Originally launched in 2000 as Google Adwords, the system now known as Google Ads has, over the last two decades, proven itself one of the most efficient and effective platforms for online advertising.
That makes sense. After all, Google is both the most utilized search engine on the internet and the most visited website overall, so it’s no surprise that this particular platform would give a business’s ads the greatest possible reach. When you invest in paid advertising, why would you not invest first and foremost in Google?
Google Ads operates as PPC, or pay-per-click advertising, meaning that the advertiser pays only when a user clicks on an ad. With Google Ads, companies have the opportunity to bid on the keywords they want to target, and the companies with the highest bids are the ones that get advertised. This is why ads need to be tailored toward exactly what the user is searching for.
Obviously, if you’re going to be being making bids and paying for every click, you need to make sure you optimize Google Ads for maximum effectiveness and minimum cost. In this post, I’ll give you the scoop on five major Google Ads optimization strategies for 2022.
Follow these suggestions, and, before you know it, your paid advertising search campaign will be ready to help improve website traffic, reduce bounce rates, and increase conversions.
Optimize Google Ads with These PPC Strategies
Take Advantage of Automation
Google is known as one of the most innovative and forward-thinking companies of all time, so it is no surprise that, over the years, it has continued to refine its capabilities in artificial intelligence or AI. One of the results of this Smart Bidding.
As the name implies, Smart Bidding makes it quicker and easier to bid on Google Ads. Smart Bidding uses machine learning to optimize more accurately for conversions when bidding. Aaron Luther with Alltime Power, told us that he would recommend revising your bidding strategy when it comes to Google Ads in 2022.
“New settings allow Google to change your bids at the auction if their machine learning algorithms believe the user is likely to convert,” Luther said. Essentially, you are telling the program what you want out of your advertising campaign, and the program uses smart bidding to get that done within your budget and with little to no effort on your end.
Jack Choros with IronMonk elaborated on just how easy it is to set up and maintain your automatic bidding campaign.
“An automatic bidding strategy takes less time to put together because the advertiser is trusting algorithms to help optimize bids based on conversion value or any number of metrics selected,” Choros said.
Additionally, Google has implemented another AI-based ads technique that not only boosts your company’s traffic online but also bolsters the foot traffic coming into your brick-and-mortar storefront. This optimization tool is called Local Campaign, and it is designed to help businesses who are attempting to increase both their in-person and online traffic.
Once you give Google your ad creation and the location of your storefront, it can display your ads to those in your geographic area. This tool is extremely helpful when people are using the popular search phrase “near me” to find a storefront. It’s estimated that about 34% of all “near me” searches end in an in-store visit, proving how beneficial this tool can be.
Transition to Using RSAs
Since we’re on the subject of Google’s implementation of AI, now is the perfect time to look at RSAs, or responsive search ads. When using RSAs, Google tests all of your various ads across different search queries and monitors where each gets the best results.
This is a huge time-saver for advertisers and can help you put your best foot (or best ad) forward and achieve better engagement and more conversions.
RSAs allow you to provide a total of 15 different headlines and 4 description lines for every ad you create. Google Ads will then automatically choose the best combination of these based on an individual user’s search phrase, browsing history, and device. This gives your campaign greater flexibility so that you can appeal to the unique sensibilities and needs of different segments of your audience.
You may be wondering how RSAs compare with ETAs, or expanded text ads. To put it into hard numbers, on average RSAs receive up to 60% more impressions, with resulting conversions increasing by 74% minimum up to an outstanding 400% maximum. All this with a roughly 35% cheaper CPA cost.
In fact, RSAs have proven so much more effective than ETAs that Google recently announced it will be disabling ETAs as of June 30, 2022. While campaigns currently using ETAs will still be able to pause and launch preexisting ETA ads, you will not be able to create new ones nor edit your old ones.
Simply put, if you have not already transitioned to RSAs instead of ETAs, there’s no better time than now.
Start Making Video Ads
Yes, advertising on Google and having your company pop up as the top search result can give you great results and send a lot of traffic your way, but it’s hardly the only digital platform where you can advertise.
For example, with Google Ads, you also have the ability to advertise on YouTube, the second-largest search engine in the world. People often forget that YouTube counts as a search engine at all, but, through YouTube video ads, you can provide viewers with full introductions to your product or company. These ads can be played before, after, or even during a video.
One of the primary benefits of video SEO marketing is the cost. Despite it being the second largest search engine, YouTube remains one of the cheapest platforms to advertise on.
Additionally, you are charged for your advertisement only if the viewer watches your ad for a designated period of time. If they click “Skip Ad” or click out of the video before the ad plays out, you will not be charged. This is beneficial because, without having to spend any money at all, your ad was still able to leave an impression on the viewer and create brand awareness.
I spoke with Kyle Willis, founder of Seattle-based digital marketing agency No To The Quo, and he stressed the importance of ad diversification. He also believes that YouTube is a great platform to utilize.
“Like Facebook, they (YouTube) provide expansive audience selections, but because it’s built within the Google Ads platform, you’re able to create a complete user experience around an ad,” Willis said.
Google Ads has created many tools around video ads just as the platform has with its more traditional advertisements. One tool that I highly recommend looking into and utilizing is the ‘Bumper Machine’. This takes a video or advertisement that is somewhat lengthy and shortens it to a six-second video displaying all the highlights of the original.
This is a quick and easy way to increase your brand recognition and really retain your audience’s attention (a six-second ad is much easier to pay attention to than a minute-long one). These ads are a win-win because they don’t take too much of the audience’s view time away, but they still get your product or company information out there and make an impression on viewers.
Cater to Mobile & Voice Search
Today, more and more people are searching on their mobile devices or utilizing voice searching tools such as Google Home, Alexa, or Siri. As the number of people using desktop or laptop computers to look up information decreases, the need to put more effort into optimizing ads for mobile devices and search queries increases.
In 2022, with everyone practically glued to their cell phones, it is no surprise that more than half of all searches on Google come from mobile devices. That being said, it has become increasingly important that we optimize Google Ads for mobile devices.
I spoke with Andy Canter, the director at Edge45, who said that focusing on mobile Google ads in 2022 is his top priority.
“With mobile traffic surpassing desktop traffic way back in 2016, focusing on Mobile Google ads is more important than ever,” Canter said. “If most of your traffic is coming via mobile, why are you still focusing your efforts on desktop?”
Hand-in-hand with the growing trend of mobile-first search is that of voice search is. One of the newer innovations in online searching, voice search is still an often overlooked avenue when it comes to optimizing PPC campaigns. In 2022, however, it is something you really need to think about.
People search for things in certain ways on desktops and in completely different ways when doing voice searches. That is because the way we speak is usually different from how we type. You need to consider that when optimizing ads for voice search.
You can utilize Google Ads to discover what search terms people are using when they come across your ads. Then, you can use that data to orient your campaign more closely to voice searches. Those queries are typically question-based, long-tail phrases.
Track Your Campaign’s Results
One of the most important and impactful techniques for optimizing a paid media campaign is also one of the most deceptively simple. Simply put, you have to keep track of your results.
That doesn’t just mean occasionally checking in to make sure everything is running smoothly. It means creating an ongoing spreadsheet that records your impressions, clicks, and conversions. With Google Ads, you can connect your campaign to an analytics engine to help you get a granular view of your data.
Staying aware of this data makes it easier for you to modify your plans at a moment’s notice in order to take advantage of changing trends, or to alter tactics that aren’t as effective as you expected. It can also help you weigh your Google advertising cost against how much revenue Google Ads is helping to bring in.
What keywords are bringing the most users to your website? What is your Google Ads quality score? How does your Google ROI compare to your ROI on other advertising platforms?
Carefully measuring the results of your paid-per-click advertising is vital to making the right decisions about what is and isn’t working, where to focus your attention and resources, and what areas still need improvement. Additionally, it will give you a practical tool that you can then use to show investors, stakeholders, staff members the real-world effects of their contributions.
Need Help With Your Google Ads Campaigns? LSEO Can Help!
There is certainly a lot to understand and remember when you are trying to optimize your Google Ads for maximum results. The process doesn’t have to be difficult, though. Follow the advice laid out here as you head into your paid Google advertising in 2022, and you will undoubtedly be in a better position than you were before.
LSEO is proud to offer Google Ads management services to all our clients. Together, we’ll work to help you institute a fresh, modern, optimized paid media marketing strategy. The tips and tricks outlined in the post above are just some of the ways to get the most out of the Google Ads platform.
Let us put our digital marketing expertise and resources to work for you, so you can take full advantage of Google Ads’ potential. Contact us today!