A Guide for the Best Google Search Ad Strategy for E-commerce Store

Google search ads serve as a great deal for most e-commerce store owners. It helps to create a successful marketing strategy and promotes business in a short span. While Google accounts as the most preferred search engine worldwide, giving attention to it is a rule. According to reports, Google holds more than 40K search queries per second.

The numbers are further stated as 3.5 billion search queries per day and 1.2 trillion search queries per annum. With such statistics, one cannot ignore Google search advertising for e-commerce businesses. It is why entrepreneurs often hire digital marketing services to upgrade their online businesses.

If you are looking to grow your e-commerce business, then keep reading. Here is a detailed guide to creating a successful Google ad strategy for e-commerce stores.

How Do Google Ads Work?

Google ads represent the most popular paid advertising platform on the market. It is owned by Google itself and lets you bid to display paid ads for your business. These ads can be in the form of paid advertisements, sponsored videos, product listings, etc.

Previously, Google Ad Campaigns were known as AdWords Campaigns. These fall under the category of Pay-Per-Click (PPC) marketing, which means you have to bid over specific keywords and outdo competitors bidding over similar keywords. By investing in this type of marketing, you can let your ads appear on YouTube videos, partner websites, and SERP results.

Important Google Ads Terms

Understanding a Google Ads guide can be tedious for the different terms we may use. Here is a list of the must-know terms that may help you go through this guide easily.

Headline

As the name implies, the headline serves as the main context of your entire Google ad. 

Its length is dependent upon the type of your ad and campaign.

Ad Group

An ad group is a set of Google ads held in a single campaign. It consists of its particular keywords, specified budget, and target objectives.

Campaign

A campaign serves as a collection of ad groups categorized under the same budget and campaign type. Whereas, the campaign type helps you to decide the location of your Google Ads. There are five different campaign types. These include,

• Video Campaigns
• Search Network
• Display Network
• Google Shopping
• App Campaigns

Ad Extensions

Google ad extensions can be defined as extra bits of important information that you may add to the ad descriptions of your brand, e-commerce store, or products. A few of these include,

• Promotion Extensions
• Sitelink Extensions
• Location Extensions
• Call Out Extensions
• Seller Rating Extensions
• Price Extensions
• Structured Snippets

CTA

A Call-to-Action often referred to as CTA is the most important Google or e-commerce element in a digital ads campaign. It is a type of action wording that is added to an ad campaign as it helps users how to act. The most common examples of CTAs include ‘click’, ‘watch’, ‘open’, etc.

CTR

CTR, defined as click-through rate, is the number of potential buyers who viewed your ad and successfully clicked through it.

CPC

CPC, or the cost per click, refers to the price charged for each click. Users are free to fix this amount according to the maximum CPC bids. Otherwise, you can stay tuned to the metrics and try to optimize this price to earn a higher ROI.

CVR

CVR can be described as the Google ads conversion rate. It refers to the total percentage of conversions (number of people who clicked your ad and became potential buyers) for an ad. You can calculate this by dividing the total number of conversions by the total number of clicks for each ad.

CPM

CPM is the Google ads abbreviation for cost per thousand impressions. It is an important metric that lets you know the total number of times your ad was shown to a buyer and the price it charged.

Destination URL

Destination URL refers to the landing page that you send your user soon as your ad is clicked. It may be a product page, category page, home page, or any other promotion page. It is decided at the group level and stays unseen by the users.

Quality Score

The quality score serves as a great factor to decide the location and duration of your ads to appear. Also, it is necessary to finalize the budget for your ads. To estimate it, Google gives attention to several parameters like the destination URL, the keywords used, and the ad type. An ideal quality score is the one that keeps your Google ad position higher.

Impression

Impression metrics are used to calculate the number of times your ad appears in front of potential audiences.

Ad Rank

Google ad rank refers to a ranking system through which Google estimates the position of your ads. The search engine gives attention to a few parameters to estimate this rank. It includes the quality score, number of search queries, bid amounts, and number of ad extensions.

Bid Strategy

A bid strategy is a plan you create to pay for your Google ads once they start performing. You must focus on your objective in this case and give attention to parameters like conversions, impressions, and clicks. You can find a variety of bid strategies on Google based on the used network, preferred targeting, and ad objectives.

Below is a list of the most preferred bidding strategies available on Google.

Maximize Conversions

It helps you to receive the maximum amount of conversions automatically while staying within your budget.

Maximize Clicks

This strategy helps you to receive the maximum number of clicks for an ad without exceeding your budget.

CPC Bidding Strategy

The cost-per-click strategy demands you to pay for each click that your ad receives. It is ideal for Google ads revolving around conversions and web traffic.

ECPC Bidding Strategy

An estimated cost-per-click bidding strategy revolves around the optimization of your manual bids and increases your chances for conversion.

Manual CPC

Manual CPC, as the name implies involves the process of manually setting the maximum value of CPC. It provides extra optimization control and allows you to allocate profitable keywords.

CPV Bidding Strategy

CPV often referred to as cost per view, is a dedicated bidding strategy for Google video ads.

CPM Bidding Strategy

As discussed earlier, CPM stands for cost per thousand impressions is a bidding strategy that estimates the charges for particular impressions and serves as an ideal one for branding.

Target CPA

This target cost for action bidding strategy is a popular option for those willing to earn as maximum conversions as possible without exceeding their overall budget.

Target ROAS

This building strategy helps to boost your overall conversions to increase the return on ad spend (ROAS).

Target Outranking Share

This smart bidding strategy is dedicated to helping e-commerce store owners outrank their top competitors in the market.

Target Impressions Share

It is a dedicated and smart bidding strategy that helps to place your ads in a particular location and on top of Google pages. As a result, you can easily earn maximum views for your ads.

The Importance of Google Ads for E-Commerce Store Owners

According to reports, audiences are most likely to click on Google ads 4 times more than on any other advertisement channel. It results in 63% higher clicks than other advertisement networks. Also, 33% of marketing experts prefer paid advertisements to increase brand awareness.

For this reason, investing in a PPC marketing agency is the best option for an e-commerce store owner. Online retailers must know that 80% of all global businesses rely on Google for their PPC campaigns. With these stats, it is impossible to ignore the importance of Google in targeting audiences. Hence, one must focus on Google ads for maximum conversions, traffic, and return on investment.

How to Set Up a Google Ads Account?

If you have never been a part of the Google ads market, have a look below. We have mentioned a few detailed steps that may help you launch your Google ads campaign easily.

• Sign into Google ads if you already own a Google account. If not, sign up for a new Google account that you can use for Google ads.
• Link your Google account to a domain and let Google ads know about the website for which you will run a campaign.
• Verify your Google account to start running your campaign.
• Set up your first Google ads campaign and wait for the results.

How to Create a Successful Google Ads Campaign for the First Time?

Follow a few basic steps to start running your Google ads campaign.

Set Up a Campaign Objective

Start by selecting the primary goal for your campaign. Below is a list of a few popular campaign goals ideal for e-commerce stores.

• Web traffic – Selecting this goal can help you attract target traffic toward your e-commerce store. The campaign types preferable for this goal include Shopping, Display, Video, and Search ads.
• Sales – Selecting this goal can help you drive sales in-store, in-app, or through your smartphone. The campaign types preferable for this goal include Shopping, Display, Video, and Search ads.
• Leads – Selecting this goal helps to attract potential buyers to increase conversions and generate leads for your e-commerce store. The campaign types preferable for this goal include Shopping, Display, Video, and Search ads.
• Brand awareness and reach – Selecting this goal is the best choice if you wish to boost your brand awareness and instantly reach target audiences. The campaign types preferable for this goal include Display and Video ads.
• Product and brand consideration – Selecting this goal encourages potential buyers to explore your e-commerce store for products and amenities. The campaign types preferable for this goal include Shopping, Display, Video, and Search ads.

Soon as you select your Google campaign goal, you can select the campaign type and fill in all requirements.

Finalize Audiences for Your Google Campaign

Selecting your target audiences is much needed for running your campaigns smartly. Make sure to select your target location and languages for the campaign. Also, you must define your target audience by going through the options provided by Google. It involves different groups of people who share the same interests, demographics, and views.

Define Your Ads Budget and Bidding

At this step, you are supposed to finalize your Google ads budget for the particular month. Now, you must select one of the bidding strategies discussed earlier. Make sure to include conversions in your actions for better results. Also, give attention to ad campaign rotation and ad campaign schedule.

Include Google Ad Extensions

Make sure to insert the Google add extensions before you save the settings. Now click continue and move towards the keyword selection.

Set Up Your Google Ad Groups

To set up your Google ad groups, you can select between the standard and dynamic types. By choosing a standard ad group, you have to manually insert the keywords and generate text. However, the dynamic ad type does these settings automatically for you. Remember that each campaign requires you to insert 20 different long-tail and short-tail keywords.

Try to find relevant keywords with lower competition and higher searches. The best place to find keywords is the Google keyword planner. Furthermore, Google offers 4 matching options for your keywords. These include broad, broad modifier, phrase, and exact match keywords.

Find Relatable Negative Keywords

Adding negative keywords keeps your ad from being shown up for unnecessary and irrelevant searches. For instance, if you are selling bedroom furniture, you will not want your ads to appear for kid's room furniture and guest room furniture.

Create Your Campaign Ads

Now it is time to create a Google ads copy that quickly converts. It must include three different headlines, two descriptions, the description URL, and the destination URL. Make sure to use relevant or variant keywords for the headlines and the URLs. Next, you need to insert your billing information.

Optimize Your Google Ads Campaign

The most important step to creating a successful Google ads campaign is optimization. It requires dedicated monitoring and experienced professionals. 

Try to keep a few tips in mind, and you can work on the optimization. For instance,

• Try to generate a weekly keyword report for the recently added keywords. It may also help you eliminate unnecessary and non-performing keywords, which may result in saving your budget.
• Test your display URL by adding different keywords and a CTA to optimize them ideally.
• Set up a google ads alert to stay prepared for different keyword fluctuation costs.
• Invest in the best google ad optimization tools along with PPC management software.

List of the Best Google Ad Types for E-Commerce Stores

Reports state that in 2023, an average business owner will most likely spend from $9000 to $30,000 monthly on Google ads. Therefore, e-commerce stores must look around for the best Google ad types that may bring positive results.

Google Search Ads

The first type on our list is the Google text search ads. These are most likely to appear on the top, bottom, and side of the Google search results. Such ads consist of a headline, a description, and a display URL.

Dynamic Search Ads

Store owners with an extensive inventory can look around for DSAs. Such types of ads allow Google to automatically generate text advertisements with the appropriate keywords according to your products and amenities.  

These types of ads generate higher traffic than the particularly rich audiences looking for your products. However, this ad type is not suitable for beginners as it requires a wider inventory of keywords and products.

Google Remarketing Ads

Remarketing ads are one of the best-paid advertisement types for e-commerce stores. Such ads can connect with more potential buyers through direct messaging. Fortunately, they do not require much of a budget while generating impressive results.

Google Shopping Ads

According to statistics, there are more than 1.2 billion monthly searches on Google shopping. Moreover, Google shopping ads tend to generate 85% of all clicks on Google shopping campaigns and Google ads. This type of ad serves as a must-have as it directly targets potential buyers looking for particular products. All you have to do is to structure these ads the right way and wait for positive results.

Smart Google Shopping Ads

These campaigns are also known as performance Max campaigns. It is because these help to maximize conversions, simplify campaign management, and help you reach target audiences. You can create such campaigns by combining standard ad campaigns and remarketing ads.

Google Display Ads

Google display ad campaigns can most probably add value to your marketing strategies. These appear as images and block ads on Google’s third-party websites. Such ads are ideal for promoting visually appealing products as they particularly target potential audiences interested in specific niches.

YouTube Ads

YouTube ads play a major role in a Google ads campaign set particularly for an e-commerce store promotion. Such ads are divided into a few popular types listed below.

• Bumper Ads
• TrueView Ads
• Discovery TrueView Ads
• Non-Skippable Ads
• Outstream Ads

Google Gallery Ads

Google gallery ads appear in an image-based and swipeable format. These are the combination of a user's search intent and relatable visuals. You can find such ads on the top of SERP results, and they help to boost engagement from potential audiences.

How to Create a Google Ad Strategy for E-Commerce Stores?

The most important part of this guide is learning how to create a Google ads strategy for e-commerce stores. Follow a few steps to create a successful Google ad strategy for your online store.

Create Memorable Ads Using Content

Content-specific ads help to easily highlight the latest trends and events in the market. These ads help to easily attract audiences towards your products and amenities. Experts recommend using Google trends as it is the best platform to find heavily searched keywords.

Another way is to use the keywords of the websites you are particularly targeting. Trying such types of cards is one of the best ways to help your products appear in front of potential buyers.

Use Interest Ads to Target Audiences

Topic or interest ads can widely range from health and beauty Ads to travel and fitness or home decor Ads. It offers you an extensive choice of keywords that you can easily test and try. Moreover, these types of ads also appear in front of users who have been searching your keywords on Google.

Study Your Competitors and Target Them

The best way to target new buyers is to look around your competitors and use their keywords. It will help you to connect with the shoppers who are familiar with your competitor’s websites. However, try not to compete with market leaders at the start, as they may have a higher budget and outbid you in a while.

The Takeaway

That’s all from us about Google ad strategies for e-commerce store owners. Do not ever compromise on Google ads when promoting your e-commerce stores in the market. According to reports, Google successfully generated $54.48 billion in ad revenue during the third quarter of 2022.

After going through this detailed article, you may now know where to start and how to proceed. Give attention to the guidelines and go through all the details we have mentioned in the article.

However, in case you need further help, feel free to share your queries in the comments below. Also, share your reviews about the Google ads guide and discuss any other details that you may wish to share with the readers.