Google AdWords Tutorial: How to Run Google Ads

Key Takeaways

imagine being able to advertise the people at the exact moment they're looking for your product since they're already in the buying state of mind making a sale would be a lot easier now imagine only paying if your ad was actually clicked that would be a lot more cost effective well today you're going to learn how to do just that with this simple step-by-step guide on how to use google ads welcome back to learn with shopify i'm your host tyler and today you're going to learn how to reduce marketing costs differentiate your brand online and increase leads and sales by harnessing the power of google ads let's face it google ads can feel really intimidating to new or seasoned business owners embracing digital marketing and e-commerce for the first time complex sounding buzzwords can really scare away a lot of would-be digital marketers between lingo like sem ppc cpc optimization and conversion rates i can see exactly why people feel this way it's such a shame that so many business owners leave so much opportunity on the table simply because google ads wasn't explained in a way that felt easy to understand well i'm going to take you step by step on how to set up your first google ads campaign and don't worry i'm going to explain it so simply that anyone with an internet connection can do it just how much opportunity well with over 70 of the search market and 160 billion monthly searches google is undoubtedly the main digital resource people turn to when trying to find something they want or need and increasingly it's becoming the place where people start their buying journey according to a study the average return on investment of google ads is two hundred percent in other words business owners earn two dollars for every one dollar they spend on google ads unlike ad platforms like facebook ads where you pay based on the number of impressions meaning the number of times people see your ad on google ads you only pay when people take action and actually click through you see on facebook content and ads are served to users passively meaning you're just scrolling your news feed and content and ads appear but on google you need to take an active search to find content in ads that means google users have more intent one aspect that makes the google ads experience so seamless for users is that google relies on relevance to serve ads to be clear this means that google only serves ads to the potential customers most likely to resonate with what you're selling and though this process designed by the search gods is not fully visible to us mere mortals it's not magic google uses what is known as a quality score which is simply a rank between 1 and 10 indicating how your ad is performing the quality score is made up of three distinctive parts ad relevance landing page experience and expected click-through rate the higher quality score the cheaper your clicks and customer acquisition cost will ultimately be now before we dive in it's important that we have an understanding of those basic terms that buzzword addicted digital marketers love so much ppc means pay-per-click which means you only pay when someone clicks through sem means search engine marketing which is primarily the practice of using paid ads to rank in search engine results cpc this means cost per click this is the varying price that you pay google for someone to engage with your at this cost can really vary depending on what industry you're in and what product you're selling cost per conversion this is the price that you pay per lead or sale or whatever conversion goal you've set conversion rate this is the number of conversions divided by the number of clicks expressed as a percentage it's really important that you pay attention to these numbers because ultimately they're going to help you answer that big question how much should i spend on google ads if you knew that every 10 you spent would generate 40 in revenue after product and shipping costs then the question really isn't how much should i spend on google ads but how many customers do i want to drive through search now that we have a bit of background knowledge on google ads let's get into how we actually get started seeing as google ads is a really intricate platform we're going to start with the most powerful ways for ecommerce entrepreneurs and that's shopping ads and search ads the first vital part of this process is setting up your google ads account now google ads formerly known as adwords used to be pretty complex to set up it required inserting code snippets known as tags on every page of your website in order to work correctly thankfully shopify and google put their heads together to create an easier more intuitive more approachable way for first time google ads users to get started it's called google channel and it's an app you can get in the shopify app store it makes this process so simple just a few clicks and you're good to go beyond ease of use there are several reasons why google channel is so powerful it combines all of your google advertising into one easy to manage campaign all you do is set up the integration set the budget and google's advanced artificial intelligence does the rest the beauty of it is once you launch your campaign google's ai is constantly learning and improving based on feedback to maximize your return on investment it's also the easiest way to run shopping ads google really levels the playing field with shopping ads allowing you to bid on the same space that established companies do what's so great about shopping ads is it makes the digital shopping experience feel more authentic showing you product images is sort of reminiscent of the way you would feel when walking past a retail display window according to a search engine analytics firm shopping ads generated 85 percent of clicks from google ads so let's hop in and get started now setting up our google shopping ads is super simple first we just need to head over to the shopify app store and type in google channel we can see the app right there and we'll click on the big purple button that says add app then we'll be given a message where we're just going to give permissions to google to access store data they need to run shopping ads then we'll scroll down and we'll need to make sure that we connect this to our google business account so we'll click on that and then scroll down and click the blue button that says allow when we scroll down we see there are various store requirements we'll need to make sure that we have a valid payment provider and that it's highly visible on our store we'll need to make sure that we have a refund policy and terms of service that is really easily accessible we'll need to also make sure that our contact information is visible on our website once we're done that we'll click set up our google smart shopping campaign we'll check that our google account is connected and we'll head on to the next step so for this next step we're going to need to connect to a google merchant center account shopify makes this super simple and it's simply a one click setup now while they're processing your site claim you can scroll down and input your target market and shipping settings for us our target country is going to be canada and our language is going to be english if you're in the united states make sure you put united states as your target market then we're going to configure our shipping settings and we're just going to automatically import our shipping settings then we're going to scroll down and we're going to connect our google ads account so we'll click the button that says create new and read and accept the terms one thing that's really great is that shopify users are eligible for a 100 google ads credit for our next step it is really simple we just got to head over to our gmail and accept the invitation for our new google ads account we'll be brought to a page that welcomes us to google ads and now we are on the google ads platform since google smart shopping ads are fully automated we will want to make sure that our seo is optimized on our product pages so we'll head over to shopify and click on the product that we're going to be doing a smart shopping ad for scroll down to where it says search engine listing preview then we are going to change the page title to make sure that it's optimized for seo including our keyword which in this case is push-up bars we're also going to make sure that we include our brand name then we'll change the description to make sure it is optimized for seo including any primary and secondary keywords but also we want to make sure that it is engaging the final step to setting up your google ads account so that it's fully functional will be inputting your billing information click the wrench where it says tools and settings drop down billing and click the settings bar then you'll be prompted to put in all your billing information from your address to your contact info to your actual credit card info for the purposes of security i won't be completing this step now we'll head back over to google channel and we'll sync all our products to google once you do this someone from google will manually review your site and give you feedback as you can see we currently have five products that are pending this manual review process can take between three to five days you need to make sure that your site is fully functional that you have an easy way to be contacted a clear terms of service and that you're not selling any products that are illegal once you're approved you will be able to run your first campaign so while google is approving our products we can actually set up our first campaign but it's important to note that it won't actually run until those products are approved so we're going to click start our campaign and then we're going to put in our activity name i'm just simply going to name this one ronin fitness products then i'm going to scroll down and i'm going to input our budget now between five and ten dollars is a great place to start i'm gonna start with ten dollars because that's going to empower us to learn faster it's important to note that you only pay if someone clicks on the shopping ad and google ad uses the average daily budget so if your budget is ten dollars google might spend five dollars one day and fifteen dollars the next day then you're simply going to click schedule now make sure to give the ad at least 30 days to rank so that it starts to optimize and gather feedback google will then look at your product pages pull images and determine related keywords so make sure that the copy on your website is strong google will also create audiences based on the search terms and show your ad to them google will also make the most efficient bid possible so you get the exposure without overspending and lastly google will create product specific audiences who have visited each page they will be served up retargeting ads based on the product they visited make sure your product page have strong visuals one of the beautiful things about smart shopping ads is that they're fully automated and i'm so excited that you've just run your first smart shopping ads campaign this is a great place to start but if you're the type of business owner that wants a little bit more control then using other advanced features on the google ads platform can be a powerful way to grow your sales also if you want to set up your conversion tracking manually i'm going to link an article below that shows you how now let's talk a bit about keyword research since a user's journey begins by searching something out it probably won't surprise you that before we make an ad we need to conduct keyword research now you'll need to install your google ads integration as you'll need a google ads account to access keyword planner tools like ubersuggest keyword planner and sem rush are powerful tools that make keyword research so much easier they give you insight into how many people are searching for a term and how much competition there is the more competition the more expensive it will be to advertise it's important that you do this as you want to ensure that your ad is the best answer to a searcher's query it's really important to understand that not all keywords are equal for e-commerce entrepreneurs now we only want to be searching for the terms that showcase buyers intent and are highly relevant to what we're selling you see when conducting keyword research content marketers who are employing an seo strategy often care most about informational keywords and that's because informational keywords often get a ton of searches but they're not commercial keywords they're meant to impart knowledge or educate the audience side note if you're interested in learning more about search engine optimization to gain free high quality consistent traffic to your website check out our last video on seo for e-commerce if you've already watched that video then this next section will feel a bit familiar there are three basic categories of keywords first we have navigational and these are the types of keywords you use when trying to get to a particular web page such as shopify login page then we have informational and these are the types of keywords you use when trying to gather knowledge or conduct research such as how to run google ads and lastly we have transactional and these are the types of keywords you use when trying to buy something such as buy a cactus online and in the world of google ads transactional keywords sometimes called commercial keywords are the ones we're mainly interested in and that's because a keyword like buy a cactus online showcases buying intent which means it's more likely to convert a searcher into a customer these types of keywords also help with click-through rate according to a study 65 percent of ads clicked used keywords with buyer intent so to sum up you should be less concerned with how many people are searching for a term and more concerned with the state of mind they're in while searching now let's talk about another great way for beginners to use google ads to reach new customers search ads search ads are the blue headlines that appear above the organic results on a search engine results page you can tell their ads because they're marked by a little badge that says add other than that they look pretty much the same as organic results search ads genuinely help google users by connecting them with your website when your product is the best possible answer for their search term actually three-fourths of google users say that paid search ads make finding what they're looking for easier one thing to be aware of when running search ads is the difference between branded and unbranded keywords your competitors might actually try and bid on the keyword for your brand name in an effort to steal your customers bidding on the keyword for your own brand name is the best defense against this protecting your own brand name is great but as a beginner we wouldn't advise going after other competitors branded keywords as it can be an expensive strategy when running a search ad some beginners get carried away and think that the keyword or the ad creative are going to do all the work for them but remember when we talked about quality score the richness of the content and the design of the page you're driving people to will be big factors in your success so remember to think about their journey holistically all the way from initial search to how they will interact with your page before we get started there are three distinct sections to a google ad we have the campaign the ad group and the ad i'll explain these as we go through them so let's head over to google ads and jump right in head over to the google ads platform then we'll click new campaign and we'll set sales as our goal our campaign type today is going to be search we'll click website visits for how we'd like to reach our goal and input our website's address then we'll click the blue button that says continue the next thing that we're going to want to do is name our campaign then below we're going to want to make sure to uncheck search network and display network because we don't want our ad appearing on google's partner sites we want it appearing on google then we'll scroll down and we're going to select our location today we're going to be targeting the united states and canada because those are the markets we serve and that we can ship to you'll also want to make sure you only include locations that you want to do business with if you don't want to do business in europe make sure not to include europe then we'll scroll down and we'll input the language that our customers speak in this case it is english we'll leave the audience's section blank and we'll input our budget a good budget to start with is between five and ten dollars per day now i'm going to recommend that you start with a budget of about ten dollars per day that's because once you hit the threshold google will actually stop advertising for you so i'm gonna start with a budget of ten dollars as this will empower me to learn faster think about it this way if your cost per action is one dollar that will allow 10 people to see my ad five people only seeing my ad per day means i will learn slower so i want to learn faster so i'm gonna input a budget of ten so the next thing that we're going to want to do is name our ad group i'm going to name mine after our brand and the product that i'm trying to sell this area down here is where we're going to input our keywords if you really know your business well then you can take an educated guess at some keywords but a really great place to start is by using google's keyword planner so we're gonna go to this drop-down and open google's keyword planner now we can see that we have two different options here we can get search and volume forecasts which is great if you have some strong ideas for keywords and just want to know how many people are searching them but for beginners discovering new keywords is a really great strategy so i'm going to type in a keyword that i think will work for my business now google ads is going to give us a bunch of really great information here it's going to tell us the average number of monthly searches the competition and how much it's going to cost for us to hit the top of the page what we're looking for here is low competition high monthly searches and a low cost the cost will really vary based on what you are selling obviously if you were selling luxury watches for example you could probably afford to spend more than if you were selling beach towels so one thing you can do here is try a more broad keyword like the word vegan for example and google ads will give you a bunch of different great ideas now the keyword vegan meal plan is one that i think will work really well for my business so i'm gonna get some information on that we can see that it has between 1k and 10k monthly searches that it's only 65 cents to rank at the top of the page and the competition is medium this seems really great to me so i'm gonna use this so what we have right here is what is known as a broad match keyword now this lets google actually make variations of the keyword and means that it doesn't need to be exactly what people type in now one major con about this is that google can use variations such as they might think that vegetarian is similar to vegan and therefore we're going to put your ad there as well now to prevent that i'm going to use what is known as a broad match modifier this means that google can't substitute the words and these words need to appear in the phrase below that i have what is known as a phrase match which means my keyword can appear in other unique phrases such as vegan meal plan for beginners below that i have what is known as an exact match meaning if someone were to type in vegan meal plan for beginners my ad would not pop up match types can be really powerful ways to get more control over your google ad usually advertisers will use a combination of different match types now that we've made our ad groups we are going to actually make some ads so for our first headline we're going to want to describe our product and ensure we include the keyword so we're going to put delicious vegan meal plans for the second we want to make sure that we're making our ad really targeted so we're going to tell people exactly who this ad is for in this case it's going to be for plant-based athletes and in headline number three we're going to want to really put something that's attractive and shows people how we're different so we'll let people know that we're the number one vegan meal planner in the description we're really going to want to play with different benefits so i think we'll write something like simple and irresistible vegan meal plans that you'll actually look forward to for description number two let's make sure that we tell people exactly what they're going to be getting from this so we'll put eating clean toning your body and sharpening your mind has never been more approachable so now we can see in the sidebar how our ad is actually going to appear it looks great so we're going to click save and continue then we're brought to this page that says your campaign is ready to be published now one thing you want to make sure you do is make a different ad so that you can a b test which one is actually working and you can cut the loser and reward the winner so as you can see the ad we just created is sitting there in the top bar so we're going to a b test a different headline this time we'll put easy vegan meal plans to let people know how convenient it is then we're going to put packed with protein just to overcome any objections people might have to embracing a plant-based lifestyle and we're going to let people know that there are new recipes every week then we'll click save and we're ready to publish our first campaign so we'll click the big blue button that says publish and we're going to be brought back to google ads platform so now that we've actually launched our ad we're going to want to make sure that we add some negative keywords so click the sidebar that says keywords and scroll down and click negative keywords now a negative keyword means a keyword that we don't want our ad to show up for an example might be something like amazon or target or walmart these are keywords that we don't want to be advertising on as clearly the user is trying to buy from amazon so this is just going to cost us a bunch of unnecessary money we might want to make the word discount a negative keyword as well as these aren't necessarily the customers that we want shopping ads and search ads are definitely the best place to start for beginners and they can drive a lot of return on investment if executed correctly now before moving on to more advanced google ad strategies i highly recommend getting a handle on these google ads are a powerful tool to grow your business and hopefully this video has given you a solid foundation in google ads for e-commerce to get started now there's always more to learn so make sure to subscribe to this channel for more advanced strategies got anything in your business journey that you could use guidance with well comment below and we'll make a video happen to set you up for success also don't forget to smash that like button so that more entrepreneurs just like you can get exposed to the powerful information we're sharing here thanks so much for joining us on learn with shopify i'm your host tyler and don't forget we're a channel for online entrepreneurs with big plans