Google Ads for Beginners – Smart Advertisements, Rapid Growth

With around 90% market share, Google is not only the world’s most popular search engine but also the largest online advertising platform. Therefore it comes as no surprise that Google Ads is the best tool for any business to reach the widest possible audience of internet users. By leveraging PPC (Pay-Per-Click) advertising, both small and large businesses can achieve rapid growth with Google Ads.

In this guide, you will learn the fundamentals of how Google Ads works, the different campaign types, and some useful tips and tricks to help you run more effective ad campaigns.

What is Google Ads and How Does It Work?

Briefly, Google Ads is Google’s advertisement management platform, allowing businesses to appear as search results on Google, Gmail, YouTube, and various websites. Essentially, you are renting ad space on Google’s platform, utilizing its algorithm and audience data. It is similar to renting a billboard on the street, but in the digital space (and it is a bit more complex…).

Most ads appear based on specific keywords, and their ranking depends on several factors. These include how much the business is willing to pay for its ad to appear for a certain keyword (and for clicks after the ad is displayed), as well as the relevance and quality of the ad. However, advertisers still have control over who sees their ads first. In Google Ads, they can define their target audience based on demographics, geographic location, user behavior, device usage, interests, and many other factors, ensuring their ads reach the most relevant users.

How Can We Achieve Our Goals?

Every project’s first step is defining the goal, as this will determine the tools we need to use. The case of a marketing campaign is no different. One of the most important tools in an advertising account is the bidding strategy; which advertisers select and apply according to the goal(s) defined during the planning phase of the campaign. Below, we present the different bidding strategies:

• CPC (Cost-Per-Click): In this case the advertiser only pays when users actually click on the ad. Advertisers manually set how much they are willing to pay per click within a given campaign. The higher the bid and the better the quality of the ad, the higher it will appear in Google’s search results. It used to be the most popular bidding strategy, but nowadays it is often more effective to rely on Google’s automated algorithm, which optimizes bids for better performance.

• CPM (Cost-Per-Mille – Cost Per Thousand Impressions): This bidding strategy is particularly useful for increasing brand awareness. Instead of paying for clicks, the advertiser pays for every 1,000 ad impressions. This method is especially popular on the Google Display Network and YouTube ads. Thanks to Google Ads’ audience targeting features, these ads are not randomly displayed to users but are shown to a relevant audience. Therefore, quality is just as important as quantity, even in impression-based campaigns.

• Conversion Maximization: This is a fully automated bidding strategy, meaning that Google uses all available data to achieve the highest possible number of conversions within the advertising budget. Unlike the cost-per-acquisition (CPA) model, where the advertiser sets a maximum cost per conversion, this strategy flexibly manages the entire budget. This means that some conversions may become very expensive, but overall, the strategy aims to maximize the total number of conversions rather than keeping the cost per conversion fixed.

• Target-CPA (Cost-Per-Acquisition): In this case, the goal is not to maximize clicks but rather to increase real business results, such as purchases or sign-ups. Essentially, this bidding strategy is an enhanced version of conversion maximization, often used for lead generation. It is important to understand that, similar to the CPC model, the advertiser still pays per click. However, advanced automated mechanisms operate in the background, optimizing ad performance based on past data to achieve the highest number of conversions within the defined budget.

• Maximize Clicks: This is an automated bidding strategy designed to achieve the highest possible number of clicks within the set budget. Essentially, it is an automated version of the standard CPC model. It is recommended when the primary goal is to increase website traffic rather than generate specific conversions. A good example is brand campaigns, where the objective is usually to drive as many clicks and visitors as possible to the website when users search for the brand name.

• Maximize Conversion Value: One of the most advanced automated solutions in Google Ads, the Maximize Conversions Value strategy considers not only the number of conversions but also their value, prioritizing higher-value purchases. It is best used when a business deals with conversions of varying values (for example,  an e-commerce store,) and aims to maximize revenue while managing click and conversion costs flexibly. The strategy requires sufficient conversion data, typically at least 15 conversions in the past 30 days as a guideline, for Google’s algorithm to optimize effectively.

• Target-ROAS (Return On Ad Spend): This is an automated bidding strategy that aims to generate the highest possible revenue within a given advertising budget. It works similarly to the Target CPA model, but instead of setting a cost per acquisition, advertisers define a Return On Ad Spend goal. For example, if the goal is a 400% ROAS, that means that for every $100 spent on ads, the expected return is $400 in revenue.

Google Ads Campaign Types

Now that we have covered the different bidding strategies, let us take a look at the various campaign types in practice, as these determine where and in what form the ads will appear. Different company goals require different campaign types and advertising strategies, so it is essential to consider what the advertiser wants to achieve with the campaign before starting.

Without the need for completeness, the main campaign types are the following:

Search Ads

These advertisements appear among Google’s search results, primarily above the organic listings, based on the keywords entered by users. Advertisers bid on these keywords, and Google ranks the ads based on the bid amount, ad relevance, and quality score. Search ads are ideal when a business offers a specific product or service, but they are also useful for increasing website traffic and driving sales.

Display Ads

In this case, banner-style advertisements appear on various websites, mobile applications, and across the Google Display Network ( for example, news sites and blogs). These ads are in image or animated format, making them ideal for businesses that want to run visual advertisements, such as those aiming to increase brand awareness or execute remarketing campaigns. Although text ads can also appear in this format, display campaigns are particularly popular for visual content.

YouTube Ads – Video Campaigns

These ads include visual content displayed alongside YouTube videos, as well as skippable and non-skippable video ads that play before or during videos. Video content tends to capture the audience’s attention more effectively, making this ad format especially suitable for generating emotional engagement. YouTube ads are widely used to enhance brand awareness and increase user engagement.

Shopping Campaigns – Google Shopping Ads

Shopping ads appear in Google search results, among product search listings, and on the Google Shopping tab. These ads display the image of the product, its name, price, and the seller’s information. Unlike search ads, which rely on keywords, Google determines when to display a Shopping ad based on product data and relevance from the online store. This advertising format is particularly beneficial for e-commerce businesses, as users searching for specific products are more likely to make a purchase.

Performance Max Campaigns

A Performance Max campaign is a comprehensive, fully automated campaign type that can be used for any objective, whether promoting products, services, or increasing brand awareness. These campaigns run across all Google platforms, including Search, Display, YouTube, Gmail, Google Maps, and the Discovery Feed. By leveraging machine learning, Google optimizes ad placements and timing to achieve the best possible results. This type of campaign is effective for nearly any advertising goal but is particularly useful for businesses that want to save time while reaching audiences across multiple platforms. However, it requires a sufficient budget, as a daily ad spend of at least $10 is recommended for effective performance.

Demand Gen Campaigns

Demand Gen (Demand Generation) is a newer campaign type introduced by Google as the successor to Discovery campaigns. These ads primarily appear on YouTube (Shorts, For You Page, Homepage), Gmail (Promotions and Social tabs), and Google Discover. The goal of this campaign type is to encourage users to make a purchase or complete other conversions through visual and engagement-driven content. Popular elements include carousel ads (scrollable images) and video creatives. It is primarily suitable for increasing brand awareness and reaching new audiences, but e-commerce businesses also frequently use it to showcase their products visually.

App Campaigns

App campaigns (previously known as Universal App Campaigns, or UAC) are designed to promote mobile applications and generate more downloads on Android and iOS devices. This campaign type is fully automated, with ads appearing across Google Search, YouTube, Play Store, the Display Network, and the Discover Feed. Advertisers only need to provide the ad text, pictures, and targeting strategy, while Google’s algorithm manages the rest. It is suitable for launching new apps, acquiring active users, and increasing in-app purchases.

The Advantages and Challenges of Google Ads

After getting familiar with the different advertising models and campaign types, let’s return to a general overview of Google Ads as a platform. Like everything in this world, this advertising system has its advantages and disadvantages – or rather, its challenges.

Main Advantages

As mentioned in the introduction, Google Ads is one of the most effective online advertising tool as it allows you to reach almost every internet user. The wide display network (Google Search, Display, YouTube, Gmail, Shopping, etc.) offers the opportunity to target different user groups and achieve various marketing goals simultaneously – whether it’s increasing brand awareness, building relationships, or driving immediate sales.

One of its biggest advantages is its audience targeting option – advertisers can narrow down their audience based on geographical and demographic data, interests, and user behavior. This ensures that the ads are shown to a relevant audience, helping to achieve the desired goals more quickly.

Among the advantages of Google Ads, we must also mention its flexibility; you can set any budget, continuously optimize campaigns, and choose whether to manage them manually or automate the processes. The decision is entirely up to the advertisers.

However, the greatest advantage – perhaps of all of them, – is the ability to measure data and track performance. In online marketing, making the most of digital analytics is crucial – which Google Ads fully enables. While it does not provide detailed descriptions of user behavior and paths on its own, when integrated with Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager, essential data can be extracted, allowing you to optimize campaigns as efficiently as possible. Google Analytics provides detailed information about the time users spend on the website, their clicks, the subpages they visit, and more. With Google Tag Manager, you can create so-called conversion tracking tags – this means you can assign digital stamps to specific events (e.g., form submissions, newsletter sign-ups, purchases, phone calls, button clicks) on the website, making these events trackable and measurable – even if otherwise you would not have any information about them. The use of the latter is especially recommended for more complex websites and online stores, but Google Analytics can be beneficial for everyone.

Potential Challenges

The biggest challenge with Google Ads is the high competition and increasing click costs, especially in popular industries – making it difficult and rather costly to stand out. This situation is worsened by the fact that the system is quite complex, which can present a steep learning curve for beginners who want to manage their ad campaigns on their own.

At times, advertising is not only expensive, but also a complete waste of money – this only applies when campaigns are not set up correctly, though. Unfortunately, this happens quite often because, in addition to advertising costs, hiring expert help may seem “too expensive.” As a result, many people make the mistake of starting advertising campaigns on their own, and when things do not work, they think the whole thing is a scam. However, it can be a huge investment if professionals manage the advertising account. Therefore, especially for complete beginners, it is definitely worth hiring an expert or a PPC agency – it is guaranteed to pay off!

The last “disadvantage” is the ongoing “maintenance” cost. You cannot set up an advertising account once and expect it to just keep working on its own. Think about it! The world is constantly changing; consumer demands, trends, user habits – competitors are all evolving too! It is natural, then, that campaigns need to be continuously tested and optimized. This is costly in both time and money.

But if you think about it, every “disadvantage” we’ve listed can actually be eliminated by entrusting the management of your advertising account to a professional or a team – because while with personal effort, you either manage to achieve results or not, they will certainly be able to make the most of your campaign!

SEO and PPC – The Super Duo of Digital Marketing

When talking about paid advertisements, we must mention SEO (Search Engine Optimization). While Google Ads’ paid advertisements generate noticeable traffic increases relatively quickly (within a few months), in the long run, they do not necessarily provide the best solution, as you have to pay for every click to stay on top.

SEO, on the other hand, is an investment that pays off over a longer period (could take years). Search engine optimization uses quality content (blog posts, articles, ebooks, etc) and relevant keywords to increase the visibility of your website within the organic search results. Organic results are those that appear in the search engine due to their relevance to the entered keywords, not because they are backed by a paid advertisement. SEO has its “dark side” as well; content marketing leads to growth over a longer time period, not as quickly and dramatically as PPC. Moreover, creating quality content can be costly in terms of time and/or money. Nevertheless, it remains a sustainable long-term strategy and is very effective in reaching relevant target audiences – users who are genuinely interested in the brand, company, or website.

Which one should I choose then? The answer is simple: SEO and PPC work most effectively together – as they perfectly complement each other. By continuously practicing search engine optimization, we secure the website’s performance in the long term, while applying PPC – even just periodically – can give the business an additional boost. An example of this could be the launch of a new product or service, a larger promotion, or even a simple remarketing campaign.

What makes it truly worthwhile to apply both together are the analytical advantages. Using both marketing tools you can gain a wealth of data about users and market trends. The data obtained from one campaign type can, therefore, help improve the effectiveness of the other campaign type. For example, routine keyword research conducted for SEO can help fine-tune PPC campaigns as well, since keywords also play a significant role there.

Tips and Tricks – How to Make the Most of Your Google Ads Campaigns?

Just like in the marketing world in general, ad campaigns have no universal formula that works for everyone, either. In fact, you may not see any results right away, when you first start advertising. So comes the first piece of advice: you should not be impatient. Campaigns need time to show their impact, and it is likely that much testing and optimization will need to be carried out before you start seeing significant results. That being said, there are a few technical tips that everyone should follow, whether you are running a small, medium, or large business, whether it is a B2C or B2B company, or in any industry.

Advice to Follow

• Proper Audience Targeting Setup: Defining the target audience clearly is essential, as this is the first and most important step in effectively reaching them. As we mentioned earlier, identifying the goal is the first step in any project. First, it is advisable to consider the target audience in terms of demographic and geographic data, as well as interests.

• Keyword Research, Ad Copy: The best way to reach your target audience is by using relevant keywords – which can be obtained through keyword research. This process also involves excluding negative keywords to avoid irrelevant searches. The ad copy should be short, attention-grabbing, and encourage action (CTA – Call to Action).

• Landing Page: The landing page is the webpage where the user is redirected after clicking on the ad. It is important that this be consistent with the ad because if the content and/or design differ too much, users will leave your website.

• Conversion and Performance Tracking: As mentioned, maximizing the use of data is critical. Any advertiser who does not take advantage of this opportunity will fall behind their competitors – so integrating Google Analytics with the advertising system is highly recommended for everyone.

• Budget and Bidding Strategy: Your business must be clear on its goals and consistent with its budget and align the advertising strategy (manual or automated bidding, paying for clicks or impressions, etc.)  accordingly.

Mistakes to Avoid

• Too Broad Targeting: If the target audience is not defined accurately, a lot of irrelevant impressions and clicks will be generated. This often happens when using broad match keywords – the broadest type of keyword match in Google Ads. In such cases, the ad may show up not only for the exact phrase but also for its different variations, synonyms, and related searches, which can generate irrelevant traffic and higher click costs.

• Lack of Negative Keywords: If negative keywords are not set up, the ad may appear for irrelevant searches, leading to a decrease in the click-through rate and an increase in click costs.

• Weak Ad Copy, Lack of CTA: If the ad is not clear, attention-grabbing, or does not encourage action, people will not click on it.

• Lack of Extensions, Ad Variants: Extensions are additional informational elements provided by Google Ads. They allow the advertiser to provide relevant information to users without cramming it into the ad copy itself. Therefore, using extensions is important, as not using them can put the advertiser at a disadvantage. Additionally, it is advisable to work with at least two ad variants per ad group – neglecting this is also considered a mistake.

• Irrelevant Landing Page: If the landing page is not corresponding to the ad, users will leave the website, and their perception of the brand will also deteriorate.

• No Conversion Tracking: Properly setting up conversion tracking in the ad account is crucial. Without it, we lose valuable data.

• Improper Budget Management: The budget can be spent in many ways – of which the most effective is not always the one the advertiser initially anticipated. Therefore, it is important to allow Google’s automated mechanisms, experts, or both to handle the available budget flexibly. Because, while at times it may seem like this leads to disproportionately high costs, in the end, the investment tends to pay off multiple times over. Another important thing to mention regarding the budget is that Google Ads always offers various discounts for newly registered advertisers. This is another reason to seek expert help, as an experienced marketer can give realistic advice on which promotional code is suitable for your business.

• Rare Campaign Checks: As we already mentioned, advertising activities do not work by simply setting them up once and leaving them alone. You must continuously monitor campaign performance, optimize, and fine-tune the strategy so as not to fall behind your competitors.

Summary

Nowadays, using Google Ads paid advertisements is one of the fastest and most effective methods for online customer acquisition, increasing website traffic, and boosting sales. However, it is important to keep in mind that an online advertising campaign will not achieve groundbreaking success on its own if it is not paired with an optimized website, a clear offer, competitive pricing, and a well-functioning sales process. In short, the entire business model must work well for the ads to take the business to the next level.

If you would like to take advantage of the opportunities and discounts provided by Google Ads, our company would be happy to help you get started in the complex world of advertising. Feel free to contact us!