We could summarize the interface design as follows: Google Ads for all types of campaigns in recent years.
And rightly so: before starting any action, it's essential to define the objectives we want to achieve and choose the types of campaigns best suited to reach them. Without a strategic and tactical plan, we're very likely headed for failure. Google Ads offers seven specific advertising objectives (plus an option to create campaigns without a specific objective), and for each one, it indicates which campaign type is, according to the Mountain View giant, the most appropriate. It's important to note that there isn't always a one-to-one relationship between campaign type and objective: for example, a search campaign can serve both a sales and a website traffic objective. It all depends on how it's configured. Let's take a detailed look at the seven advertising objectives that Google Ads provides and explain each of the campaign types available in the tool.
[blockquote author="" link="" target="_blank"] "Tell me your business objective and I'll tell you what kind of campaign you need." [/blockquote]
1. Objective: sales
Search campaigns
Search campaigns are the classic way to advertise on Google, and when properly set up, they tend to be the most effective for generating sales. The reason? Simple: they're the only type of campaign where we're showing our ads to users genuinely interested in our products, since these users proactively go to Google to search for information.
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Don't let the desire to appear get the better of you: use only keywords related to your business and try to eliminate any terms that could cause confusion or attract uninterested traffic. Otherwise, you'll be wasting your time and, above all, your money. If a user is searching for, say, "rent a house" and you rent offices, there's no point in showing them your ad. Furthermore, the system will recognize that you're not relevant to the search and will tend not to display your ad, in addition to charging you a higher CPC.
Shopping campaigns
Shopping campaigns are the best option if you're an eCommerce business selling any of the permitted product types. Keep in mind that these campaigns cannot promote services or intangible products, nor can they promote certain specific physical products, such as vehicles and real estate.
How you structure your campaign also matters. If you have a product catalog with highly variable returns and you want to use a smart bidding strategy that optimizes ROAS, try grouping them into profitability tiers: AAA/AA/A/other, regardless of product type. Conversely, if your focus is on maximizing sales (regardless of profitability), I recommend structuring your campaigns by category, as this will make them easier to manage.
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Use a different CSS (Comparison Shopping Service) than Google Shopping: you can improve your results by up to 20%. This is because, since Google was convicted of abusing its dominant market position in 2017, it has had to allow other price comparison sites to participate in Shopping auctions. To remain profitable, Google must apply a margin to the base bids of campaigns run through its own CSS (Shopping, to be clear). Campaigns run through third-party CSS services will still be managed from the Merchant Center and appear in the same places on Shopping, but the name of the comparison site used will be displayed in the ad footer.
2. Objective: potential clients
Previously, traffic and lead generation goals were closely linked: if you wanted to acquire contacts, you needed to drive (high-quality) traffic to your website or landing page. In recent years, also due to other platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn launching their own lead generation advertising solutions, Google has evolved its campaigns, allowing lead generation directly from the ads themselves, without requiring users to visit the advertiser's website.
If you want to encourage users to take actions that generate sales opportunities , such as contacting your company through a form, subscribing to your newsletter, signing up for the private area, or joining your loyalty program, Google recommends the same campaign types as for sales objectives. Again, I think we should refine this further.
Shopping and search campaigns
Shopping , as I've already mentioned, is the best way to generate sales. I don't recommend using a shopping campaign with a lead objective.
Search campaigns , on the other hand, are not only a good option for generating sales (if we focus on keywords for specific products), but they also help us generate leads.
Display campaigns
Display campaigns have historically been, as we mentioned earlier, a type of advertising primarily focused on brand building. To compete with ad formats available on other platforms, such as Facebook Lead Ads, LinkedIn, or the interactive formats of programmatic buying platforms, Google recently enabled a lead generation form extension that allows users to submit their information directly from the ad they saw on the Google Display Network (GDN), without interrupting their browsing or redirecting them to another site.
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Less is more: only ask for the information necessary to achieve your goal. If you want a user to subscribe to your newsletter, which you'll then use to build loyalty and encourage them to buy one of your products or services, ask only for their email address (and at most their name). You don't need their phone number or postal address. Keep in mind that the information they have when viewing a banner ad is very limited, so it's best to ask for a reasonable amount of personal data.
There are some exceptions to the previous recommendation. If your goal is to obtain highly qualified leads , then you can increase the number of fields in the form and require the user to provide more personal information. The important thing is to always weigh the value of the data you request against the benefit the user will receive in return. If, for example, you are a car dealership and your goal is to generate leads for test drives, it makes sense to ask the user to specify which model they are interested in, in addition to their email address and name for contact purposes.
Video campaigns
The same applies to video campaigns , with the advantage that in YouTube ads you can generate more attractive content and provide the user with more background information that motivates them to leave their data.
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To generate higher-quality leads, show your YouTube lead generation ads to a more targeted audience that's a good fit for your brand. In addition to interests and topics, filter by the language the ad is produced in (or, at most, by the languages your company can manage). If you don't speak Swedish, and you don't have any content prepared in that language, there's no point in showing your ads to Swedish speakers.
Don't confuse the user with generic messages: be very clear about what you expect them to do, as the number of characters available for titles and descriptions is limited. Likewise, choose the most appropriate CTA.
Discovery campaigns
Discovery campaigns also include the use of lead forms, although these will only appear in Gmail. In fact, these campaigns are the only ones that allow you to show your ads in Google's inbox. Remember that to use this type of ad, you must have at least one active image discovery ad, as it is not compatible with the carousel format.
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Start by using remarketing, customer match, and purchase intent audiences, as these are users who have already interacted with your brand (remarketing and customer match) or are further along in the buying funnel (in-market). Additionally, if you use custom intent audiences, I recommend creating a custom audience that includes the top ten keywords from your search campaigns.
Smart campaigns
Of all the campaign types, Smart Campaigns are a special case, as they are specifically designed for small businesses that don't have extensive knowledge of Google Ads and its features and want to attract more potential customers to their website or make a phone call without complications. They save time, both in setup (which is guided step-by-step with non-technical explanations) and optimization, since they use Google's advertising technology so you have to do as little as possible on your end. These campaigns will appear on the Search Network, Maps, Gmail, YouTube, and Google Drive.
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Because it's based on artificial intelligence, the results will improve over time as the system better understands user behavior based on experience. Be patient, and even if you don't reach your goals in the first few weeks, give the algorithm some time to learn before making any changes.
3. Objective: Website traffic
To get the right users to visit your website or landing page, Google recommends using search, display, shopping, video, and discovery campaigns.
We've already discussed all of these in detail in relation to other types of objectives. Discovery campaigns are ads that can be shown on YouTube (on the homepage and also on the "watch next" page), in the Discover tab, and also in the "promotions" and "social" tabs of Gmail.
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If this is your first time working with display campaigns , I recommend starting with the smart version. It allows you to easily test (though with less customization) this type of campaign. It will also help you discover the socio-demographic characteristics of the type of users who might be interested in the products or services you offer.
On the platform, the system indicates that video campaigns are conversion-oriented. In my opinion, this is nonsensical, as this option overlaps with lead generation video campaigns. Therefore, I don't recommend using this configuration if you simply want users to visit your website and don't require them to take any further action.
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4. Objective: Brand and product consideration
5. Objective: Brand coverage and awareness
As with the previous point, these are brand campaigns, whose objective is to reach a large number of people . For this, the system recommends setting up display or video campaigns.
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It is important to measure these types of campaigns using the correct KPIs: reach (impression share) and impressions or views, depending on the type of campaigns we use.
Impression share, which is information available only for the display network (and search, although it is not relevant here), is the metric that allows us to understand the market share we have covered with our ads: the percentage of impressions we have achieved out of the total that were available to the target we have defined in our campaign.
6. Objective: Application promotion
I'm not going to get into the debate about whether or not it makes sense to have an app, as that's a topic that deserves its own post. Let's just say that if you've invested resources in developing an app for your business, it's logical that you'd want to promote it and get the most out of it.
Google offers a specific type of campaign for this: app campaigns . With them, you can both boost downloads and increase user engagement once the app is downloaded to their devices, or even generate sign-ups to download it before it's officially available, although this last option is only available to certain advertisers.
Once again, Google is betting on artificial intelligence. App campaigns are almost entirely automated: you simply provide some text, your budget, the languages your customers speak, and the locations you want to reach. The system will generate ads based on the resources in your app and the information available in the Play Store. Your ads will appear across various Google properties: Search, the Display Network, Google Play, YouTube, and Discover.
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It's pointless for a user to download your app if they then never use it. Focus your ads on people who are more likely to interact with the app once they've downloaded it.
7. Objective: Visits to local stores and promotions
Google has created specific campaign types for advertisers with physical stores who want to attract more potential customers. Whether you're a boutique, a bakery, or a car dealership, you can leverage local campaigns to provide your customers with the information they need to decide when and how to visit your establishment.
These ads, which are automatically generated by the system using the resources you provide, are displayed across the Search Network, Maps, YouTube, and Google Drive. All you need to do is provide some ad copy, images, and a YouTube video. The system will combine this information and create ads tailored to the different platforms where they are published.
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Provide as many images as possible so the system can test them and see which ones work best. Uploading around 20 is recommended.
If you want to promote specific ads, connect the campaign to a local feed. This way, the products will be shown on the display network and on your business profile.
8. Campaigns without a specific objective
I want to conclude by mentioning that, although Google is increasingly focused on automation, the platform also allows you to create campaigns without a specific objective. This lets you choose any of the campaign types available on the platform, which we've explained in this post (search, display, shopping, video, app, smart, local, and discovery), but without receiving recommendations from the campaign creation wizard.
This article was originally published on Marketing 4 ecommerce.
You can read the original article here: https://marketing4ecommerce.mx/los-8-tipos-de-campanas-de-google-ads-que-son-y-cuando-utilizarlos/.
