From anonymity to recognition: how to increase brand awareness with Google Ads

In today’s world, where business competition is extremely high, increasing brand awareness is becoming an important part of any company’s marketing strategy. One of the most effective tools for this task is the use of advertising campaigns in Google Ads. In this article by ADV Advantage, we will look at how to properly plan and launch advertising campaigns using Google Ads to maximize brand awareness.

1. Understanding the target audience and targeting

The first step in working with Google Ads is to thoroughly study your target audience. The focus of your advertising campaign should be in line with the interests and needs of your target audience. Identify who your customers are, their characteristics and preferences. This will allow you to create ads that will be attractive and understandable to your audience. Google Ads campaign settings allow you to select your audience by precise parameters:

• Age
• Gender
• Family income
• Parental status
• Location.

Audiences can be grouped into separate segments to set up remarketing, which is the process of re-engaging loyal customers to generate more sales.
Understanding the target audience is not limited to choosing it: you should always examine statistics in Google Analytics to avoid losing a potential customer due to incorrect targeting. Additionally, it is recommended to test new audience segments and study their behavior through behavioral triggers.

2. Use of keywords

Google Ads is based on a paid search system, so choosing the right keywords is a key to success. Consider the terms that potential customers enter into the search engine when looking for the products or services you offer. Add these keywords to your ad campaign to ensure that your ads appear on the top of search results.

However, you shouldn’t limit yourself to setting up an advertising campaign – your business website should exactly match the selected keywords, have relevant product titles and descriptions, and be easy to navigate and buy. A large percentage of bounces (no conversions, page closures) from the audience that has reached the site through Google Ads will increase the cost per click, lower the rankings in the search engine results page and generally have a negative impact on the site’s attractiveness to the search engine.

3. Create attractive headlines and descriptions

Your ads should be attractive and specific. Use catchy headlines and short but informative descriptions. Emphasize the unique advantages of your brand that distinguish it from competitors. Provide your ads with additional elements that attract the user’s attention and encourage them to go to your website or page.

Google Ads ads have many customization options, including adding objects, category subheadings, images, logos, lead forms, footnotes, brands, addresses, app links, and more. A well-designed ad automatically becomes more attractive to a new user and encourages them to start the process of engaging with your brand.

4. Use of graphic and video ads

One of the advantages of Google Ads is the ability to use not only text ads, but also graphic and video ads. The use of visual elements can significantly increase the effectiveness of your ads, especially if you sell products or services that are easier to demonstrate in the form of images or videos. Emphasize stylish design and high-quality images to grab the public’s attention. Google Ads, with its YouTube ad placement options, allows you to quickly reach a wide audience of potential customers, including your competitors’ audience, if you choose the right placement. However, before launching paid video advertising, it is worth trying to publish interesting videos on free platforms, such as TikTok, Vimeo, Reddit, Instagram, etc. The creativity of the content, its visual and informational components play a crucial role in increasing brand awareness.

5. Analyze the results and optimize the campaign

Constant monitoring and analysis of results is an important stage of working with Google Ads. Use analytical tools to determine the effectiveness of your advertising campaigns. Monitor conversions, clicks, and other metrics. Optimize your campaigns based on the information you collect by making changes to keywords, targeting settings, and other parameters.
Google Analytics is the perfect tool for this. The system not only displays the number of users on the site, their location, and conversions, but also allows you to study the navigation and conversion path, select pages with the highest bounce rate, referral sources, user loyalty, quality of interaction with content, and more. All the parameters available in Google Analytics allow you to get a clear understanding of website users, which you should rely on when setting up a strategy in Google Ads.

6. Google Ads strategy to increase brand awareness

In general, there are several types of advertising campaigns to increase brand awareness:

• Contextual Display Ads – advertising of graphic banners, videos and animations on partner sites (Adsense) with similar topics. If a user sees your ad on a trusted website, it can encourage them to familiarize themselves with your offer.
• Video advertising is the placement of videos in YouTube ad units. The Google Ads system has detailed information about viewers’ interests and offers ads to the target and wider audience. Unlike Display Networks, YouTube ads understand their audience more accurately, so the percentage of engagement and interaction is always higher.
• App advertising – if your business has its own app, you can advertise it both within Google services and on other apps with a similar theme.
• Google Discovery – this type of advertising covers Gmail, YouTube, and the Google Discover news feed at the same time. In addition to advertising multimedia creatives, you can add product lists with feeds from the Merchant Center.

For each type of ad campaign, you should follow a simple algorithm for setting bids: limit the campaign to the cost per click and daily budget. At this stage, you shouldn’t expect a large number of conversions, but the collected audience can be used for remarketing in the future. A few weeks after the launch of the ad, you can switch to automatic and intelligent bidding. Google Ads artificial intelligence has already collected enough information and can adjust bids at each auction more flexibly, focusing on the return on advertising (ROAS).

Conclusion

Effective work with Google Ads is a key factor in increasing brand awareness. Use all the features of the Google Ads platform to create attractive and precisely targeted advertising campaigns. Focus on studying your target audience, choosing the right keywords, creating attractive ads, and constantly analyzing the results. This is the only way to maximize brand awareness and ensure the success of your business in the online environment.