The idea of Google Ads is simple:
Showcasing your brand through Google Ads allows your business to be visible to consumers who are searching for products and services that you provide.
By creating a budget specific to your company, Google takes the guesswork out of advertising by using its smart technology to optimize your advertisements over time.
But are you using Google Ads to its full potential?
While the idea of Google Ads might be simple, actually executing a strategy on the Google Ads platform is a different story. Is there more you can do to diversify your ads to extend your reach and connect with customers to increase sales?
Let’s look at the different ways you can use diversification strategies to go beyond your current approach to best reach your team’s goals.
3 Main Ways to Diversify Your Google Ads (and Why It Matters)
First things first, be sure to continually evaluate your brand’s unique needs and first set goals within your overall marketing strategy.
- Are you focused on getting more traffic to your website?
- Interested in booking more clients through phone calls?
- Does your business advertise a range of products or a more specialized commodity?
- Are you hoping to attract local customers or a global audience?
These questions can help identify areas for different ad strategies that focus on your objectives.
Once you’ve taken the time to understand your goals, below are different ways to diversify your ads for success:
1. Creative Keywords for Further Reach
Google has a straightforward ad strategy in which brands consider a list of words associated with their products to attract potential buyers. When first starting ad campaigns, it is easy to focus on product keywords related to your business and a negative keyword list to help filter out irrelevant searches. To set yourself apart, consider the keywords outside of product words. Then, ask yourself two major questions:
- Are there specific products that you should target?
- What sets your brand apart from the competition?
Google Analytics offers insight for users to determine which keywords are driving traffic and which are less valuable. Streamline your keyword lists to only include words working for your brand. Consider adding words that highlight your unique offerings – spotlighting your strengths like fast shipping, customization, or years of experience can set you apart from a competitor when viewed next to each other on a SERP.
Being creative with keyword phrasing while considering what keywords the competition will target can help take your ad campaign past the generalized list of product-based vernacular. Revisit your keyword list to identify the words serving your marketing goals. Don’t be afraid to tweak and revise to further your visibility and strengthen your campaign.
2. Diversity in Ad Creative
Whether you enrich your advertising through images, video, or audio, it’s crucial to consider the audience. Will the ad represent and connect with an audience on an international website? Are you trying to focus your ads on families? Travelers? Students? Consider diversifying your ad campaigns by considering whether or not the viewer can see themselves reflected in your ad using your product or service. For example, if you are going to run display ads in another country, make sure that your ads represent the people from that country.
In short, it’s essential to test out ads to see what works with that audience – video, images, different language, etc. Learn more about testing Google ad campaigns here.
Below is an example of two different Google ads from the travel company Discover Corps. You’ll notice that both are personalized to two slightly different audiences – while “family” may be their target audience, some families like “wildlife trips” and would like to see a video ad (more on this later). In contrast, others like “volunteer vacations” and therefore want to see ads full of meaningful text.
3. Go Beyond Search Campaigns
Going off of the last two points, mixing up the keyword lists, and showcasing different ad creative types for audiences is one way to diversify. Still, it’s also important to consider other types of campaigns that you may have overlooked when first creating your Google Ads strategy.
This is shown in the example above.
In short, don’t allow consistency to get in the way of exploring other ways to reach potential buyers. Below are three different ad types that could benefit your ads in 2022, along with Google resources to help you learn more.
Display Advertising
Google offers display advertising that connects potential buyers with your brand on websites and apps worldwide, without Google Search. Instead, Google uses optimized targeting to find potential audiences that increase conversions. Through their optimization, brands can expand their visibility and reach customers they may not have otherwise found when relying on search ads alone.
Video Campaigns
With video being an extremely valuable advertising tool, consider incorporating a video campaign as part of your strategy. Google Ads offers options for your ad to be seen on YouTube and other Google Video partners. These ads utilize targeting to get your content in front of an audience that matches your brand’s goals.
There are many options for video campaigns, including skippable and non-skippable in-stream ads, bumper ads, and in-feed video ads. Incorporating a video campaign into your marketing strategy can help increase your reach, build awareness of your products and provide valuable marketing data to help inform future decisions.
Discovery Campaigns
Launching a Discovery Campaign can allow you to offer a more personalized ad to potential buyers. Through this campaign, Google connects the user’s interests with products relevant to their lives. Through machine learning, Google takes your headlines, images, and descriptions to create optimized ads that allow your brand to thrive. These ads are displayed through Google Discover, Social and Promotions Tabs through Gmail, as well as YouTube.
Don’t Forget: Use Data to Test your Success
As we continue to revamp the advertisements to reflect our intended audience, how can we be sure the changes are effective? The ad metrics offered through Google Ads can help identify the parts of your campaign attracting clicks and allowing users to interact with your content.
Video campaign data can be beneficial as it tracks the watch-time of your ads. It also allows you to test similar video ads to determine more watch time. This data can help inform decisions for how to structure video ad campaigns to keep consumers engaged with your advertisement.
Unsurprisingly, Google Ads data is a big topic. How to use it and what to track takes some practice and is one of the biggest reasons businesses hire an outside marketing firm, so learn more here.
Final Thoughts
For marketing strategies to succeed, they must be ever-evolving to keep up with consumers. By straying from a consistent and complacent ad campaign and embracing more diverse avenues, you are sure to find ways to grow your brand. Take advantage of the metrics provided from current Google Ad campaigns to find areas of strength and ways to branch out to stay competitive with your advertising strategy – 2022 is the year to level up your campaigns and watch your business grow!
