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(Article first published in March '08. It has been modified slightly to suit its publication on our site)
How Does Google Adwords Actually Work?
The Adwords program is very clever because instead of paying for an ad to be shown (like most other forms of advertising), you only pay when a viewer clicks on your ad and visits your website. This type of web marketing is called "Cost-Per-Click" advertising (CPC for short).
Once you have registered to start using Adwords the process for creating, displaying and paying for ads is broken down into 4 main elements as follows:
- Keyword Selection
You create a list of words and phrases that would be typed into the Google search bar to find your company, service or product. Don't worry, Adwords provides a very advanced tool that helps determine what the keywords and phrases should be.
- Cost-Per-Click
You decide how much you want to pay for each click through to your site. This can be done globally or by keyword. This figure is used for two purposes. Firstly it is used for the payment mechanism for each click you receive, but it is also used to determine where in the list your ad will appear. This is basically a bidding system, where businesses that bid the most for position are placed higher than those who bid less. It's not quite as simple as that, because there are other factors involved, but in simple terms just remember that if you want to be at or near the top of the list you need to bid high. Don't worry, the system provides a lot of help by showing you where your ad will appear for each keyword based on your bid and you can then adjust accordingly.
- Daily Budget
You will setup your daily budget, which will determine the maximum that you want to spend per day. Let's say that your average CPC is €1 and you have a daily budget of €10, in this case you will receive up to 10 clicks per day. After this the Adwords system will automatically shut-off your ads. There is a lot of flexibility that allows you to determine when you do and don't want ads shown in order to maximise your budget.
- Ad Creation
When you create your ad you are asked to provide a headline, the ad contents, a link to your site and finally a 'friendly' link. The friendly link is what the viewer sees, whereas the actual link is the full link to the 'landing' page. For instance in the example of an ad shown below, you see the main web address, whereas when a viewer clicks on the ad they are actually taken to www.thedggroup.eu/brochures. You only get 30 characters per line (including spaces), so your ads need to be very creative, yet concise!
What Do The Ads Look Like And Where Are They Shown?
If you've ever used the Google search engine, then you will have seen these ads. They are typically shown on the right-hand side of the search results page, but can also appear above the 'organic' or naturally ranked search results. A typical ad would look like this:
The next article looks at how you track your ad/s to make sure that they are working.
Franco De Bonis has worked in the field of sales and marketing promotion since 1990 and was most recently the global marketing manager for a major international technology company before setting up DG Group in January 2007.
DG Group is dedicated to delivering all the marketing solutions any company may require. Whether it's a website or leaflets and brochures, or even some product packaging; DG Group will manage the whole project and even provide guidance along the way.
The content in this section is the original creation of DG Group and is protected by copyright. You may use this content on your site or in other materials providing you acknowledge DG Group as the author and include a link our site.
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