“Tell me the objective of your business and I will tell you what type of campaign you need”. We could thus summarize the approach of the online interface of Google Ads in recent years. And it is not for less: before starting any action, it is essential to define the objectives that we want to achieve with it and choose the type of campaign that is best suited to achieving them. If there is no strategic and tactical approach behind it, we will most likely be doomed to failure.
Google Ads introduces us 7 specific advertising objectives (plus an option that allows us to create campaigns without a specific objective) and, for each of them, it tells us what type of campaign is, according to the Mountain View giant, the most appropriate. It should be noted that there is not always a clear relationship between the type of campaign and the objective: for example, a search campaign can serve both a sales objective and a web traffic objective. It all depends on how it is configured.
Let’s see in detail the 7 advertising objectives that Google Ads provides us and explain each of the campaign types that we have in the tool.
1. Objective: sales
If your goal is boost salesWhether on a website, app, by phone or in a physical store, the system recommends the following types of campaigns: search, shopping, display, video, smart or discovery. In my experience, only the first two are really focused on sales, so in this section we will focus exclusively on them, but we must admit that in recent years Google has been making a lot of effort so that campaign typologies that have historically been more branding (such as display or video) have certain functionalities more focused on performance (such as form extensions, for example).
search campaigns
The campaigns of search they are the classic option to advertise on Google and, although set, they are usually the most effective for obtaining sales. The reason? Easy: it is the only type of campaign where we are showing our ads to users who are really interested in our products, since the user proactively enters Google to search for information
pro tip
Do not let yourself be overcome by the desire to appear: use only words that are related to your business and try to negativize all those terms that can lead to confusion or bring you uninterested traffic. Otherwise, you will be wasting your time and, above all, money. If a user is looking for, for example, “rent a house” and you are dedicated to renting offices, it makes no sense to show your ad. In addition, the system will recognize that you are not relevant to the search and will tend not to show your ad, in addition to charging you a higher CPC.
shopping campaigns
The campaigns of shopping They are the best option if you are an eCommerce and you sell any of the types of products allowed. Remember that in this type of campaign you cannot promote services or intangible products, but neither can certain specific physical products, such as vehicles and real estate.
pro tip
The shape in what structures the campaign also matters. If you have a catalog of products that generate very different returns and you want to use an intelligent bidding strategy that optimizes , try to group them by profitability brackets AAA / AA / A / rest, without looking at the type of product. On the contrary, if you are going to focus on maximizing the number of sales (regardless of the profitability they generate), I recommend structuring the campaigns by categories since their management may be easier for you.
pro tip
Use a CSS (Comparison Shopping Service) different from Google Shopping: You can improve your results by up to 20%. This is because, since Google was convicted of abuse of a dominant position in 2017, it has had to allow other price comparison sites to enter Shopping auctions and, in order to remain profitable, it has to apply a margin to the base bids of the auctions. campaigns that are carried out through their own CSS (Shopping, excuse the redundancy). Campaigns carried out through third-party CSS will continue to be managed from the Merchant Center and appear in the same places in Shopping, but the name of the comparator used will be displayed in the footer of the ads.
2. Objective: potential customers
Previously, the traffic and lead objectives went very hand in hand: if you wanted to get contacts, you needed to drive (good quality) traffic to your website or landing page. In recent years, also due to the fact that other platforms such as Facebook or LinkedIn have launched their own advertising solutions focused on leads, Google has evolved its campaigns allowing the generation of leads from the same ads, without going through the advertiser’s website.
If you want to encourage users to perform actions that generate sales opportunities, such as contacting your company through a form, signing up for the , registering in the private area or in your loyalty program, Google recommends the same types of campaign as for the sales objective. Again, I think we should fine tune more.
Shopping and search campaigns
shopping It is, as I have said before, the best option to generate sales. I do not recommend using a shopping campaign with a lead objective.
The campaigns of searchon the other hand, are not only a good option to generate sales (if we focus on specific product keywords), but also help us generate leads.
pro tip
For search campaigns to work well for lead generation purposes, in addition to using the lead form extension, it is essential that the web page or landing to which you redirect the traffic of the campaigns is optimized for it. You must make it very clear what action you expect the user to take once they land on it, but also provide enough information so that the user knows what product or service you are offering.
pro tip
If your potential customers contact you primarily by phone, uses call-only ads. Remember that these types of ads will only show on devices that have calling functionality, so I recommend combining them with a standard ad campaign so you don’t miss out on business on other devices.
display campaigns
The campaigns of display historically they have been, as we mentioned before, a typology rather related to the generation of brand image. To start competing with the ad formats available on other platforms such as Facebook Lead Ads, LinkedIn or the interactive formats of platforms, for some time Google has enabled a lead form extension that allows users to send us their data directly from the ad with which they have been impacted on the Google Display Network (GDN), without interrupting their navigation by taking them to another site.
pro tip
Less is more: ask only for the information necessary to achieve the goal you have set for yourself. If you want the user to sign up for your newsletter, through which you will later try to build loyalty and get them to buy one of your products or services, ask only for their e-mail (and at most their name). You don’t need their phone number or mailing address. You think that the information you have by viewing a banner is very limited and therefore it is better to ask for a “corresponding” amount of personal data.
pro tip
There are some exceptions to the above recommendation. If your goal is to get highly qualified leads, then you can increase the number of form fields and require the user a greater amount of personal information. The important thing is that you always weigh the value of the data you request with the benefit that the user will obtain in exchange for giving it to you. If, for example, you are a car dealer and your goal is to generate contacts for test-drive, it makes sense that, in addition to the email and name to contact him, you ask the user to specify which model they are interested in.
video campaigns
The same goes for campaigns. videowith the advantage that in YouTube ads you can generate more attractive content and provide the user with more basic information that motivates them to leave their data.
pro tip
To get higher quality leads, show your lead-gen ads on YouTube at a more segmented public and related to your brand. In addition to interests and topics, filter by the language in which the ad is produced (or, at most, by those that your company is capable of managing). If you don’t speak Swedish, and also don’t have content prepared in that language, it doesn’t make sense to show your ads to users who speak it.
pro tip
Do not mislead the user with generic messages: be very clear about what you expect them to do, since the number of characters at your disposal for titles and descriptions is limited. In the same way, choose the most suitable CTA.
Discovery campaigns
The campaigns of discovery They also contemplate the use of lead forms, although they will only be displayed in Gmail. In fact, these types of campaigns are the only ones that will allow you to show your ads in Google’s mailbox. Remember that, in order to use this type of advertisement, You must have at least one active Discovery ad in image format, since it is not compatible with the carousel format.
pro tip
Start using audiences of , and purchase intent since they are users who have already been in contact with your brand (remarketing and customer match) or are at a more advanced point in the purchase funnel (in-market). Also, if you use custom intent audiences, I recommend creating one custom audience containing the top ten keywords from your search campaigns.
Smart campaigns
The smart campaigns they are a special case since they are specifically designed for small businesses that do not have extensive knowledge of Google Ads and its functionalities and are looking to attract more potential customers to the web or to make a phone call without complications. They allow you to save time, both in configuration (which is guided step by step by non-technical explanations) and in optimization, since they use Google’s advertising technology so that you have to do as little as possible on your part. These campaigns will show up on the Search Network, Maps, Gmail, YouTube, and GDN.
pro tip
Based on artificial intelligence, results will improve over time since the system better understands user behavior based on experience. Be patient and, even if you see that in the first few weeks you are not reaching your goals, leave a little room for the algorithm to learn before applying any changes.
3. Objective: traffic to the website
To obtain getting the right users to visit your website or landing page, Google recommends the use of search, display, shopping, video and discovery campaigns.
Already…
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