There are a variety of different Google ads campaign types. This gives advertisers plenty of options for promoting their businesses.
In this article we will be looking at each campaign type and discussing when you should use each of them.
To get started you will need to log into your Google ads account and in the campaigns tab, click the blue plus symbol to add a new campaign.
On the next page Google will give you 7 options for a campaign goal, the aim of this is to help users with a guided set up. When you select a goal Google will give you suggestions throughout the set up process to help you achieve the goal you have chosen.
Also, for people who are already familiar with setting up campaigns, there is an option to set up your campaign without goal guidance.
Generally, when we are setting up campaigns for clients, we will choose the final option and not use any goal guidance. However, if you are more comfortable having suggested campaign settings based on your desired outcome that’s fine.
Once you have selected your goal you will be presented with the option to choose your Google ads campaign type. The options you will see are:
- Search
- Display
- Shopping
- Video
- Universal App
The campaign type you choose will be based in your desired goal and the type of business you are promoting.
Google ads Campaign Type #1 – Search
Search is the most popular network and if you are just starting out it is likely that this will be the network you choose.
Search campaigns display your ads on Google search result pages. For your ad to be shown, you need to be bidding on specific search terms (keywords). For example, lets assume you are a plumber in London, one of your keywords might be “plumber in London”. If somebody searches this term on Google your ad will be displayed.
Search is an extremely targeted type of advertising. It allows you to place your ad in front of potential customers, right when they are looking for your service. For this reason, when set up correctly, it is not uncommon to see very high conversion rates on paid search campaigns.
Google ads Campaign Type #2 – Display
Display is the next option, and this is a completely different way of advertising, when compared with search.
The Google display network is a collection of websites across the internet that display Google ads on their pages.
The display network claims to reach over 90% of internet users worldwide, so it does have fantastic coverage. However, the traffic is not as targeted as search traffic. Search traffic has much more intent, as people are actively looking for something. For this reason, the display network needs to be approached differently.
If we use our plumber example from before, display would generally not be as effective. However, that does not mean it couldn’t work. You would just need a different approach. Below are a couple of ideas of how you could promote this type of company on display.
- You could target your ads locally in London and offer a free guide to stop their pipes freezing and bursting in winter. Once people download the guide, you could make an offer to come and do some preventative work to avoid this happening.
- Perhaps you could offer a free boiler service, or some other free service. This would act as a foot in the door and could be an effective way to acquire a new customer.
These are much more indirect ways of promoting your business. You need to remember people seeing ads on the display network are browsing websites, they are usually not actively looking for your product or service.
Another thing display is good for is brand awareness. If your goal is to display your ads and promote your brand, then display can be a very cost-effective way of displaying your brand to a huge audience.
Google ads Campaign Type #3 – Shopping
Google shopping is going to be your best choice if you are running an eCommerce business.
By selecting this campaign type, you can display your products in Google shopping results.
Google shopping results also appear in search results. However, if you are selling products, this type of promotion tends to convert much better than standard search advertising. One of the main advantages is people get to see the product before they click, this means the intent is even higher, so you are only paying for the most qualified clicks.
Getting set up with shopping is a slightly different process to other Google ads campaign types.
To get started, you will need to set up a Google Merchant Center account and submit a product feed. This is quite easy to do if you are using one of the more popular eCommerce platforms, such as Magento, Shopify or Woocomerce. All these services will have plugins that make the process of submitting your feed very easy.
Google ads Campaign Type #4 – Video
Video campaigns are run primarily on YouTube. According to Alexa’s top 500 list YouTube is currently the 2nd most visited website online. This is second only to Google and currently receives more traffic than Facebook.
YouTube is essentially a search engine just like Google, the only difference is the search results are videos instead of websites. Due to the results being extremely targeted, it means that YouTube can be used for a variety of promotion types.
Popular promotion types on video are lead generation, branding and even straight to sale.
Obviously if you do want to use video advertising you will need to create a video, so this does make it slightly more challenging to get started. However, once you get a working video live, the costs can be considerably lower than other Google ads campaign Types.
Google ads Campaign Type #5 – Universal app
This is the last of the 5 Google ads campaign types and this type of advertising is only going to be relevant if you are an app owner.
By creating universal app campaigns, you can promote your app across specific operation systems. IOS, or Android. The goal of this campaign type is to get more installs or in app actions.
You can run Universal app campaigns on all of the following networks:
- Search
- Display (websites and apps)
- YouTube
- Google Play.
Google Ads Campaign Types Conclusion
Hopefully this article has helped you to understand the various Google ads campaign types. If you have any questions or comments, please leave them in the comments section below and one of our PPC specialists will do their best to help.