Business
Help & Support / Marketing
and advertising your business / <<
back to previous page
A guide to Google Adwords
Source: Google
Adwords is a good way of getting found quickly, especially
if your website is not currently being found.
AdWords overview
No matter what your budget or how little time you have, you
can reach new customers and grow your business using Google’s
online advertising program. With AdWords, you can choose where
your ad appears, set a budget that’s comfortable for
you (there’s no minimum spending commitment), and easily
measure the impact of your ad.
Benefits of advertising with Google
A few important things set AdWords apart from
other kinds of advertising. Using AdWords, you can:
Reach people at the precise moment they’re
searching for what you offer
-
Your ad is displayed to people
who are already searching for the kinds of products and
services you offer. So those people are more likely to
take action.
-
You can choose where your ad appears
-- on which specific websites and in which geographical
areas (states, towns, or even neighborhoods).
-
AdWords reaches 80% of Internet
users in the US. That's a big audience
How AdWords works
How keywords trigger your ad to appear
Keywords are words or phrases you choose that can trigger
your ad to show on search and other sites. For example, if
you deliver fresh flowers, you could use "fresh flower
delivery" as one keyword in your AdWords campaign. When
someone searches Google using the phrase "fresh flower
delivery" or a similar term, your ad might appear next
to Google search results. Your ad can also appear on other
websites in the Google Network that are related to fresh flower
delivery.
Placements: Advertising on non-search websites
Keywords can trigger your ads to appear next to search results
on Google and other search sites. But keywords can also trigger
your ads to show on other sites across the Internet -- Google-owned
properties like YouTube and Google's partner sites like NYTimes.com
or Families.com, for example. We call these "placements."
A placement can consist of an entire website or just part
of a site. And these websites are all part of what we call
the Display Network.
Google can automatically determine where your ads appear
by matching your keywords to websites in the Display Network.
Or, if you'd like greater control over where your ads appear,
you can pick specific placements yourself. You can set bids
for each and choose the sites where your ads might appear.
Ad Rank: How Google determines which ads appear in which
positions
Now let's suppose that multiple advertisers use the same keyword
to trigger their ads or want their ads to appear on the same
websites. How does Google determine whose ads will appear
and in which order? It's done automatically, based on what
we call Ad Rank.
Your Ad Rank is based on a combination of your bid (how much
you're willing to spend) and your Quality Score (a measurement
of the quality of your ads, keywords, and website). Depending
on where your ad shows and the type of targeting that you
use, the formula for Ad Rank can vary a bit, but it always
incorporates bid and Quality Score.
We'll go into more detail about Quality Score below; the
important thing to know here is that the quality and relevance
of your keywords, landing pages, and your ad are every bit
as important to your ad's rank as the amount you're willing
to spend.
A bit about bidding and Quality Score
Your bid and Quality Score can work slightly differently
across different campaigns types. Here are a couple of examples
to help illustrate.
With a keyword-targeted ad on Google and its search partners,
your bid would be your maximum cost-per-click bid -- the maximum
amount you're willing to pay for each click on your ad. Your
Quality Score is based on the relevance of your keywords,
the quality of your landing page, your ad's clickthrough rate
(CTR), adjusted for its position on the page, and a few other
factors.
In the case of a placement-targeted ad on the Google Display
Network using Cost-per-thousand impressions (CPM) bidding
bidding, your Quality Score is simply based on the quality
of your landing page.
There are a number of variations, but the general themes
are the same.
At the end of the day, what you pay
You'll always pay the lowest amount possible for the best
position you can get given your Quality Score and bid. To
find this amount, Google looks at the Ad Rank of the ad showing
in the next position (for example, for ads appearing on a
Google search page, this would be the position just beneath
your ad), and only charges you the lowest bid amount that
would have beaten that ad's Ad Rank, rounding up to the nearest
cent. So regardless of your bid amount, you'll only pay the
minimum that's needed to beat the advertiser below you.
How costs are calculated in AdWords
AdWords gives you control over your advertising costs. There's
no minimum amount that you have to spend. You set the maximum
amount you're willing to spend each day and choose how you'll
spend your money. Go to your account at https://adwords.google.com
to see full reports of your advertising costs and billing
history anytime.
Every time someone searches on Google, AdWords runs an auction
to determine the ads that show on the search results, and
their rank on the page. To place your ads in this auction,
you first have to decide what type of customer action you'd
like to pay for. For example, you might choose to pay for
the following actions:
-
When someone clicks on your ad
(cost-per-click or CPC)
-
How frequently we show your ads
(cost-per-impression or CPM)
-
How many conversions you receive
(cost-per-acquisition or CPA)
These are called your bidding options. Most people starting
out in AdWords use the basic CPC bidding option, which means
they accrue costs based on the number of clicks they get on
their ads. If you use this option, the amount you're charged
per click depends in part on the maximum cost-per-click bid
you set in your account, also called maximum CPC bid. This
represents the highest amount that you'll ever pay for an
ad click. In fact, you'll be charged only the amount necessary
to keep your ad at its position on the page.
Where your ads can appear
When you advertise with AdWords, your ads can appear on different
places across the web, depending on how you target your ads,
to whom you choose to show them, and the types of ads you
create. Here's where or to whom your ads can appear:
-
On Google Search and other search
sites
-
On websites that people visit
-
On mobile phones with full browsers,
tablets, and devices
-
To people in specific locations
or who speak a specific language
-
To specific audiences
Before you choose where to show your ads, try thinking like
your customers. What do they like? What are their habits?
Where are they? What do you need to know about them so you
can best reach them with your ads? Keeping your customers
in mind when you make your choices can help you reach more
customers and get a higher return on investment (ROI).
|