Google Ads is Google’s online advertising program. Through Google Ads, you can create online ads to reach people exactly when they’re interested in the products and services that you offer.
AdWords is an advertising system Google developed to help businesses reach online target markets through its search engine platform and partner sites. These partner sites host a text or image ad that appears on the page after a user searches for keywords and phrases related to a business and its products or services. On Google.com, AdWords ads typically appear in specific locations at the top and right-hand side of a search results page.
You can choose keywords related to your brand, products, services and industry for your AdWords account. When customers search for these phrases, your store’s ad will be served to them. You only pay when a user clicks on your ad and visits your website or calls your business using “click to call.”
- Google Ads is a product that you can use to promote your business, help sell products or services, raise awareness, and increase traffic to your website.
- Google Ads accounts are managed online, so you can create and change your ad campaign at any time, including your ad text, settings, and budget.
- There’s no minimum spending commitment, and you set and control your own budget. You choose where your ad appears, set a budget that’s comfortable for you, and easily measure the impact of your ad.
Benefits of using AdWords include:
- Customers associate certain keywords and phrases with your business
- You can target with AdWords, meaning the ads follow a customer to other Google sites like YouTube and The New York Times; that improves conversion and reduces cost-per-click.
- You have the flexibility to determine which sites host your ads.
- Focus on your target market by honing in on certain regions and cities.
- AdWords identifies who is searching for your products.
- AdWords reminds customers of what they previously searched for, keeping your brand top of mind.
- AdWords helps you optimize current campaigns and leverage results for improved overall success.
Features
- The Keyword Planner provides data on Google searches and other resources to help plan advertising campaigns.
- AdWords Express (previously “Google Boost”) is a feature aimed at small businesses that attempts to reduce the difficulty of managing ad campaigns by automatically managing keywords and ad placement.
- Google Ads Editor is a downloadable program that allows users to make bulk changes to ads and edit ads offline. It also allows users to see ad performance, like the dashboard.
- Google Ads Manager Accounts (previously “My Client Centre (MCC)”) allows users to manage multiple accounts from one login and dashboard. This is most commonly used by Marketing and Advertising agencies who manage a large portfolio of client accounts.
- The Reach Planner allows users to forecast the reach and extent of their video ads across YouTube and Google video partners. The tool allows users to choose their audience, then recommends a combination of video ads that help reach the user’s objectives, and see the reach of their ads.
- In addition to location and language targeting, advertisers can specify Internet Protocol (IP) addresses to be excluded. Advertisers can exclude up to 500 IP address ranges per campaign.
- Google Academy for Ads (previously “Google Partners“, “Google AdWords Certification Program” and “Google AdWords Certification”) provides a qualification to clients who pass a Google Ads Fundamentals exam and one Advanced AdWords exams on search, display, video, shopping, or mobile advertising, or Google Analytics. Google Partners must maintain a minimum spend threshold of US$10,000 over 90 days, with a higher spend threshold for Google Premier Partners.
- Placement-targeted advertisements (formerly Site-Targeted Advertisements) places adverts based on keywords, domain names, topics, and demographic targeting preferences entered by the advertiser. If domain names are targeted, Google also provides a list of related sites for placement. Advertisers bid on a cost-per-impression (CPI/CPM) or cost-per-click (CPC) basis for site targeting. The minimum cost-per-thousand impressions bid for placement-targeted campaigns is 25 cents. There is no minimum CPC bid.
- Remarketing allows marketers to show advertisements to users that have previously visited their website, and allows marketers to create different audience lists based on the behavior of website visitors. Remarketing Lists for Search (RLSA) via Google Analytics became available in Google Ads in early June 2015, allowing for the use of standard GA remarketing lists to plan traditional text search ads. Dynamic remarketing can show past visitors the specific products or services they viewed. While common, some users may find overly overt use intrusive.
- Ad extensions allow advertisers to show extra information with their ads, such as a business address, phone number, links to a web page or app, prices, or sales and promotions. Google Ads may also display automated extensions such as consumer ratings when the system predicts they will improve performance.