Google Ads

What Google Ads covers

Google Ads is Google's advertising system and places ads in several locations: in the search results, in the display network on other sites, on video platforms and on shopping surfaces. Billing is usually per click, in some formats per thousand impressions. For a shop three campaign types matter.

Search ads appear against a search term and therefore meet an explicit intent. Shopping ads show product image, price and shop name directly in the results and need a maintained product data feed. Performance campaigns spread the budget across several channels automatically and need fewer settings, but give up control in return.

How search and shopping ads interact

The two formats serve different stages. Search ads suit terms where the customer knows what they are looking for, for instance a solution to a problem or a specific property. Shopping ads suit terms where products are compared, meaning category names and product types.

Anyone running both has to decide which format owns which term. If both run on the same term they outbid each other and make the click more expensive. That steering is one of the few places where a couple of settings save real money.

Which figures steer

• Cost per order: the figure connects click price and conversion and is closer to the result than the click price alone.
• ROAS: revenue against budget. It shows whether a campaign carries but not whether it earns a profit.
• Contribution margin per channel: the most solid figure, because it includes cost of goods and returns.
• Impression share: it shows which part of the available ad placements the campaign reaches and whether budget or bid is the limiting factor.
• Search terms: the evaluation of actual queries is the most important source for new topics and for exclusions.

Where budget is lost most often

The first point is negative keywords. Without a maintained list, shops pay for queries that never lead to a purchase, such as repair instructions, used goods or competitors. That list only grows when search terms are read regularly.

The second point is brand terms of other providers. Ads on foreign brands bring clicks and rarely purchases. The third point is the landing page: an ad leading to the home page instead of the matching category loses the customer in the first step. The fourth point is the missing split by device and region. A shared budget hides that one channel carries and another only costs.

The fifth point concerns your own brand terms. Anyone advertising on their own name pays for orders that would mostly have arrived anyway. The share can be measured by pausing the campaign for a period.

Frequent questions

• How much budget does the start need? Enough that a month produces sufficient clicks for a statement.
• Automation or manual work? Automation for breadth, manual work for the strongest terms.
• When should I pause? When the contribution margin turns negative after advertising cost.