Google Ads is a very effective way for businesses to advertise their products and services to potential customers. But sometimes, the language used in the Google Ads interface can be a little hard to understand. As a marketer, you should understand these key terms and also be able to explain them as clearly as possible to your clients. Here are some of the most common phrases and jargon you will encounter.
- Cost Per Click (CPC):
- Cost per thousand impressions (CPM)
- Click-Through Rate (CTR)
CPC is the amount you pay each time someone clicks on your ad. The price can change based on how popular the keyword is and what business you are in.
CPM is a bidding system that lets advertisers pay for every thousand times their ad is seen. It's usually used for display ads, and the price depends on the relevance of your ads to the target audience as well as the level of competition to reach your audience. The “M” in CPM is “mille” (one thousand in Latin).
CTR is the number of people who saw your ad and then clicked on it. It is a key metric that measures how relevant your ads are to your target audience. Higher CTR means that your ads are being perceived as engaging and useful to your target audience.
The Quality Score is a top-level metric that measures the relevancy of your ad copy, keywords, and landing pages. It’s not just the individual elements that matter, but also the combination. You may have a fantastic visual design on your landing page, but if it doesn’t include any of the keywords you use in your ads, it will be very challenging to get a high Quality Score.
Google values Quality Score so much that the auction system is designed to give priority to higher quality ad content than higher bids. This actually makes perfect business sense: instead of being greedy and bombarding users with ads with poor relevancy, Google puts quality first (and maximizes revenues over the long term). This is why investing in a higher Quality Score is one of the best ways to manage your advertising budget.
Quality Score is based on multiple factors including the expected clickthrough rate (CTR), ad relevance and the user’s landing page experience.
There are three main factors that determine the quality of an ad.
- CTR is Google’s estimate of how many times an ad will be clicked when it is displayed. User input is used to guide Google's decision-making, and user clickthrough rates (CTRs) shows Google what people respond to. They analyze millions of individuals and this helps them determine which advertisements are ideal for each search query by letting users vote with their clicks.
- Landing Page Experience Users expect ad landing pages to assist them in locating the information they want. A higher score is given to a landing page that is extremely relevant. A good landing page should offer relevant and unique information that assists the user in completing their job. It should load fast, be simple to use and honest about the offer to the consumer. Simple enough, but many advertisers forget about the importance of a well-designed landing page.
- Ad relevance is a metric that determines how well an ad fits the user's search and ensures that only relevant advertisements are displayed. It also keeps companies from buying their way onto a search that has nothing to do with their product or service.
Ad Rank controls where your ads will appear (or if they are eligible to appear at all). It is a calculation that determines the order in which advertisements appear on Google searches. To rank the advertisements that are displayed on the search results page and determine the cost of each ad click, Google Ads uses a dynamic auction mechanism.
The ad with the highest Ad Rank gets to show in the top position, and the ad with the second-highest Ad Rank gets to show in the second position, assuming the ads clear the relevant thresholds, and so on. Your Ad Rank is re-evaluated every time your ad enters an auction.
Your Maximum Bid amount is not the only thing that determines where your ad will be displayed. Quality Score is a very important part of Ad Rank.
- Impressions: An impression is the number of times your ad has been shown on the search results page or the Display Network.
- Keywords: Keywords are the words and phrases that you want your ad campaign to target. A “search term” is what people type into a search engine when they want to find products or services like yours. If your keyword is close to the search term and if you have a decent Ad Rank, your ad will be displayed.
Remarketing is a method that lets you reach out to people who have already seen your website or ad creatives. Remarketing gives you the capability to increase the number of “touchpoints” with your target audience. Since you can show your ads to them multiple times, it can help you increase brand awareness, offer special promotions and generate conversions. You can also combine remarketing with an email marketing strategy (if you can convince your visitors to share their email with you).
In conclusion, knowing the terms and jargon used in Google Ads can help you improve the performance of your campaigns. By learning these terms, you'll be able to make better decisions about your ad campaigns, communicate more efficiently with your team and your clients and improve the results as a whole.
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