If you are considering advertising on Google ads, one of the first questions you may ask yourself is where do Google ads appear?
The advertising network you choose on Google will determine where your ads appear. There are currently 4 main types of traffic available on Google ads. These are:
- Search
- Display
- Shopping
- Video
In this article we will be looking at where your ads will appear on each network and how each traffic type works.
Where Do Google Ads Appear On Search?
The search network is generally the most popular network available to advertisers in Google ads. This is mainly due to the fact that the traffic is extremely targeted and it will usually work very well for most industries.
The search networks allows you to show ads above and below search results in Google. The way this works is an advertiser will bid on keywords related to their business. When somebody searches that keyword, their ad will be shown.
Basically if people are searching for your products or services online, there is a very good chance that this type of advertising can work for you. Due to the fact that you can show an ad at the exact time someone is searching for your product of service is extremely powerful.
Search advertising is arguably the most targeted type of advertising a business can do online, or indeed offline.
Google search also offers an additional stream of traffic that you can tap into known as Google search partners.
So where do Google ads appear on search partners? Essentially search partners are smaller search engines and sites with some form of search functionality. These sites use googles advertising technology to display ads. You can learn more about Google search partners here
Where Do Google Ads Appear On Display?
The display network offers a completely different advertising solution to search.
When you advertise on the display network your Google ads will appear across websites that are opted in as a publisher. These publisher sites displays ads served by Google.
Currently Google claims to have over a million publisher websites and apps. This gives advertisers the ability to reach over 80% of all internet users worldwide.
Display traffic is completely different to search traffic. Firstly, intent on display is much lower. If you approach display campaigns in the same ways as search, it is highly likely you will fail.
People on the display network are browsing websites. They are not actively searching for your product or service. For this reason it is much more difficult to sell directly to these people. That is not to say that you can’t sell on display but you would usually need a much longer, well thought out funnel, which will pre-sell the user first.
A good funnel could be something like a useful piece of content followed by an opt-in for more information. Maybe you could give away a white paper or something else for free that would be valuable to your audience. In this type of scenario a sale would be made at a later date after the initial lead is generated.
Another great way to get started with the display network is remarketing. This is a way you can re-target people who have already visited your website. This is far more targeted and tends to convert extremely well.
The final way display can very effective is with brand awareness. This is due to the huge reach you can achieve across the display network. Display traffic can be a fantastic way to connect with your audience and promote your brand in a highly targeted, cost effective way.
Where Do Google Ads Appear On Shopping?
Shopping is a great solution for eCommerce business who want to create highly targeted ads to promote their products on Google.
So where do Google ads appear on shopping campaigns?
By selecting to advertise via Google shopping, your ads will appear in search results and in Google shopping results.
The image below shows shopping results displayed for the search term “Nike trainers”. You will also notice the tabs above the images. The current selection is “All”. Next to this you can see the shopping tab. By opening the shopping tab you can see more results for Nike trainers.
There are a couple of main advantage of using this format for eCommerce advertisers:
- People see an image of the product
- The price is visible
Due to the visual nature of these ads, clicks tend to be far more targeted. This is because people are clicking on the products and price points that appeal to them.
To get set up with Google shopping you will need to connect Google ads with your Google merchant center account. You will also need to upload a product feed via merchant centre.
Once merchant center is set up and connected with Google ads, the targeting is very simple. Google will use information in your feed to decide when your ad is displayed.
Where Do Google Ads Appear On Video Campaigns?
The final option is video. When you select video as your campaign type in Google ads you have a number of options to target people.
- You can appear in YouTube search results
- YouTube videos. This includes YouTube videos, channel pages, and the YouTube homepage.
- Video partners on the Display Network.
YouTube is essentially a search engine in a similar way to Google. The clear distinction is people are searching for videos as opposed to web sites that appear in search results. However, it does offer some very powerful targeting options.
You are able to target people based on specific demographics. These include things such as:
- Age
- Gender
- Parental status
- Household income
- Marital status
- Education
- Home ownership status
- Plus a whole host of other options.
Following this you can target even further, by targeting keywords, topics and even specific placements and YouTube channels.
The main hurdle for advertisers looking to advertise on YouTube is actually creating high quality videos. This can be a challenge and if you are outsourcing the production it could be expensive. However if you get it right, video advertising can offer a highly targeted and affordable way to reach your desired audience.
Conclusions
So there you have it. If you have asked the question “where do Google ads appear?” Then hopefully this article has pointed you in the right direction.
The good news is there are plenty of options and there is something for every type of business, whatever their goals.
If you would like any more information about any of the campaign types above. Please feel free to send us a question via the contact form here. Alternatively we would love to hear from you in the comments below.