How do I use Google Ads?

Choose a good goal to use Google Ads.

Clearly defining your objectives is the mandatory starting point for a successful Google Ads advertising campaign. It is also one of the first steps when you access the platform's homepage to start an ad. Do you want to receive more calls, generate additional sales (or leads), or attract visitors to your store? As you may have noticed when looking for advice on how to start a business, everything will depend on the nature of your activities, your needs, and your vision.

Your objective will help the search engine understand your target audience and adjust the campaign settings accordingly (pricing, display). For example, if you want to attract foot traffic to your store, the target audience for your ad will not be the same as that of a company looking to generate engagement on YouTube. Choosing your objective wisely can save you time and money.

To maximize your chances, make sure your company's campaign objective is SMART: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. Special emphasis should be placed on relevance, as Google Ads is just a marketing tool and the use of ads should be part of a comprehensive and well-defined strategy.

Once you have defined your objectives for your marketing strategy, you can launch a Google Ads campaign. You will need to go to ads.google.com and click on "Start now". However, you must have created a Google account beforehand to be able to carry out this campaign.

Choose the right keywords for your campaign

Choosing the right keywords is crucial if you want to successfully configure your advertising campaigns without the help of a SEA specialist, a community manager (for social networks), or a marketer. They determine the audience that will see your message, and consequently, the click-through and conversion rates. You can use Google's keyword planning tool to better optimize your Ads campaign's target audience.

Based on expressions or terms related to your activity, Google Keyword Planner identifies the most relevant keywords for you. Pay particular attention to the popularity of the keywords suggested to you, and to the evolution of their search over time. The tool also offers an estimate of the cost associated with targeting each keyword. This can help you better define the advertising budget for your campaign. Feel free to select multiple expressions if you find them relevant to your activity.

During the process of creating a Google Ads ad, you will also need to choose where you want to display your ad. While it may be tempting to select the widest possible geographical area to maximize its impact, this is not always a good idea. In general, the more specific and smaller your target is, the better results you get with a reasonable investment.

For example, if your business mainly targets the Paris region, it's not very useful to target Marseille. This applies to search campaigns and other types of campaigns offered by Google Ads: display, discovery, shopping, smart, video, etc.

Optimize your ad on Google Ads

The ad itself is the message that users will see on Google's search results page. For a Search campaign, it consists of a 30-character title and a maximum 90-character description. The search engine allows you to add multiple titles and descriptions to optimize the quality and attractiveness of your ad. Take advantage of this opportunity to test different advertising messages highlighting your business. Google may display titles and descriptions in any order. It can also combine multiple titles for the same description. To do this, make sure that each element is individually relevant.

The secret to optimizing an ad for the Google Ads search network is to have a good understanding of your audience. To do this, you need to ask yourself certain questions:

• What are its characteristics?
• What problem does it aim to solve?
• What tone does it identify with the most?

By using this data for your marketing campaign, you can create an ad that will make your target audience want to click. Adding an image is a great way to make the message more impactful and easily memorable.

For advertising campaigns carried out on the display network (network of websites and applications that partner with Google), responsive ads are the best. Generated by AI from your data, it automatically adjusts to the available space, offering a better rendering to reach Internet users more easily.

Set a suitable budget for using Google Ads.

To finalize the configuration of your Google Ads campaign, you must indicate the amount you are willing to pay monthly and daily for the ad. The tool makes several proposals, with an estimate of the number of clicks you can expect each month for each amount. You are free to enter your own budget based on your objectives and overall marketing strategy for your business.

Google will only charge you when someone clicks on your ad. Also, your daily spending might go over or under your planned budget, but the total campaign cost per month will stay within your monthly budget.

Different steps to follow for setting up a new Google Ads campaign:

• go to the Google Ads homepage and click "Start Now" to launch a new campaign,
• provide your company name and website address,
• Specify the type of device targeted (mobile or desktop),
• choose the main goal of the campaign,
• write a catchy ad,
• select the targeted keywords,
• Specify the geographical areas you want the ad to be shown in,
• define your Google Ads campaign budget and proceed to register the payment method.

After setting up an ad, you can always change it later using Google Ads Editor (a free downloadable application).

Tracking results is also a key part of managing a Google Ads campaign. It lets you analyze the data from the campaign to improve your future ad efforts. To do this, link Google Analytics to your account from the menu "Tools > Linked accounts" (under Setup). You'll be able to track things like conversions generated by the campaign, clicks, and cost.