Search campaigns will show your ads across a vast network of search results and will only show to people actively searching for your ads, meaning your ads will only show to people who want to see them!
Search campaigns don’t include images or videos, only text, so they aren’t always the best for physical products or other more visually inclined advertisements. However, search campaigns can be a very good way to draw in potential customers to your website, landing page, or product page by using intricate language and strong keywords. The right wording in a text ad can sometimes be even more effective than a well shot product image.
Search campaigns are most commonly used to bring in more website visits, but they can also be used to generate phone calls or in store visits and, by proxy, sales. They are your bread and butter of campaigns, often being the easiest to set up and one of the first campaigns you’ll create for your business. Catchy headlines and well written descriptions can draw in prospective clients from all across the internet!
Benefits of using a search campaign include:
– Easy set-up and continued maintenance
– Relevant targeting with manually entered/excluded keywords
How to Set up an Expanded Text Ad in Google Ads
How to Set Up a Search Campaign in Google Ads
- Sign in to your Google Ads account
- From the left page menu click Campaigns
- Select New Campaign
- Select your campaign goal
- Select Search as your campaign type
- Click Continue
- Enter the name of your campaign, the locations you want to target, languages you want to use, and your budget
- Click Save and Continue
When to Use a Display Campaign in Google Ads
Display campaigns are designed to help you find the perfect audience for your product or service. They allow you to strategically show your ads to varying groups of people to target those most interested in what you have to offer. While search campaigns show people your ad while they are actively searching for it, display campaigns can show people your ad much earlier in the buying process, before they even begin to search.
Display campaigns also appeal to your prospective customers in other ways, using images and videos to draw people in. This is where things can get tricky, because you need the right images and videos to make people want to click on your ad and not scroll away from it. However, once you find those images and videos that work and speak to people, display campaigns require a lot less upkeep and effort to keep them going and bringing in more leads.
Because of the very visual nature of display ads there are certain things that they work well for and some things that should be advertised in other formats. For example, if you are selling a product or want to advertise your massage company, a display campaign could perfectly highlight those things visually. Same goes for if you are selling a book or advertising a new mobile game. However, if you are looking for people to sign up for a subscription service or read your blog, there are better ways that you could reach those customers than with a display campaign.
Benefits of using a display campaign include:
– Engage customers that have previously interacted with your brand
– Find new customers based on audiences your current customers are in
How to Set up a Display Ad in Google Ads
How to Set Up a Display Campaign in Google Ads
- Sign in to your Google Ads account
- From the left page menu click Campaigns
- Select New Campaign
- Select your campaign goal
- Select Display as your campaign type
- Click Continue
- Enter the name of your campaign, the locations you want to target, languages you want to use, and your budget
- Under People select who you would like to target
- Select the audiences you would like your ads to target
- Click Save and Continue
When to Use a Shopping Campaign in Google Ads
Shopping campaigns use the merchant center to advertise your products in a more retail-centered way. Product attributes inputted to the merchant center are used to drive where your ad will show and who will see it instead of using keywords to trigger search results. Because it’s using your actual products and not generalized search terms to get results shopping campaigns require little maintenance to be successful.
Shopping campaigns work best for singular products because they allow you to show the product with an image while also providing ad text to further describe and advertise the item. Shopping campaigns also give you much more precise data on which of your products are more popular. Unlike traditional ads that only tell you if someone landed on the page or not, shopping campaigns connect to the merchant center so they can tell you which of your products is more successful when it comes to ad sales. This information allows you to advertise those specific products more heavily based on what people are buying.
Benefits of using a shopping campaign include:
– Better qualified leads
– Retail centered campaign management
– Broader presence
– Strong reporting and reliable data
How to Set Up a Shopping Campaign in Google Ads
- Sign in to your Google Ads account
- From the left page menu click Campaigns
- Select New Campaign
- Select your campaign goal
- Select Shopping as your campaign type
- Click Continue
- Choose your advertising preferences and customize your campaign
- Click Save and Continue
When to Use a Discovery Campaign in Google Ads
Discovery campaigns are highly visual and inspiring in nature and allow you to reach a much broader audience. In addition to this, Google’s algorithm allows discovery ads to be shown to prospective customers at times when they’re most interested and ready to learn about new products or services. This means that the people your ad is being shown to are more likely to take an interest in it and click on your ad.
Google takes this ad placement very seriously, and analyzes a person’s watch history, latest searches, and most recent purchases to recommend the most relevant ad experience for that individual. For example, if you are selling bike helmets and Google sees that a prospective customer has watched a bunch of YouTube videos on mountain biking and then bought a mountain bike, your ad is highly relevant to that person so Google will make sure and put your ad in their path.
Benefits of using a discovery campaign include:
– Reach a broader audience
– Drive engagement by showing relevant ads to the right people
– Visually rich ads naturally perform better across Google feeds
How to Set Up a Discovery Campaign in Google Ads
- Sign in to your Google Ads account
- From the left page menu click Campaigns
- Select New Campaign
- Select your campaign goal
- Select Discovery as your campaign type
- Click Continue
- Customize your campaign
- Click Save and Continue
When to Use a Video Campaign in Google Ads
Video campaigns allow you to reach prospective customers on YouTube and on other Google video partners. There are several different ways your video can be shown to prospective customers. Skippable in-stream ads play before, after, or during other videos. After 5 seconds of the video, the viewer is given the option to skip it. Non-skippable in-stream ads also play before, after, or during another video but the viewer is not given the option to skip it. These ads must be 15 seconds or less. Video discovery ads will only play on YouTube and will appear in places that prospective customers are discovering new content. Outstream ads are ads that are shown on partner sites and not on YouTube itself. Bumper ads are the final type of video ad, they are a quick 6 second non-skippable video designed to spread brand awareness and reach customers on a broader scale.
Video ads can be an incredible way to reach people and when done correctly can be one of the most successful types of ads. However, this is not always the best option for smaller businesses or companies just starting out because the script writing and production of a high quality video ad isn’t always cheap. Many times businesses will make multiple different video ads and all but one of them will fail. It is a high risk high reward game that is well worth it for more established or larger companies.
Benefits of video campaigns include:
– Easily reach the right audience
– Engage people visually with short, exciting clips
How to Write a Script for Your Google Video Ad
How to Set up a Video Campaign in Google Ads
- Sign in to your Google Ads account
- From the left page menu click Campaigns
- Select New Campaign
- Select your campaign goal
- Select Video as your campaign type
- Click Continue
- Customize your campaign
- Click Save and Continue
When to Use a Smart Campaign in Google Ads
Smart campaigns are arguably the easiest campaign to set up and is often the first campaign Google urges you to create after setting up your Google Ads account. Unlike other campaigns, smart campaigns only charge you when someone actually clicks on your ad. They also require very little work to maintain once they are set up.
Smart campaigns may seem too simple compared to the other campaigns listed above, but they’re a priceless classic that can help you reach your goals and expand your reach to more prospective customers without all the hassle. Especially for beginners, smart campaigns are a great way to get your brand out there.
Benefits of using a smart campaign include:
– Easy to create
– Minimal ongoing management necessary
How to Set up an Expanded Text Ad in Google Ads
How to Set up a Smart Campaign in Google Ads
- Sign in to your Google Ads account
- From the left page menu click Campaigns
- Select New Campaign
- Select your campaign goal
- Select Smart as your campaign type
- Click Continue
- Enter your business information and customize your campaign
- Click Save and Continue
Commonly Asked Questions:
What should my budget be?
While it greatly varies between different business and different campaigns, I tend to set most of my campaigns at a starting budget of $5. I watch my new campaigns closely and if they perform well, I might raise the budget. However, if they do not perform well, I make sure to quickly fix the problem or lower the budget if the campaign is hurting the overall account.
How do I know if my campaign is performing well?
While what is considered “good performance” greatly varies from business to business, there are a few things to look for when you’re first getting started. A CTR (click through rate) of 2% or higher is considered a good interaction rate with your website, and anything below a 1% is very bad. When looking at conversions, the best tool to use is the Conversion Value/Cost. This calculates your ROAS (return on ad investment) and a ROAS higher than 4 is generally considered good.
How many campaigns should I set up?
Start small, especially if you’re new to Google Ads. Set up one campaign at a time and then give that campaign a week or two to find its feet. If it’s performing well, great! If not, you know that it’s time to go back to the drawing board. From there you can start to determine which ads work for you and which ones don’t, the most effective way to market your brand, and which products or services to pay more attention to based on what your customers are actually purchasing.
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