Google Ads (formerly AdWords): What It Is and How It Works

There is a lot of talk about search engine advertising. When we talk about search engines in Greece (unlike some other countries), we mean Google, and everyone refers to it. This naturally has some advantages and some disadvantages. Google Ads is the most widely used advertising platform in Greece and in most of the world. In the article below we will look at what Google Ads is and how it works.

Before we go into detail, here is a successful strategy for advertising on Google

Google Ads: The Search Engine in Greece

As we said, the main search engine in Greece, by an overwhelming margin, is Google. To be even more accurate, the users in Greece who don’t use Google are those who are not very comfortable with a computer. For example, someone with little computer knowledge who has a Windows computer with the Microsoft Edge browser may search by typing in the address bar, and so will use the default search engine, Bing, instead of Google. Even more common is a user who has installed a toolbar that changes the search engine and doesn’t know how to switch Chrome back to Google. We could give many more examples showing how strong Google is and how most users who don’t use it end up that way by accident.

To be fair (and this is also an advantage), Google’s search engine gives users the most and the best information, and Google as a company offers users many free tools. Another advantage is that, since Google is the main search engine, the user or advertiser can focus on it and spend most of their time optimising results and spending budget on Google alone.

The disadvantage is that, because there is no competition, advertising prices are “higher” than in other countries. Also, all the competition “lands” on one medium, with no competition on the Bing or Yahoo search engines etc., so all the traffic flows mainly through one channel.

So how does paid advertising on Google Ads work, in other words how does our website appear in Google’s top results? Google created a tool called Google Ads (originally Google AdWords). As you can see in the image below, there are ads on the Google search engine and there are organic results, which come from Google’s search engine itself and are the results returned by Google’s algorithm.

As the title says, in this article we will deal with Google Ads “advertisements” and leave the organic results aside. First of all, let’s list the advantages:

1. Your ad looks the way you want, since you can format it and write exactly what you want in it
2. You pay only when someone clicks on your ad; simply being shown costs nothing.
3. You decide which “keywords” your ad will appear for.
4. As well as setting keywords, you can choose where, in other words on which Google networks, your ad will appear: only in search engine results, or also on Google’s partner websites that run AdSense.
5. You get results immediately, as soon as your ad is approved, with no need to wait as you do with techniques for promoting your site in Google’s organic results!

How does it work?

Basic use of Google Ads is fairly simple. You choose some search terms (keywords) relevant to your business, a daily budget and the maximum amount you are willing to pay when someone clicks on your ad.

If someone clicks on your ad, you pay, and they go to the page you have chosen for the ad to lead to.

The more relevant your ad is to the landing page, the higher you will appear in searches. As you can imagine, the amounts you choose for your budget and maximum cost per click also play a big part in your ranking.

Specialised audience targeting with Google ads

It is very important to define our audience: if we are advertising Greek products, our targeting should be Greece only, and only people who speak Greek.

More precise targeting is possible using users’ interests and gender. For example, if we were advertising expensive women’s perfumes, we would target women and set some upmarket “tastes” as their interest category.

How Easy Is It?

You would think that paying for and running an ad is easy if you have basic computer knowledge. In the past, when competition was low (e.g. in 2004), Google AdWords (as it was called then) didn’t require large amounts, and with clicks costing from 0.01 to 0.05 euros anyone could pay and run their ad.

That is no longer the case, because competition has become very fierce and, as you can imagine, everyone wants to pay to be in first place on Google. So someone may have the biggest advertising budget and end up with a poor return on their clicks, or even worse a negative return (paying more than they earn). The key with Google Ads is to choose the right keywords, the ones where the users we care about will interact with us the way we want, at the lowest possible cost.

Example ads

To make all of the above clearer, let’s take an example of an e-shop selling women’s shoes. Someone who knows nothing about Google advertising might target the keywords “women’s shoes”, “ginekia papoytsia”, “papoutsia” and “shoes” (the last three being Greek searches typed in Latin or Greek characters) without looking at how much each click costs. Yes, the e-shop will certainly get visits, but most likely they won’t turn into sales, or to put it better, even if they do turn into sales, those sales won’t be as profitable as they could be relative to what we pay for the advertising.

Now imagine that instead of those keywords, which would bring in every woman looking at shoes just to browse, summer or winter, we ran ads in winter for keywords such as “women’s ankle boots” or “buy women’s boots” and so on, sending the user to the shop’s boots page, perhaps at a lower cost. That way our advertising is more precise and we also save on “useless” payments for clicks that simply wouldn’t lead to anything.

The above is a very general example, but we believe you get the general idea.

Ad Text

The ad text is just as important as the keywords we use. Our text needs to be “catchy” and concise. It needs to make the user click on our link, and it should speak to the user who will bring us results, leaving aside anyone who will simply drop by to browse our website.

How to advertise on Google

Advertising on Google yourself takes training and testing; without them, nothing works.

For training, you can go to the official Google training, or search Google for “learn Google Ads” or “Google Ads tutorials”. You will find a lot of information that way, but don’t expect to be an expert within a week; that would be like taking one week of English and expecting to write it well. Training takes time. Alternatively, you can hand the work to a professional, e.g. WebMate 🙂 so that the company carries out the analysis and handles your Google Ads advertising in general. At WebMate we analyse the data for the prospective advertiser and work out the right budget to get results.

Besides training, as we said, we also need to test. Another Google tool, Google Analytics 4, can help us with testing. With it, as well as seeing how many users visited our website, we can see how many of the users who came to our website through Google Ads became customers.

How much should I pay?

Nobody can give a magic answer about how much you should pay without testing. Usually, for keywords with moderate competition, anything under 150 euros a month is like throwing your money away. We say usually, because there are exceptions: for example, for a removals company that wants to run Google Ads in Lamia (a Greek city) with keywords such as “transport Lamia” or “removals Lamia”, 50 euros a month can be enough and can bring in thousands of euros in profit. It all depends on the competition for the keywords and which keywords you choose.

What are the different ad formats it offers?

Google Ads offers a wide range of ad types, each with its own features and advantages. Depending on your business’s needs, you can choose from the following types:

• Search Ads
• Display Ads
• Video Ads
• App Ads
• Shopping Ads
• Local Ads
• Remarketing Ads
• Performance Max ads

Search Ads

These are the most basic ads, shown in Google’s search results. They usually include text and a link to your website.

Display Ads

These ads appear on websites and apps that are members of the Google Display Network. They can include images, video or even animations.

Video Ads

These ads appear on YouTube and other video platforms. They can be short videos that play before, during or after other videos.

App Ads

These ads aim to promote apps and can appear on various platforms, including Google Play.

Shopping Ads

These ads appear in search results and include photos, prices and other information about the products being promoted.

Local Ads

These ads are designed to promote local businesses and often appear on Google Maps. Local campaigns have since been folded into Performance Max campaigns.

Remarketing Ads

These ads target users who have already visited your website, offering them tailored content.

Performance Max ads

Performance Max is a campaign type that gives advertisers access to all Google Ads inventory from a single campaign. It was designed to complement keyword-based search campaigns, helping you find more converting customers across all Google channels, such as YouTube, Display, Search, Discover, Gmail and Maps.

Each ad type has its own advantages and can be more or less effective depending on your business goals.

How to create an account

How much does Google Ads cost?

Let’s go and dominate Google advertising!

Not quite. We must always keep in mind that companies such as Coca-Cola, Nike and others use Google Ads and spend huge amounts on advertising on Google, so if we try to compete with these giants we will most likely fail. What we can do, as we said earlier, is run a smart Google Ads campaign that brings the biggest profit at the lowest cost. This also shows what an important tool Google Ads is, and how using it properly can bring tremendous results.

If you want a Google Ads specialist, email us at info@web-mate.gr so we can carry out an analysis and take on your Google Ads campaign.