Free Advanced Google Ads Course (Updated September, 2022)

Course Introduction

It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that Google Ads are a world of their own. You must master a world as marketers and agency owners to make the most of your digital experience.
Most of us rely on Google Ads anyway for client acquisition and brand awareness. However, not everyone relishes in successful results, and there’s a reason why that happens. It’s because most of us don’t utilize the tools and techniques of Google Ads adequately. We must continue to learn Google Ads every day.
So in this advanced Google Ads course, we will discuss all features and elements of Google Ads in detail. From budget tracking and target marketing to reading up on your Ad reports, you’re about to learn everything you should know to conquer the world of Google Ads. We show you how you can become a super ninja Google Ads expert in a short time. You will be able to work faster and smarter with a lot of these tricks. We hope you will learn a lot of the techniques of the course.
For your convenience, we’ve also divided the course into sections. Let’s begin. 

The Ultimate Guide to Google Ads’ Paid and Organic Report

If you’re a marketer, you’d probably be aware of the many benefits of Google Ads. You would also know how recently Google Ads has become a marketplace that allows you to rank your web pages higher based on the keywords you’re targeting. All you have to do is pay the cost per click.

But the big question we’ll be discussing today isn’t how to use Google Ads. Indeed, as marketers, we all have a basic understanding of it.

Today, we will be discussing the feature where the real magic happens. Have you ever heard of the paid and organic report feature on Google Ads? If not, don’t worry because that is what we’re going to discuss today!

We will give you an all-together, comprehensive insight into what this feature is and how to utilize it for maximum success adequately.

So, without further ado, let’s get started!

The Paid and Organic Report: Defined

Let’s start by setting our fundamental understanding right and define the difference between the paid and the organic report.

The paid & organic report essentially enables you to see search terms that either triggered your ads to appear on Google, triggered Google to display unpaid (organic) search results for your site, or both.

It is an advanced way of understanding what role paid and organic searches have in reaching people online. Not only that, but the insights offered also allow you to remodel your ad strategy by what works best.

The Paid & Organic report shows metrics for text ads. It doesn’t display metrics for Shopping ads.

Here’s what Google Developers describes this feature as:

“The Paid and Organic Query report provide a holistic view of your search stats across ads and organic listings at the query level. It lets you analyze strengths and gaps in your overall search presence, and gives insight into how your paid and organic search listings work together to connect your business with people searching on Google.”

Why the Paid and Organic Report is Useful?

You now know the difference between the two reports, but you must be wondering why it matters?

The report can be quite a useful resource that can measure your ads’ impact and identify underperforming ads. Additionally, the report also shows interactions between paid and organic ads and organic ads in Google Ads, which will help you better gauge the differences between the two.

The most beneficial thing about the report, however, is that it effectively answers client questions. So, a paid and organic report is your ultimate answer to all those queries relating to why brand bids are more critical, what words are ranking well on Google Ads, and what terms should be further incorporated to ensure a well-rounded strategy.

The paid and organic report feature offered by Google is an incredible tool for your business. It is an exceptionally reliable way to examine how and when people make queries about your brand. With this search marketing tool, you can gauge the frequency of free organic search results listing your website pages and use it to tailor your ads accordingly.

Identifying your website pages’ search performance is crucial, as it ultimately provides insight into whether your content is meeting your potential customer’s expectations. An analysis of the search term’s frequency will give a bigger picture of consumer interests and enable you to leverage your business.

The report will enable you to create content around keywords that are proven to work, and in doing so, will exponentially improve your ad performance.

The paid and organic report feature offered by Google offers you essential insights – and let’s be real; that’s all you need if you want your ads to perform better online. However, the process of linking the paid and organic report to your account can be complicated and confusing.

So, to help you more conveniently navigate this process, the following paragraphs cover a step-by-step discussion of everything you are supposed to do.

How To Link Paid and Organic Report

To utilize the paid and organic report, you need to link your Google Ads account with Search Console. Sounds confusing? Let us explain!

How To Launch the Report?

Follow these steps on Google Ads to launch your report:

1. Go to the Reporting section in the top right corner.
2. Select Predefined Reports from the drop-down menu
3. Go to Basic
4. Select Paid & Organic

Steps to Link Everything together

So, once you’ve launched the report, what do you do next?

1. Ensure you have access to Search Console – link Search Console with Google Ads
   What is the Search Console?
   Search Console is where all your organic data is stored. It is an entirely free Google service that will enable you to learn a bucket load of information about your website and its traffic.You can use it to find out how many people visit your site and how they find it, whether more people visit your site on a mobile device or desktop computer, and which pages are the most popular and successful on your site.It can also help you find and fix website errors, submit a sitemap, and create and check a robots.txt file. So, if you don’t have Search Console, you MUST set it up now.
2. Grant access so that Google Ads and Search Console are on the same login
   All of this (including your Search Console) needs to be on the same Google Account so that it can easily be linked and navigated while you’re following the process.If these tools are on different Google accounts, you won’t link everything together for the paid and organic report, so you must keep this in mind.
3. In Google Ads Linked Accounts, link your Search Console.
   The next step is to link your Google Ads account with your Search Console. How can you do it?
   – Click on Tools
   – Go to Setup and choose Linked Accounts
   – Select Search Console; click Details
   – Create a new link – add (+) your website information in this section.
   – Click continue.
   
4. Log in to Search Console and accept the link.
   Once you’re done following the steps mentioned above, you’ll get a link. Make sure to log into the Search Console and accept the link.If you carried out these steps – congratulations! You’ve set up your paid and organic report. What now? For starters, remember that once you’re done linking data, you have to wait. Remember, this feature works only proactively, not retroactively – so, to make the best out of it, you need to wait for a few weeks.

Excel Report Setup and Pivot

Once you’ve waited a sufficient time for the report to track your data, you’re good to go. However, using the report as Google provides can be a complicated and time-consuming task. To save yourself the trouble, we suggest that you should export your report as a Microsoft Excel file and navigate the report on there. Here’s what you need to do:

1. Export as Excel file
2. Set date range
3. Download as an Excel file
4. Ensure that the Excel file shows a few different columns, i.e., Search Result Type, Query, and Metrics.
5. Add a new column: Query Type.
6. Filter out brand queries from Query column from Non-Brand Queries
7. Separate Query Type for each of the elements accordingly.

Powering Google Ads & SEO Search Term Opportunities

So, how do you power the perfect SEO opportunity by utilizing the paid and organic reports? Creating simple filters should be sufficient for this purpose.

First, select cases where both ads and organic listings appear together. Then, create these listings.

First filter:

Organic Clicks = 0
Ad Clicks = All
Show search terms that are triggering ads but not organic listings.

Second filter:

Organic Clicks = All
Ad Clicks = 0
Show search terms that are triggering – organic listings but not ads.

The Final Word

The paid and organic report feature on Google is underutilized. It goes without saying that to ensure that your business is ranking well on Google search, you need to create a paid and organic report. It will give you results analysis like never before and make your ad experience a whole lot better. Create your report now!

For more information on how the report operates, visit here “About measuring paid & organic search results.”

Automated Multi Budget Tracking

The world of Google Ads can be fascinating. In many ways, it can help bring success to your business. Or at least help you take off the idea and make it popular among your desired audience.

However, at the same time, it can also be relatively easy to get lost in, and getting lost in it can mean only one thing: losing your precious pennies. Well, A lot of precious pennies. And if you ask us when it comes to business, every single one counts a lot.

Accidentally going over your budget when it comes to Google Ads, or online ads, in general, is not an uncommon occurrence. Even the best of us end up losing money due to the failure of strictly following a budget. But don’t sweat, the answer lies in automated multi budget tracking.

Why Tracking Your Ad Budget is Important

To successfully incorporate the solution we present, you must first understand the importance of budget tracking. It is an essential practice for individuals; you must have a clear and detailed account of how much money you spend and on what. However, it’s even more critical of practice for businesses.

Wondering why? Let’s analyze a few crucial points quickly.

The Leading Reason for Failure

Lack of money due to losses is one of the main reasons behind most businesses failing. This point is highlighted no matter what expert you go to, so at this point, we are all very well aware of it.

Cash flow, for a business, is the most important thing. It means that you need to have the most efficient management system for your business expenditure.

As a business, you have a set budget that you must follow to ensure success. It doesn’t matter how small or big it is; what matters is that it should be followed. Not only that, but you should also be regularly tracking your budget and look out for any discrepancies.

Gain Autonomy Over Finances

By monitoring business expenses daily, you can virtually gain much-needed autonomy over money matters. The daily figures you will come to terms with will eventually become the markers to see whether you’re over or under your business budget. And at the end of all the work, you’re becoming more financially aware. However, with online ads, this is often not the case.

As mentioned earlier, it is straightforward to go over your budget when it comes to Google Ads. The primary reason behind this may be that many businesses don’t necessarily grasp how to utilize the platform. Another reason, though, is that people fail to keep a track of their spending.

But let’s get one thing straight: the only plausible way to avoid these issues is to control your budget. Or at least monitor it closely, so much so that you have autonomy over the expenditure. It shouldn’t come to a point where you excessively start stressing out over your business’s financial liabilities.

So in a nutshell, yes, that’s right, your expenditure must be followed if you want to ensure that you don’t get carried away. Besides, keeping track of where your money goes as a business is vital in other regards, too – it gives you an organized and cohesive outlook on how well your project is progressing.

The Benefits of Automated Budget Tracking

If we were to sum the benefits of automated budget tracking in a quote, it would probably be this one:

“It only takes a matter of minutes, and it’s the one thing you can do right now to give yourself a clearer snapshot of your finances. As a bonus, it’ll also give you a surge of confidence knowing where all your money is and naturally help you make smarter decisions throughout the days as well — full well knowing it’ll be reflected in the next month’s update.”
– J Money, BudgetsAreSexy.

Why is automated budget tracking the solution? Well, this one’s a no-brainer. Who wouldn’t want a tool that can automatically calculate all of the money, expenses, and budget adjustments? Just imagine – all of that in one place.

Enter the Google Sheets Solution

There are quite a few apps that you can use for tracking your expenses – but what better way than to use a free Google service for the task of managing your ads?

Yes, you heard that, right! You can easily use Google Sheets to keep track of your budget for Google Ads. Not only that, but you can also link the data from other platforms such as Facebook Ads, etc., and put that in for the budget too! And the best part? It is not as complicated as one might assume!

Multi-Budget Tracking on Google Sheets – Walkthrough

Now, you can easily create your very own document using Google Sheets – but for this article, we’ll use a pre-made template. Feel free to check it out here.

So, what are all the incredible features of this document? Here’s a list:

• You can quickly build it using Google Sheets.
• You can centralize it for multiple accounts.
• You can connect it to API.
• You can make all your budget calculations.
• You can make it work with just a few free plugins.

Before we give you an entire rundown of how to use such a document, let’s go through some pointers:

1. Always save your date ranges and budgets beforehand.
2. You can quickly import whatever data you need to incorporate into your tracker.
3. Overlook the tracker regularly to get a snapshot of your performance.

Instructions – Data Input

Let’s look at how you can input data into your document to turn it into a functional budget tracker.

The Starters:

1. Ensure you are logged into the same Google account that has access to your Google Ads account.
2. Install Google Analytics spreadsheet add-on and start using it.

The Input Tab:

1. On your Input sheet, set the campaign start and end date.
2. On your Input sheet, Input Client 1 ‘Name,’ ‘Budget,’ ‘Analytics View ID,’ and ‘Goal Id Number’ in individual cells.
3. Report for Clients 2 and 3.
4. Run the Google Analytics add-on. (Refresh > Add-On > Google Analytics > RUN REPORT).

The Output Tab:

(Optional) On the output tab, you can edit the revenue model.

Additional Things to Keep In Mind:

• Ensure you use the View ID for Google Analytics.
• Ensure that the client’s view profile is set at the same currency as the Google account.

Reading Output

• You’ll get a detailed output of all your data.
• You can look at your daily stand.
• It’s straightforward to read.
• You can further update the output by incorporating data from sources such as Facebook Ads.
• Your output will include a snapshot of your spend goal vs. your revenue.
• Your output will also include management revenue.

Why This Is the Ultimate Solution

Now that we have covered the entire process, let’s get to the main point: why should you use this?

Creating an automated spreadsheet that helps to keep track of your budget can indeed be a lifesaver. The process that we have covered above is hugely beneficial because it allows you to link multiple accounts together and observe your budget altogether, comprehensively in one place.

If you have multiple Google Ads accounts, you must realize how vital tracking your budget can be and how it can be quite a hassle to stay vigilant on all ends. This automated spreadsheet that you create will be the end of all those issues! It will help you track all your budgets in one centralized location.

Moreover, the tool will give you more in-depth insight into your business practices. Let’s be real; there is always room for adjustments for business expenditure, and this tool will help you identify areas where those adjustments can be made. All in all, an automated spreadsheet is the way to go for multi budget tracking.

Google Ads Campaign Experiments

Google Ads is an excellent platform for brands to craft the most functional ad strategies and use them. Within the article, you will find numerous techniques and features that improve your ad experience by miles!

Today, we’re going to focus on one such tool. Ads Campaign Experiment is a fantastic, extremely potent tool that allows you to refine your ads in the most risk-proof way possible.

So, to help you implement this feature into your ad journey, this article will answer the following:

1. What is Ads Campaign Experiments (ACE)?
2. How can you use ACE?
3. How to set up ACE?
4. How to interpret and analyze your report, ACE?

So if you’re looking to use this feature by Google Ads to enhance your strategy – keep reading!

What is “Ads Campaign Experiments”?

“After you’ve finished a draft, instead of applying your changes to your original campaign, you can convert your draft to an experiment. Note that while you can have multiple drafts for a given campaign, only one of those drafts can run as an experiment at a time. As you set up your experiment, you can specify how long you’d like it to run and how much of your original campaign’s traffic (and budget) you’d like it to use.” – Google

So what exactly are these campaign experiments that we (and everyone else) keep talking about? Essentially, they are a way of taking an existing, running campaign and then making your desired changes to a draft version that you can analyze for efficiency.

You’re comparing your experimental version to the original one and looking at how specific changes would impact your goals and overall strategy.

Fundamentally, ACE is a rigorous and systematic way of making changes and deciding whether those changes are useful for your ad experience. This is particularly beneficial because here’s the thing: all Ads accounts should be tested! ACE allows you to challenge your assumptions, improve yourself, keeps your clients and stakeholders happy.

ACE is advantageous as it allows you to quickly test changes to a campaign without actually committing to the changes! You can measure the effect of changes on a campaign before even applying said changes – this provides a robust framework for statistical testing significance while simultaneously minimizing the risk around campaign changes. Additionally, it also allows you to split traffic between original and experiment on a comfortable level.

There are no significant drawbacks to this feature other than some automated bid strategies are not available on experiments. Here’s a list of all the features not supported by ACE:

• Target Search Page Location
• Target Outranking Share
• Target Return on As Spend (ROAS)

How can you use Advanced Campaign Experiments?

You can use ACE to make various changes to your drafts without actually making them your original campaign. Let’s have a look at a few of the examples of how you can use ACE.

1) Bid changes and position changes

You can use ACE to make changes to bids and positions and see what effects they could have on your ad campaign. The idea here would be to test a different ad position that is connected with a separate bid. So, what you can do is bid down 20% on all keywords or try to move from position 2 to 3, or you can bid upon the higher position.

The primary purpose is to make specific edits to the drafts, analyze their results, and then decide whether to apply them to the campaign.

2) Test traffic to a new landing page

Usually, when you introduce new landing pages to your campaign, you might feel like updating the whole plan to accommodate them.

However, what is the need for that commitment when you can easily change your landing pages in the experiment first! That way, if the changes you make don’t give you a strong report, you can not only find out very quickly, but you can roll the changes back as quickly.

It will allow you to conveniently analyze the impact your landing page may have on the ad process’s efficacy, with no risks involved.

3) Test a significant change in ad copy

Additionally, you can run an experiment before making any substantial changes in the ad copy. It is better to do that as it enables you to see whether it makes the desired difference. Again, you’re essentially minimizing the risk of things going wrong with your campaign before making any alterations.

4) Test “Dynamic Keyword Insertion.”

Like the other factors listed above, dynamic keyword insertion can also be experimented upon before committing to any changes. This is another way of minimizing risk and checking a change before making it. You can then examine and analyze why it is crucial to see whether it makes a difference.

5) Test campaign settings

You can also test different campaign settings such as ad rotation setting, search partner network, device bidding, and schedule. Remember that before you choose a setting, testing it can be beneficial for your campaign.

6) Test removal of significant keywords in the campaign

Maybe you want to remove specific keywords, but you aren’t sure of their impact on your campaign. You can test that in the experiments, too, before making a decision! The key to constructing a successful campaign is to make sure that no detriment is made to it because you fail to test any changes you make.

How to set up a campaign experiment?

Following these simple steps laid out by Google, you can easily set up your campaign experiment.

1. Sign in to your Google Ads account.
2. From the page menu on the left, click Drafts & experiments, then click Campaign Experiments at the top of the page.
3. Click the plus (+) button.
4. Click Select draft, and select the draft you want to turn into an experiment.
5. Enter a name for your experiment.
6. Choose a start date for your experiment.
7. Choose an end date for your experiment.
8. Enter the percentage of the original campaign’s budget that you’d like to allocate to your experiment.
9. Search campaigns, under “Advanced Options,” choose how you want to split your experiment.
10. Click Save to finish creating the experiment.

*Once you create your experiment, you can find your experiments listed alongside your regular campaigns, as well as on your “Campaign experiments” page.*

How to interpret the campaign report?

The key idea here is to have a goal in mind about how you decide that the experiment has succeeded! Then, you can figure out how to measure that goal by choosing what metrics to optimize. Keep in mind that you will have to pick between multiple metrics and decide which ones matter more than others in case of contradictory results.

A Few Extra Pointers

Let’s part with a few extra tips and tricks you should keep in mind.

• Experiments are only available for Search and Display Network campaigns – not for Video, App, or Shopping campaigns.
• You can schedule up to 5 experiments for a campaign, but you can only run one experiment at a time.
• It may take some time for your experiment’s ads to complete the review process and start running.
• You can decide what percentage of your original campaign’s budget that you want to allocate to your experiment.

We hope the discussion helps you navigate Campaign Experiments and utilize them for a successful ad campaign. Good luck!

Auditing your Google Ads Account for Maximum Efficiency

Have you ever wondered whether your Google account is as compelling as it should be?

If you have, you’re not the only one! Despite using Google Ads regularly, many people fail to utilize it properly. This problem derives from a lack of knowledge and experience regarding the audit of Google Ads account.

So, to ensure that you don’t succumb to this fate, we have crafted the audit process’s ultimate walkthrough.

Why Are Regular Audits Important?

Doing regular Google Ads audits is crucial as it allows you to gain a stronger hold on your Google advertising account performance. Additionally, it also pinpoints areas that need improvement so that you can put more focus on those areas.

The ultimate objective of the audit is to find places where you’re underperforming so you can get better results and save money on your Google Ads. It will help you refine your Google account for the benefit of all your ad campaigns!

As an overview, here are the four aspects of the audit that we will discuss in this blog post:

1. Account Structure
2. Campaign Settings
3. Ad Groups
4. Other Issues

Account Structure – Structuring your Campaign Properly

Let’s start with the basics. How should campaigns be structured for maximum efficiency? Different issues surround this area, and the succeeding sections aim to help you tackle those.

General Tips

Before we move onto more campaign-specific tips, here are a few general tips to be kept in mind:

• The campaign structure must be well-thought-out.
• The campaign structure should closely match the website structure.
• There is a difference between simple and extended structures – you must choose the one that better suits your ad purpose.
• Make sure that your campaign has a well-segmented structure.
• The ad group quantity you’re working with should be manageable, and you wouldn’t get overwhelmed with all the insights.
• Ensure that the campaigns are separated and not combined (search network and display network should be separated!)
• Review geo-targeting and ensure that it’s functional.

e-Commerce Campaign Structure

For e-Commerce campaign structures, you must ensure two things:

1. Target product categories with search ads
2. Target product pages with dynamic search ads

Google Shopping Campaign Structure

The only thing you must remember while executing a Google Shopping campaign structure is to create a three-tiered account structure so that your campaign priority is high.

Campaign Settings – Making Necessary Tweaks

The second most important part of the audit process is to fix your campaign settings. While we will point out any relevant setting for each of the sections that we discuss, let’s look at some general ones pertinent to your Google Ads account’s efficiency.

Location

Campaign > Settings > Additional Settings > Location

Here, the default setting will be “show to people with interest in your target location” – you must change this! This setting will show your ads to everyone interested in your target location, not just people there.

Unless your ad’s purpose requires you to involve people in other geographical areas, this is a particularly detrimental ad setting and must be changed to avoid extra incurring costs. Show to people who are in target location only; it saves you money.

Ad Schedule

Campaign > Ad Schedule

According to Google:

“You can use the ad schedule to:

Specify certain hours or days of the week when you want your ads to show.
Set bid adjustments to increase or decrease your bids for specific days and times.
By default, your Google Ads campaigns are set to show ads “compelling.” This means your ads are eligible to appear throughout each calendar day. Keep in mind that if no one searches for your keywords at the specified time or day you scheduled, your ads are not going to show.”

In that regard, for your audit, you should utilize the ad schedule to check if any bid adjustments have been made. The good thing is that you can review adjustments across different technology such as mobile devices etc., via this page, which allows you a greater insight into your campaign and maximum success.

Ad Group Review – Tips to the Ultimate Audit

Here’s what you need to look out for.

ETAs

ETA stands for Expanded Text Ads and is the latest feature provided by Google. Here are a few pointers about the new feature, as found on Google’s feature:

“Expanded text ads overview
Expanded text ads are similar to the text ads you’re used to, but with a few key differences.

Expanded text ads have three headline fields. The first two headline fields are required, while the third is optional. The extra headline field allows you to include additional text in your ads. You can use up to 30 characters per headline. The headlines will appear next to each other, separated by a vertical pipe (“|”). Depending on the size of your potential customer’s screen, they may wrap to a second line. The third headline can appear more often on wide mobile devices.

Expanded text ads also have two 90-character description fields, giving you more control over your ad’s messaging.

The domain of your display URL is based on your final URL domain. Google Ads will use the domain from your final URL and show it as your ad’s display URL. For example, if your URL is www.example.com/outdoor/hiking/shoes, your ad’s display URL will show as www.example.com. The display URL can include two optional “Path” fields. (…)

Expanded text ads are mobile-optimized. A preview of your ad in both desktop and mobile format is generated for you while you’re creating your expanded text ad.

The text above reflects how much of an advanced feature Google’s ETA is. This makes it a crucial part of your audit process. Therefore, keep in mind that:

• It is essential to see that all headlines have been filled.
• Similarly, it is significant to fill all description lines too.
• You’re supposed to use as much ad space as possible – this is key for your ad’s success.
• Incorporating the right path in the URL is of the essence.
• ETA space may vary according to ad type – check before you structure your ad.

Ad Copy

Reviewing the ad copy is the next step in your audit journey. You should be getting your Ad copy made by someone who has a good command of the English language. They should also incorporate proven techniques such as CTAs (Calls to Action) to maximize the scope of success for your ad.

Keywords

While incorporating keywords into your campaign, stay mindful of:

• Dynamic keyword insertion
• Incorporation of keywords in multiple ads across campaigns
• Quantity of keywords should be manageable – a tightly defined concept is the way to go (so don’t use too many keywords!)
• Relevance to the ad groups
• The broad match types (these should make sense)

Ad Extensions

• Review ad extensions to check they’re not running any core extensions, especially if they’re service-based.
• Check call/call-out extension to get deeper insights.

Audience Review

Different audiences apply, but Google Accounts should have adjustments on those audiences – review those!

This can be done by utilizing Google Ads insights. Google Audience Insights is designed to help the user by giving valuable information about the people in your remarketing lists and finding new audiences.

Suppose you’re using Google Ads conversion tracking, for example. In that case, Audience Insights can be a potent source in terms of helping you find the audiences related to your “All converters” remarketing list. This can, in turn, help you expand your targeting/adjust your bids to reach these high-performing audiences better.

Audience review is essential for both shopping and search ads as it allows you to gauge a better picture of your consumer profile.

Others – Final Adjustments

Although we have tackled the most significant issues that you can face while auditing in the discussion above, there are other things that you should be doing to avoid any other problems that may arise. For example:

• Execute campaign experimentation
• Undertake 404 error checking through script error checker
• Review Account Settings – first check that auto-tagging is turned on, then review inventory type.
• Check recommendations – they apply automatically after 14 days, so make sure they are turned off as they are not always beneficial and often unnecessarily cost you money.
• Review conversion rates on landing pages.
• You should also review bounce rates and exit rates on landing pages.

Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning in Google Ads

In the 21st century, everything has at least some dependence on artificial intelligence. AI is continuously making our lives easier; from convenience to time-efficiency, AI has introduced all excellent things to our lives.

So, what if we told you that your Google Ads account is also increasingly dependent on AI? Would it even be a surprise, considering all the magical things it can do based on just a few numbers?

The techniques that optimize and enhance your Ads experience heavily rely upon the use of AI! The truth is, Google Ads is rapidly moving towards an utterly AI-centered landscape, and one can determine that it is indeed for the better.

How Is Artificial Intelligence A Part of Google Ads?

If you were to undertake the journey of optimizing your Google Ads yourself, you would very quickly realize that it is a complex learning process that comprises understanding a wide range of concepts. As a cherry on top, lots of different data and statistics are involved – so many that they make it virtually impossible for an average human being to stay on top of things.

That’s where AI and machine learning algorithms come in. They take care of all the overwhelming facts and figures needed to optimize your Google Accounts. Moreover, AI does it in a way that saves time and delivers a far more powerful performance than our manual efforts ever could.

While humans are (and hopefully will always) be in charge of strategy, creativity, and supervision – AI is here to take care of everything else, especially when it comes to Google Ads.

This blog post discusses some of the most powerful AI features that Google Ads provides its users. We’re going to cover:

1. Auto Rotate for Budget and Ads
2. Dynamic Search Ads
3. Smart Bidding Strategies
4. Lookalike Audiences
5. Data-Driven Attribution Model

Defining AI and Machine Learning

Before we get into all that, let’s get the context. What is “artificial intelligence?” And even more so, what is “machine learning?”AI is an umbrella term for technology that enables machines to mimic humans – it’s what makes computers “smart.” As mentioned earlier, AI is the crux of all technology in the 21st century.

On the other hand, machine learning is the technical term for the same technique used to develop AI by giving computers adequate information and enabling them to learn from that data to extrapolate information and streamline processes.

Auto-Rotate for Budget and Ads

Ad rotation is the way we deliver your ads on both the Search Network and the Display Network. If you have multiple ads within an ad group, your ads will rotate because no more than one ad from your account can show at a time. Use the ad rotation setting to specify how often you’d like the ads in your ad group to be served relative to one another. – Google

Optimize Delivery of Budget
To optimize the delivery of budget, Google Ads provides users with two options. Standard and Accelerated. Standard is the recommended option by Google, and it’s because this option uses the machine learning algorithm.

Optimize the Rotation of Ads
Similarly, for the optimization of ad rotation, you get two options: Optimize and Rotate Indefinitely. Here, Optimize is the option that uses the machine learning algorithm and will use artificial intelligence to use adequate data to optimize the rotation of your ad.

Dynamic Search Ads

Dynamic Search Ads are the easiest way to find customers searching on Google for precisely what you offer. Ideal for advertisers with a well-developed website or a large inventory, Dynamic Search Ads uses your website content to target your ads and help fill in your keyword-based campaigns’ gaps. Without Dynamic Search Ads, even well-managed Google Ads accounts with many keywords can miss relevant searches, experience delays getting ads written for new products, or get out of sync with what’s available on advertisers’ websites. – Google

Dynamic Search Ads have been around for a while. How they work is by making you set up parameters via auto targets – it enables Google to choose the most relevant page and then populate the ad headline accordingly. All you’re supposed to do yourself is to add negatives terms and monitor search terms. This will allow you to accelerate the machine learning aspect of this process.

Google claims that the dynamic search feature gives the following:

• 30% higher CTRs
• 30% lower CPCs
• 35% lower CPAs

Smart Bidding Strategies

Smart Bidding is a subset of automated bid strategies that use machine learning to optimize conversions or conversion value in every auction—a feature known as “auction-time bidding.” Target CPA, Target ROAS, Maximize conversions, Maximize conversion value, and Enhanced CPC (ECPC) are all Smart Bidding strategies. – Google

Smart bidding strategies are the crux of machine learning on your Google Ads account.
This area is where you tell Google you want to automate bidding within your desired parameter.

Then, using its AI and machine learning algorithms, Google comes up with a way to work towards that goal. It provides you with different strategies, and you can use them for your campaign.

The strategies presented by Google coordinate with the marketing funnel. For each level of the funnel, there is a strategy that corresponds.

For Awareness, we have:

Target Search Page Location

Target Outranking Share

For Consideration, we have:

Maximize Clicks

For Conversions, we have:

Enhanced CPC
Target CPA
Target ROAs
Maximize Conversions

Again, the type of strategy you use will vary according to the purpose of your campaign. One thing’s for sure, though; smart bidding adds value at every stage of the conversion process!
Maximize Conversions.

Lookalike Audiences

“Similar audiences targeting allows you to show ads to people who share characteristics with people on your existing remarketing lists.” – Google.

This feature also uses the machine learning algorithm. Your lookalike or “similar” audience is generated from existing remarketing lists. Audiences with behavior similar to those in existing plans from Google’s user data pool will be amalgamated in your “similar” audience.

The similar list adjusts by the remarketing list – a particularly AI characteristic of it. One thousand cookies are used to generate lookalike audiences, and they are automatically generated in the shared audience library. Through this feature, Google helps you find people who share characteristics with your site visitors and show your ads to people whose search behavior is similar to yours.

Data-Driven Attribution Model

“Before making a purchase or completing another valuable action on your website, people may click or interact with several of your ads. Typically, all credit for the conversion is given to the last ad customers clicked. But was it that ad that made them decide to choose your business?

Data-driven attribution gives credit for conversions based on how people engage with your various ads and decide to become your customers. It uses data from your account to determine which ads, keywords, and campaigns have the most significant impact on your business goals. You can use data-driven attribution for a website, store visit, and Google Analytics conversions from Search Network campaigns.” – Google.

When you change your conversion action settings in Google Ads, smart bidding will automatically update – and that’s all you need to get started with this feature. The data-attribution model uses your account’s conversion data to calculate – the actual contribution of each search and clicks along the conversion path.

You can analyze companies’ different customer approaches with this feature. This would help determine where each store should sit.

Other than that, this feature is Google’s black box. We don’t know much about how it works, rather than the fact that it is the ultimate machine learning algorithm.

Final Thoughts

As we wrap up this concise yet comprehensive discussion of some of Google’s best AI features, keep in mind that this list is by no means exhaustive. There are many other features that Google utilizes that serve as an example of just how advanced artificial intelligence and machine learning have become.

Responsive Search Ads – The Ultimate Guide

Since Responsive Search Ads was first introduced, it has become one of Google’s most innovative, advanced features.

This guide will walk you through what Responsive Search Ads are, some of the best practices associated with them, and the benefits you can get. Without further ado, let’s get right into it!

Defining “Responsive Search Ads”

“Responsive search ads let you create an ad that adapts to show more text — and more relevant messages — to your customers. Enter multiple headlines and descriptions when creating a responsive search ad, and over time, Google Ads will automatically test different combinations and learn which combinations perform best. By adapting your ad’s content to match potential customers’ search terms more closely, responsive search ads may improve your campaign’s performance.”

So, what are responsive search ads? Essentially, Responsive Search Ads are Google’s latest, most flexible, and quite possibly the best search ad format. They enable you to write up to 15 different headlines and up to 4 other descriptions.

This makes the ads unique, as, with traditional search ads, you can only write your headlines and descriptions together to create one monotonous ad text.

With Responsive Search ads, all the headlines and descriptions can be arranged in 43,680 different permutations! In short, the ad testing possibilities with Responsive Search Ads are genuinely endless.

Additionally, Google automatically tests different combinations of headlines and descriptions to analyze which combination performs best. This ensures that eventually, your Responsive Search Ads serve the best possible message to different searchers depending on the keyword they search for, their device, their past browsing behavior, and other signals.

Benefits of Responsive Search Ads

Responsive search ads can help you in a variety of ways. Google claims that the ads enable you to:

• Create flexible ads that adapt to device widths, which gives you more room to share your message with potential customers.
• Save time by providing multiple headlines and description options and then leaves to Google to show your customers the most suitable combinations.
• Tailor your headlines and descriptions to fit your customers’ locations, regular locations, or locations of interest better.
• Reach more potential customers with multiple headlines and description options.
• Increase ad group performance by attracting more clicks and conversions.

Responsive Search Ads – Features

Now that we have made you sufficiently aware of just how great Responsive Search Ads from Google are let’s dive deeper into the why.

Size – “The Largest Ads to Reach SERP”

The Responsive Search Ads can show up to three 30-character headlines, a display URL with two 15-character path fields, and up to two 90-character description fields, making them the largest ads ever to reach the SERP.

Additionally, the ads are also capable of serving alongside any of your ad extensions! With up to 3000 characters of the complete text, Responsive Search Ads have left behind Expanded Search Ad biting the dust!

Considerable Flexibility

Responsive Search Ads are quite flexible. Smaller screens (like mobile) or busy SERPs may show fewer Responsive Search Ad components, so don’t always expect to see your 3rd headline or 2nd description.

Your responsive search ad will always at least show two headlines and a description, though, so it will always be more significant than traditional ads! This flexibility is reminiscent of Google’s Responsive Search Ads, which show different shapes and sizes following the users’ devices.

Better Than Expanded Search Ads

Other than the size, Responsive Search Ads are also better than Expanded Search Ads in different ways. As indicated by Google, Responsive Search Ads have a 5 – 15% higher CTR contrasted with standard search ads. This suggests its functionality and just one of the many advantages it brings to campaigners.

Like other features on Google, Responsive Search Ads are available both on desktop and mobile. Essentially, these ads combine machine learning with expanded text ads and ad extensions and give you a highly-persuasive ad that urges people to click-through and learn about your offer/product!

Machine Learning At Its Best

One of the unique features is its use of machine learning! To determine your most effective ad combinations, Google automatically tests different variations of your ad using the group of headlines and descriptions that you set. This is machine learning at its best!

How To Create Successful Responsive Search Ads

To create successful, Responsive Search Ads, you should use some of the best practices listed by Google. Let’s have a quick rundown of these.

1. Add as many headlines and descriptions as you can

Adding unique and relevant headlines to your ad can have just the right impact on its success. To increase the likelihood that your ad shows, keep in mind the following pointers indicated by Google.

• Provide at least 8-10 headlines.
• Provide at least five unique headlines. (Shouldn’t repeat the same or similar phrases.)
• Include a keyword in 2 headlines and have at least three other headlines that do NOT include your keywords.
• Include at least two unique descriptions.
• Try highlighting additional information about your product or service that isn’t mentioned in your headlines.

2. Recycle content from your existing text ads

You can conveniently recycle and reuse existing headlines and descriptions from your high-performing text ads. Essentially, you’ll be taking the best parts of those and incorporating them in Responsive Search Ads, ensuring better performance.

3. Incorporate popular keywords into your headlines

As suggested by Google, you should include keywords that serve your ad group most often in your headlines. This will enable you to significantly increase your ad combinations’ relevance for search users, improving your responsive search ads’ effectiveness.
So, if there are five keywords in your ad group and three of them have the most traffic, you should add those keywords to your headlines to improve ad performance!

4. Improve Ad strength

Remember that your ultimate goal should be to get to a ‘Good’ or ‘Excellent’ ad strength rating. Ad strength essentially allows you to get feedback that can focus on providing the right messages to your customers.

5. Don’t over-pin

Pinning headlines or descriptions can be beneficial in ensuring that your ad’s essential parts always show.

However, they also restrict the messages and automatic variant testing that Google is capable of. By pinning more than necessary, you’ll be limiting the performance of your ad and therefore affecting its success negatively.

6. Test only one Responsive Search Ad per ad group

Remember that Google is automatically testing the different elements of your Responsive Search Ads against one another. This means that you don’t need to include multiple Responsive Search Ads in the same ad group. Testing more than one responsive search ad can prevent you from slowing down the optimization of your ads.

The Key Takeaway

Concluding, we can confidently determine that Responsive Search Ads enable you to considerably cut your workload and save money by minimizing the time needed to test and manage ad variations. In short, Google does all the work for you while you sit back and enjoy the best of machine learning, making your ad campaigns successful!

Custom Audiences and Life Events: The Unsung Heroes of Audience Targeting

As an ads campaigner, you must already know of Google Ads’ potency. Its competence and high-functionality in helping us achieve all our ad experience goals is not an unknown fact. Smart features like Responsive Search Ads and Data Attribution Model are well-known and take the well-deserving spotlight for being game-changers for digital marketing and advertising altogether.

However, the thing about Google is that just when you think it has reached the very peak of functionality, it hits you with even more awesome features. And some of these never get the recognition that they deserve!

Today, we bring to your attention two such features: Custom Audiences and Life Events. While not wholly unknown, these features aren’t as discussed as some other elements offered by Google.

In this article, we will cover all there is to know about these two components, how they help you with audience targeting, and how you should be incorporating them into your ad strategy as a whole.

So without waiting any further, let’s get right into it!

Why is Audience Targeting Important

Advertisers must understand the value of audience targeting, as it can very possibly be the make or break factor behind your entire campaign’s success. The more specifically you target your audience, the better results you’ll get in sales and CTRs.

For this reason, it becomes essential for all brands to implement targeted advertising in their strategies. Lucky for us, Google plays a vital role in assisting us in creating an ideal audience by providing many features, including Custom Audiences and Life Events.

Custom Audiences – What is It?

Custom audiences is a powerful feature offered by Google that makes audience targeting incredibly easy for you. It has an accuracy rate of 50.4 percent, making it an essential, must-use component.

Essentially, the Google Ads feature allows your business to use customer match marketing and create a custom audience from your email lists, which you can upload directly to Google Ads. This improves audience targeting and enables your brand to concentrate its sources and effort on a very particular set of people that are likely to engage with their message.

According to Google, this is what the feature entails:

“Custom audiences help you reach your ideal audience by entering relevant keywords, URLs, and apps.

You can set up a custom audience in your Display, Discovery, Gmail, and Video campaigns by adding specific keywords, URLs, and apps related to your product or service. Google Ads will then show ads to people with these interests or purchase intentions on pages, apps, and videos.”

Essentially, the primary purpose of custom audiences is to choose the audience that fits your campaign’s needs the best! The mechanism of the algorithm this feature employs is based on your campaign goals and bidding strategy. The system identifies and interprets all the data that comes from and chooses an audience focused on either reach, consideration, or performance.

In short, Google integrates complex AI practices that reduce your workload as a campaigner and ensures that the ad experience is reaching the right people.

How to Create Custom Audiences?

Here’s how you can set custom audiences through Audience manager:

1. Sign in to your Google Ads account.
2. Click the tools icon in the upper right corner.
3. Under “Shared library,” select the option of Audience manager.
4. From the menu at the top, select the Custom Audiences page.
5. Click the plus button to create a new list.
6. Fill in a name for your custom audience.
7. Then select the following two:
   People with any of these interests or purchase intentions.
   People who searched for any of these terms on Google.
8. Click Save audience.

If you want to set custom audiences within your campaign, you can do that too. Here’s what to do:

1. Sign in to your Google Ads account.
2. From the navigation bar on the left, click on the name of the specific campaign you are adding custom audiences to.
3. From the page menu to the right of the navigation bar, click on Audiences.
4. Click the pencil icon Edit.
5. The “Edit audiences” section will appear. In that section, click Browse.
6. Select Your custom audiences.
7. Select the following:
   People with any of these interests or purchase intentions.
   People who searched for any of these terms on Google.
8. Click Save audience.

Life Events – What is It?

Life events by Google is another feature that enhances audience targeting and makes sure that the people you’re focusing your brand message and resources on are the ones interested in it! Google does this by enabling you to:

“Engage with viewers on YouTube, Gmail, and Display around important life milestones, like graduating from college, moving homes, or getting married. By understanding when these moments are taking place, you can tailor your advertising to reach the right users with the right messages.

Like other important milestones, life events are infrequent, and as a result, may reach smaller audiences compared to affinities. However, since life events may correspond with many related purchasing decisions, they’re often more extensive than in-market categories, communicating with a single purchasing decision. For example, someone who’s about to move will likely buy new furniture, moving services, mortgages, and other moving-related items during the months of their move.”

Since Google introduced the ability to target users based on their recent or upcoming significant life events, Google Ads has become an even more useful portal to target an ideal audience. Moreover, recently Google added to the tactics it provides and released additional life events to make audience targeting even more nuanced!

This feature allows you to create a target audience based on the following life events/milestones:

1. Business Creation

• Recently Started a Business
• Starting a Business Soon

2. College Graduation

• Graduating Soon
• Recently Graduated

3. Home Renovation

• Recently Renovated Home
• Renovating Home Soon

4. Job Change

• Recently Started New Job
• Starting New Job Soon

5. Marriage

• Getting Married Soon
• Recently Married

6. Moving

• Moving Soon
• Recently Moved

7. New Pet

• Adding Cat to Household Soon
• Adding Dog to Household Soon
• Recently Added Cat to Household
• Recently Added Dog to Household

8. Purchasing a Home

• Purchasing a Home Soon
• Recently Purchased a Home

9. Retirement

• Recently Retired
• Retiring Soon

How to Set Up Life Events?

To utilize life events as a target advertising factor, you will have to set it up. It’s a relatively simple process – just follow the steps laid down below:

1. Sign in to your Ads account.
2. Click Audiences on the left-hand sidebar.
   (In the middle of the screen, you’ll see a table that shows all your audiences. It will be empty if you haven’t defined any audiences yet.)
3. Click on the plus sign next to Audiences to create a new list.
4. Next, click Select to add an ad group. Choose one of your ad groups from a campaign.
5. The table below selects the type of audience you want, i.e., Intent and life events.
6. Below Life Events, you’ll see several life event choices – click on the event that is best suited to your ad group marketing message!
7. Click Save.

The Key Takeaway

Although they’re not discussed often, these two features can make the ultimate difference to your ad campaign strategies. And considering how easy they are to set up now that we have given you a comprehensive walkthrough, you really should check them out.

Advanced Remarketing Techniques for Google Ads

“Remarketing.” A word we have all heard at one point or the other – but do we know the meaning of it?

Here’s what Google has to say; “Remarketing is a way to connect with people who previously interacted with your website or mobile app. It allows you to strategically position your ads in front of these audiences as they browse Google or its partner websites, thus helping you increase your brand awareness or remind those audiences to make a purchase.”

So if remarketing is as great as it sounds, how do we implement it into our Google Ads accounts and use it to amplify our existing marketing strategy?

If you’re looking for an answer, then you’ve come to just the right place. This article will be covering everything you need to know about remarketing. From the importance of remarketing, how it works, GDN remarketing, remarketing lists for search ads, shopping, if statements, customer matches, dynamic remarketing, lookalike audience, creative sizes, and many other issues and tips associated with remarketing.

Importance of Remarketing

Let’s start with the basics – what is the importance of remarketing, and why are we talking about it?

Remarketing is one of those underrated features on Google Ads that not many people can fully appreciate the importance of. This is particularly detrimental, considering how Google Ads can be quite a useful platform for implementing remarketing strategies. Some brands use Google Ads, specifically just for remarketing, because it is sometimes the only profitable use of the platform.

Remarketing, in general, is also very useful if you are looking to make some tangible improvements in your business. It is:

1. A good way of driving conversions effectively
2. A lot cheaper than some of the other methods

It is a proven fact that conversion rates increase considerably more with ad impressions, so we definitely know that remarketing is effective.

Google Display Network Remarketing

Let’s start by discussing remarketing for Google Display Network, both from a strategic and practical perspective.

“The Google Display Network can help you reach people with targeted Display ads while they’re browsing their favorite websites, showing a friend a YouTube video, checking their Gmail account, or using mobile devices and apps.” – Google.

To approach remarketing for Google Display Network, the key is to look at it from a multi-layered perspective where you need to be targeting different audiences that have a different intent with a different creative method.

Not sure what we mean? Worry not – the following specifications can be used as a tentative guideline to how you can set up remarketing in GDN according to the marketing funnel. According to the characteristics of the audience in each funnel category, you will have different content type, bid, goal and landing page for the retargeting ad. Here is an overview:

High funnel height:

Audience – engaged briefly with the site, homepage viewers that did not purchase
Creative guidelines – branded banner
Bid – low
Goal – branding, and awareness
Landing page – homepage

Medium funnel height:

Audience – Highly engaged users, no checked out, non-product specific. Time on site > 1 minute or related viewed > 3 pages.
Creative guidelines – General product related.
Bid – Medium
Goal – Create product awareness
Landing page – Product category

OR

Audience – Product category user but did not purchase
Creative guidelines – Product or region-specific
Bid – Medium
Goal – Reinvigorate interest in the product
Landing page – Product page

Low funnel height:

Audience – Cart abandoner / Booking inquiry reached
Creative guidelines – Offer related to push over the line.
Bid – High
Goal – Transnational
Landing Page – Checkout Cart / Booking Form

OR

Audience – 30 days after purchase/booking
Creative guidelines – Similar product or accessory
Bid – High
Goal – Transactional
Landing page – Product page

Another thing to keep in mind while GDN remarketing is frequency capping.

“A feature that limits the number of times your Display or Video ads appear to the same person. Frequency is the number of times a user sees ads in your Display or Video campaign over a given time period. Frequency capping works differently on Display campaigns and Video campaigns.” – Google.

You must set a limit on the frequency through this feature. For Display ads, usually, five per ad group per day is sufficient. Additionally, be mindful of content exclusions as well when you’re setting up your remarketing strategy. 

“Content exclusion settings let you opt-out of showing your ads alongside certain categories of websites, videos, and mobile apps that may not be appropriate for your brand or serve your advertising goals.” – Google. 

To execute the ideal remarketing, you should be running relevant and appropriate content only. This feature ensures that you can do that. 

Remarketing Lists for Search Ads (RLSA) and If Statements

First things first – what are remarketing lists for search ads? 

“Remarketing lists for search ads (RLSA) is a feature that lets you customize your search ads campaign for people who have previously visited your site, and tailor your bids and ads to these visitors when they’re searching on Google and search partner sites.” – Google.

Essentially remarketing lists for search ads are audiences that run on top of search ads. With RLSA people find keywords through keyword and audience targeting. 

“When people leave your site without buying anything, for example, remarketing lists for search ads help you connect with these potential customers when they continue looking for what they need using Google Search. You can set your bids, create ads, or select keywords, keeping in mind that these customers have previously visited your website.” 

According to Google, the two main strategies that you can use for RLSA for remarketing are as follows:

1. You can optimize bids for your existing keywords for visitors on your remarketing lists.
2. You can bid on keywords that you don’t normally bid on just for people who have recently visited your site or have converted on your site in the past.

Now, coming on to “if statements.” They are known as “if functions” and are a key element for other major platforms like Python and Microsoft Excel.

“IF functions allow you to insert a specific message in your text ad when a condition is met, and a default text when it does not. This makes your ads tailored to each search and more relevant to potential customers. Unlike ad customizers, IF functions do not use a feed.” – Google

Suppose statements fit in really well with the RLSA audiences because they operate within search text ads. In simple words, what you do is to update an ad by considering what you would show your audience in the search IF they meet certain criteria. Essentially, you decide what your audience sees based on the if statement. To remarket, a few examples of how this works would be

1. IF the visitor is visiting the first time, you can show them something like: “Talk to one of our specialists today!”
2. IF the visitor is returning, the ad copy would include something like: “Still can’t decide? Talk to us today!”

Relevant syntax:
={=IF(condition, alternate text):default text}
{=IF(condition IN(option 1, option 2, option 3), alternate text): default text}

Customer Match (Email Targeting)

Customer match works the same way as a retargeting list. It essentially matches to user emails. 

“Customer Match lets you use your online and offline data to reach and re-engage with your customers across Search, the Shopping tab, Gmail, YouTube, and Display. Using information that your customers have shared with you, Customer Match will target ads to those customers and other customers like them.” – Google.

It can be used for retargeting similarly to RLSA.

Dynamic Remarketing

Dynamic remarketing is another aspect that is critical for any e-commerce campaign. Additionally, it can also sometimes be used for service-based clients. 

“Remarketing allows you to show ads to people who have previously visited your website or used your mobile app. Dynamic remarketing takes this a step further, letting you show previous visitors ads that contain products and services they viewed on your site. With messages tailored to your audience, dynamic remarketing helps you build leads and sales by bringing previous visitors back to your site to complete what they started.” – Google.

This is one of the best remarketing features offered by Google because of the following advantages: 

• Ads that scale with your products or services.
• Simple yet powerful feeds.
• High-performance layouts.
• Real-time bid optimization.

Similar Audiences

Lastly, let’s look at similar audiences and how they can be used for remarketing purposes. 

“Similar audiences targeting allows you to show ads to people who share characteristics with people on your existing remarketing lists.” & “Similar audience targeting is available for the Display Network, the Search Network, YouTube, Gmail, App, and Discovery ads.” – Google

These are generated from existing remarketing lists, so an important aspect of remarketing. As the remarketing list changes, a similar list will automatically adjust. Keep in mind that it needs 1000 cookies to generate, and it is automatically generated in the shared audience library.

Key Takeaway

Remarketing is a remarkable tool to upscale your Google Ads results by adopting a more targeted approach. It helps you identify the audience group interested in your product/service and convert them from a lead to a paying customer.
So make sure that you start using the techniques elaborated above for better Google Ads results.

A Guide to Ad Customizers

As we already know, Google Ads is a compelling platform with many features that are always at hand to help you enhance and refine your ads and marketing strategy. However, certain features on the platform are underrated and often overlooked when they should be fully embraced and utilized to enhance your position as a brand.

Today, we’re going to look at one such feature – namely ad customizers, that has very few people using it and is yet an extremely potent tool to be integrated into your strategy.

So, without further ado, let’s learn more.

Introduction to Ad Customizers

Let’s get the basics right. What are ad customizers?

“Ad customizers adapt your text ads to what someone is searching for, which device she’s using, where he’s located, or even the date, time of day, or day of the week. They can insert a price, the time left before a sale ends, and any other text you define. For example, a line of text that says, “Prices starting as low as ____!” could be filled in with the right sale price—and that’s just the beginning.”

Ad customizers are essentially using business data to adapt and refine your ads to fit your audiences’ needs.

This is how they work, as per Google:

• You can include ad customizers anywhere in your text ad except in the final URL field. These ads only show on the Search Network.
• Ad customizers are parameters that go within braces {like this}. The parameter gets replaced by dynamic text when a user’s search triggers your ad.
• Customizers fill in your ad text using ad customizer data to upload to Google Ads in a spreadsheet file. Customizers reference the name of the data set, as well as an attribute it includes. With customizers, you can also provide a default value if your ad customizer does not show or the text exceeds the character limit.

Ad customizers are very underrated – very few people use them and know how to integrate them into their marketing strategies. That can be quite detrimental because this technique is perfect for e-commerce and should be given way more attention than it is!

Set-Up and Review Ad Customizers

Setting Up

Setting up ad customizers is not as complicated as one might think. Here’s what you do. According to Google: 

• As you create a text ad, include a customizer anywhere except for the final URL field.
• Use the format {=DataSetName.AttributeName}.
• If you’ve named your file “Mixers,” for example, and want to reference a custom attribute called “Model (text),” your customizer would be {=Mixers. Model}.
• You can check a few examples of how customizers look within the ad text.
• Make sure to match the name of your ad customizer data and attributes exactly.
• Your customizers might cause your text to go over the character limits. This is fine, but make sure that the values that replace your customizers won’t exceed the limit.
• Save your ad as usual.
• Make sure this ad falls within an ad group that also includes an ad.

Reviewing Ad Customizers

Once you’ve uploaded a file with ad customizer data, here are a few things to be wary of:

• Look up the performance of individual customizers (and the values they display).
• Have you specified values for the campaign, ad group, or keyword associated with the ad whose customizers aren’t showing?

Additional Tips

A few other things that Google wants you to keep in mind while setting up ad customizers are:

• You cannot pause an ad customizer, but you can pause the ads that contain them or remove the data associated with them.
• To pause the ads that contain them: simply pause your ads as usual.
• Remove any data that the customizers reference.
• If you remove the whole data set, you won’t re-start your customizers by uploading a new data set and naming it the same thing. Editing your data (rather than removing the whole data set) is a better option if you’d like your customizers to keep running.

Advantages and Example Uses

Advantages

Throughout this article, we have emphasized multiple times that ad customizers come with considerable benefits. These benefits include but are not limited to the following:

• Ad customizers show custom pricing for several product variables.
• Ad customizers enable easier management of variables.
• Ad customizers can increase the personalization of ad relevance.
• Ad customizers provide ideal, tailored messaging.
• Ad customizers improve scalability.
• Ad customizers also help you develop reporting.

Example Uses

How can ad customizers help you in different scenarios? Here’s how:

Travel: different prices per destination will be shown to your audience
Service-based: you can advertise your location to different clients
E-commerce products: pricing and discounts
Additional: advertise an offer to specific locations or on a particular day of the week

Setting Up the Business Data Feed

Remember: ad customizers are a part of the more prominent business data feed, so to set up your customizers, you will also need to set up your business data feed.

Here’s how you can do it:

• Upload your data file
• Sign in to your Google Ads account
• Click the tools icon in the upper right corner of your account.
• Under “Setup” click Business data.
• Click the plus button to add your data feed.

You can add:

• Ad customizer data. Show your ads with business data.
• For information on additional elements, visit here.
• Name your new data source (it’s best to use a short name without any spaces + make sure not to re-use the name of an old data set or feed that you’ve removed.)
• Click Choose file and select the file you’d like to upload.
• Click Apply.

Additionally, you can view your feed by following these instructions:

• View your data feed details
• Sign in to your Google Ads account.
• Click the tools icon in the upper right corner of your account.
• Under “Setup,” click Business data.
• Click on the data source you’d like to look at.
• You’ll see a detailed view of that data source.
• Click the columns icon Columns, then choose Modify columns.
• Click Performance to show statistics for how ads performed when a particular item appeared with the ad.
• Select the metrics you want to add.
• Click Apply.

Best Practices for Writing Ads

To wrap this article up, let’s part with some of the best ad practices that will help you use ad customizers better.

• Ads and feed should be written together.
• Reference the feed {=feed1.product1}
• Preview as you write in the online version
• Default fields: {=feed1.product1:default-text}
• Duplicate in editor
• Report in aggregate using labels, test against existing ads

Google Analytics for Google Ads

Just when you think Google Ads cannot get any better – it does.

If you’re here, reading this article, then the chances are that you already know Google Ads’ basic features. While those features themselves are sufficient to give you an optimum experience, I’m sure you have often wondered how to make your Google Ads account even more contributive in terms of success.

Well, the answer to all that speculation comes in the form of this shiny pearl called Google Analytics.

Yes! You can make your Google Ads account ten-folds more productive by linking it to Google Analytics. Want to find out more? Then keep scrolling!  

What is Google Analytics?

First things first, what is Google Analytics? 

Google Analytics is a powerful tool offered by Google that provides the user with in-depth data and analytics reports. Analytics integrates multiple Google tools such as Google Search Console, Google Data Studio, and Google Ads. Analytics enables you to control real-time data, custom reporting options, advanced segmentation, and flow visualization – all very seamlessly.

What are the advantages of linking Google Ads with Google Analytics?

Now, about Google Ads – why should you bother linking it to Google Analytics?

Simply put, it allows you to do the following:

• Import post-click data into Ads to understand engagement (which shows you what users are doing on your website)
• Acquire more audience data for remarketing purposes
• Execute efficient conversion tracking and revenue tracking 

But honestly, that is just the tip of the iceberg! According to Google, linking Ads with Analytics would introduce you to many benefits. Such as: 

• See ad and site performance data in the Google Ads reports in Analytics.

• Import Analytics goals and Ecommerce transactions into your Google Ads account.

• Import cross-device conversions into your Google Ads account when you activate Google signals.

• Import Analytics metrics like Bounce Rate, Avg. Session Duration and Pages/Session into your Google Ads account.

• Enhance your Google Ads remarketing with Analytics Remarketing and Dynamic Remarketing.

• Get richer data in the Analytics Multi-Channel Funnels reports.

However, like everything else in the world, linking Ads to Analytics also comes with certain drawbacks. According to Google, the following are some cons that you may have to face while linking Ads to Analytics:

• Each Analytics property can have a maximum of 400 link groups.

• Each link group can have a maximum of 1,000 Google Ads accounts.

• You cannot link Analytics and Google Ads when Google Ads (MCC or individual account) is disabled/canceled.

That being said, it is evident that the advantages of the process outweigh the drawbacks. But hey! Don’t believe me – try for yourself. Let’s walk through how you can do that. 

Linking Google Analytics & Google Ads

So – the big question: how can you link Google Analytics with Google Ads?

Before we get into that, here are a few things to keep in mind before you initiate the process, according to Google:

Before you start, make sure that you’re using a Google Account with Edit permission for the Analytics property and Administrative access for the Google Ads account(s). Additionally, only active Google Ads accounts are eligible for linking with your Analytics property.

Steps to Link Google Ads with Google Analytics:

1) Sign in to Google Analytics.

2) Click Admin and navigate to the property you want to link.

3) In the Property column, click Google Ads Linking.

4) Click + New link group.

5) Select the Google Ads accounts you want to link, then click Continue.

– If you have a Google Ads manager account, select that account to link it (and all of its child accounts).

If you want to link only some managed accounts, expand the manager account, and select each of the managed Google Ads accounts you want to link.

6) Enter a link group title.

7) Turn linking ON for each view in the property in which you want Google Ads data.

8) Optionally, select Enable Google Display Network Impression reporting to include that data in each view.

9) If you’ve already enabled auto-tagging in your Google Ads accounts, or if you want to let the linking process automatically enable auto-tagging in your Google Ads accounts, skip to the next step.

That’s it – those simple 9 steps are all you need if you want to link your Google Ads to the Analytics.

Adding Google Analytics Data to Google Ads Reports

Additionally, you can also use Google Analytics to enhance your Google Ads Reports. Once you’ve linked Google Ads to Analytics, you can easily import the data from Analytics and incorporate it into your Ads reports.

Lucky for us, Google has made this process relatively simpler. 

Here’s what you have to do before you begin:

• Enable auto-tagging in your Google Ads accounts.

• Link your Google Ads and Google Analytics accounts. Make sure you import site metrics for the view you want to see in your Google Ads account.

• Activate Google signals also to import cross-device conversions from Google Analytics.

• Check the status message in the “Actions” column in the reporting table to ensure the Google Analytics data was imported. To find the “Actions” column, go to Google Ads, click the tools icon, select Linked accounts, and then click Google Analytics.

Once you have checked off each of these elements, you can get to the importing. For that, just follow these steps.

• Click the tab you want to add Google Analytics columns to Campaigns, Ad groups, Ads, or Keywords.

• Click the Columns menu and select Modify columns from the drop-down.

• Select Google Analytics.

• To select your columns, click the checkbox next to each column you’d like to add.

• Click Apply. You’ll now see Google Analytics data in your Google Ads reports.

Import Google Analytics Conversions to Google Ads

Similarly, you can also import Google Analytics conversions to Google Ads as well. Here’s what you need to do:

• Sign in to your Google Ads account.

• Click the tools icon in the upper right corner of your account.

• Under “Measurement,” click Conversions.

• Click the plus button.

• Select Import and then click Google Analytics (UA) (for Universal Analytics properties) or Google Analytics (GA4) (for Google Analytics 4 properties).

• Click Continue. 

• On the next page, select the features you’d like to import, click Import, and continue.

• Click Done.

According to Google, this is a recommended practice as it allows you to get many benefits, including:

• Access your Google Analytics conversions, and data related to your Google Ads clicks.

• See Google Analytics conversion data in Google Ads.

• Give Smart Bidding access to data that helps optimize bids, potentially increasing conversions, and lowering costs.

Google also attaches this notice to the information, so you must keep this in mind before executing the process:

It can take up to 24 hours before conversion data is available in Google Ads. Once it is, your imported conversions data will appear alongside your existing conversion data on the Conversions page, and you’ll be able to customize columns on the Campaigns tab. Reports based on your imported conversion data may include modeled conversions as estimates in cases where Google can’t observe all conversions.

Introduction to Ads Scripts

Have you ever wondered how you can optimize and refine your Google Ads account to make it fit for the most advanced use? Well, stop wondering – because the solution is this: Ads scripts.

Ad scripts are a wonderful, easy way to enhance your Google Ads account and use them for your venture’s ultimate success! And the best part? You can easily learn how to integrate them into your ad strategies. 

What are Scripts?

But first, the basics – what are scripts?

“Google Ads scripts provide a way to programmatically control your Google Ads data using simple JavaScript in a browser-based IDE. You can use scripts to automate common procedures or interact with external data — for one to many Google Ads accounts.” – Google Developers.

In simple terms, Google Ads scripts are bits of code that can essentially be used to automate various Google Ads tasks. They can be used to do the following:

Reporting

Google Ads scripts can be used to generate automatic reports. You can tweak the frequency of these according to what works for you.

Optimizations

You can use your Google Ads scripts to make it better in general and optimize it! An example of this would be automated bids. Yes – that’s done through Google Ads Scripts as well. 

Alerts

Using Google Ads Scripts, you can set any alerts for your account, including 404 error checkers. 

Getting Started

Next up – how to get started with Ads scripts. Luckily for us, Google has made the process fairly simple by laying down the instructions. Here’s what you’re supposed to do:

• Sign in to your Google Ads account.

• Click the Tools icon and select Scripts under BULK ACTIONS.

• Press the + icon to add a script.

• Copy and paste the following code into the editor area inside the main function.

• When prompted, click AUTHORIZE so the script can access the account on your behalf. This has to be done once for each script.

• Click PREVIEW to run the preview mode script: Results will appear in the CHANGES / LOGS panel.

Google further specifies that this is perhaps not the best script out there, but it is definitely a good start if you want to familiarize yourself with its script feature. 

And that’s the best thing about Google Ads scripts – you don’t need to have the extensive programming knowledge to make use of them. You can simply find the script you need from an online source and then add it to your account. If you have some understanding of coding, you can even tweak it according to your needs.

Example Script: 404 Error Checker

To help you understand, let’s work with an example script – namely the 404 Error Checker Script. Experts suggest that everyone should use this script, as it is extremely beneficial. Although it is beneficial for larger websites, it can also be used for smaller platforms to ensure that their functionality remains intact. Running it weekly will ensure that your landing pages are maintained, and if it finds a 404 error on any of the pages, it sends you an alert.

Perhaps the best thing about this script is that Google itself provides it – not only you get the full range of instructions for setting up, but you can also rest assured that you will get countless sources of support if there is any confusion on your end. 

Here’s how Google, which calls this the “Link Checker,” puts it:

“As a website evolves, new pages get added, old pages are taken down, and links get broken and fixed. Keeping a Google Ads campaign in sync with the website is an ongoing battle for many advertisers. Live advertisements may be pointing to non-existent pages, and the advertiser ends up paying for clicks that yield 404 errors.

Link Checker addresses this problem by iterating through all of your ads, keywords, and site links, checking that their URLs do not produce “Page not found” or other types of error responses, emailing you when error responses are found, and saving the results of its analysis to a spreadsheet.

Some accounts may have many URLs that cannot all be checked in a single run due to execution time limits or quotas. The script is designed to handle this case by tracking its progress over multiple runs and only checking URLs that it has not checked previously. The script uses the term “analysis” to refer to one full pass through all of your URLs, even if it takes multiple runs to complete.”

How does it work?

According to Google, this is how it works – the script creates a label to track its progress. Then, it applies this label to your ads, keywords, and site links after thoroughly checking them. After this, the script can identify checked URLs on its run. Once the analysis is complete (which happens only when all URLs have been checked), the script will clear the label for a new analysis.

Setup

Before setting things up, keep the following few things highlighted in mind:

• Set up a spreadsheet-based script with the source code below. Use the Link Checker template spreadsheet.

• Don’t forget to update YOUR_SPREADSHEET_URL in code.
• Schedule the script Hourly.

Pros of Google Ads Scripts

So, why should you be using scripts? Simply because it brings so many advantages to your ad strategy! Let’s have a look at the various ways they can help you accelerate your efficiency:

1) They save time.

2) They eliminate mistakes.

3) They can conveniently automate tedious PPC tasks. 

4) It helps you increase your account performance.

5) It adjusts your website automatically.

6) It enables you to spend less time on operational tasks and more time on strategy. 

Cons of Google Ads Scripts

The benefits seem pretty cool, right? But to understand Ads scripts as a whole, you must also understand that there are certain limitations to them. Let’s turn to those now.

1) They can be a little complicated to set up. 

2) If you’re primarily using free scripts, you need to remember that they can be of questionable quality. 

3) They can mess up your campaign if you fail to configure them correctly. 

4) If you resort to writing your own Ads script, it can be quite an expensive process.

5) There is no guarantee that we will keep working in the future!

Key Takeaway

That being said, using scripts is a wonderful way of making the most out of your Ads account. In fact, not only that, but it also helps you improve your career opportunities since operating scripts is a great skill set to have in the digital age. 

It will enable you to stand out and present yourself as a valuable asset to your employers. So, bookmark this article and use it to master the art of using Google Ads Scripts! 

The Definitive Guide to Google Ads Editor

If you are familiar with the world of PPC advertising, you probably already know that time is your most important asset. You need to pay attention to many things, and therefore you can’t waste precious time on trivial tasks! 

What’s your solution to this? 

It’s the Google Ads Editor! This tool will help you save time and save you from the extreme stress and hassle that comes with PPC advertising. And today, we’re talking ALL about it – so keep scrolling!

What is Ads Editor?

But like always, let’s first get down to the basics: what really is the Ads Editor? 

Google Ads editor is a free application that you can download and manage all your Google Ads campaigns. As dreamy as that sounds, it’s true! Enabling this tool will help you supervise multiple Ads accounts while allowing you to make changes offline and upload these changes to Google Ads frequently.

The greatest thing about the Google Ads Editor is that you can make bulk changes to all your Ads account with just a couple of clicks. This will help you save time and effort, especially if you have many campaigns going on. The Editor tool will allow you to consider all the keywords for these accounts and make alterations accordingly.

According to Google:

 

• Google Ads Editor is a free, downloadable application for managing your Google Ads campaigns.

• The basic process is simple: download one or more accounts, make changes offline, then upload the changes to Google Ads.

• Google Ads Editor can help you save time and make it easier to make changes in bulk.

Advantages of Google Ads Editor

In addition to the good things outlined above, many other benefits come with Google Ads Editor. For starters, it helps you with the following:

• Make a lot of changes in less time by using the bulk edit tool.
• Manage, edit, and view more than one account simultaneously
• Share proposals and make changes to the account by exporting and importing files.
• View statistics for all your campaigns
• Search and replace text across different campaigns
• Keep working even when you’re offline.

Taking these into account, you can easily tell that using the Google Ads Editor tool is faster and way more convenient for you as a user! It will allow you to tackle multiple accounts at once – including actions such as copy-pasting between accounts, advanced search and filtering features for mass changes, and downloading and uploading from excel for large scale changes.

Additionally, you can also use the Google Ads editor for help in the following scenarios:

• To quickly find, replace and make other keyword changes.
• To execute keyword appending.
• To make multiple ad changes across various ad groups.
• Making campaign copies
• To pause out labeled ads/keywords. 
• To quickly find and fix spelling mistakes.

Using Google Ads Editor

After all that information above, you must be wondering how to use Google Ads Editor. Google breaks this down into pretty simple instructions. 

First of all, you need to download and install it.

1. Google Ads Editor is a free Google Ads campaign management application that takes just seconds to install. To start, download Google Ads Editor for your operating system. 
2. Once the installation is complete, the next step is to download a Google Ads account. You might also want to read our overview of how to use Google Ads Editor.

Then, you follow these six simple steps to set up and use Google Ads Editor properly.

1. Review your settings: Before using Google Ads Editor, review your settings in Tools > Settings (Windows) or Google Ads Editor > Preferences (Mac).
2. Download an account: Start by downloading one or more Google Ads accounts.
3. Make changes to the account: You can make individual changes or make changes in bulk.  
4. Share changes: You can share proposed changes with colleagues or reviewers, then import and review their changes.
5. Check changes: Before posting your changes to Google Ads, run Check changes and address any errors or warnings.
6. Post changes: After you post to Google Ads, your changes appear in your Google Ads account.

If you want to manage multiple accounts, here’s how you can do that as well:

1.Download multiple accounts:

• Click Accounts to open the accounts manager.

• Select a different account from the one you’re currently viewing. If you haven’t added additional accounts yet, click Add and follow the steps to add another account.

• Click Open.

2.Download manager accounts:

If you have a manager account (formerly known as MCC), you can use Google Ads Editor to make changes to managed accounts through your manager account.

• Click Accounts to open the accounts manager.

• Click Add.

• Enter your manager account email and password (not the managed account email and password).

• Click Next.

• You’ll see a list of the managed accounts, along with the account description or campaign name when available. Optional: Check the box next to Show MCC tree view to see the complete account tree, including MCC parents and accounts that you’ve added but haven’t yet downloaded.

• Select an account and click Open.

• Select the part of the account that you’d like to download.

• Click Open. Repeat these steps for any other client accounts you wish to download.

Here’s some additional information by Google that will help you navigate the editor much more quickly:

• Application menu: In Windows, the application menu is at the top of the Google Ads Editor interface. In Mac OS, the application menu is at the very top of your screen.

• Toolbar: The toolbar is at the top of Google Ads Editor. Use the buttons to open or add an account, download recent changes, check or post changes to Google Ads, and view account statistics.

• Tree view: Use the tree view or, also known as the account tree, to select or search the account, campaign, or ad group that you want to view or edit. Click the arrow next to the account name or any campaign to expand or collapse it.

• Type list: Click an item in the type list to view or search data for your selected account, campaign, or ad group. For example, select a campaign in the tree view, then select Keywords in the type list to see the keywords for that campaign in the data view.

• Data view: The Data view displays the contents of your account, campaign, or ad group. Contents of your data view will change depending on what you’ve selected in the tree view and type list.

• Edit panel: When you select a row in the data view, you can edit it in the edit panel or by typing directly in the selected row. Click the Open in new (pop out)  icon to open the edit panel as a free-floating window. You can resize the panel to make more columns visible in the data view.

What You Can and Can’t Do

As specified by Google, here’s everything that you can do with Ads editor:

• Use bulk editing tools to make multiple changes quickly.
• Export and import files to share proposals or make changes to an account.
• View statistics for all campaigns or a subset of campaigns.
• Manage, edit, and view multiple accounts at the same time.
• Search and replace text across ad groups or campaigns.
• Copy or move items between ad groups and campaigns.
• Undo and redo multiple changes while editing your campaigns.
• Make changes in the draft before uploading them to your account.
• Keep working even when you’re offline.

However, keep in mind that there are certain limitations in using the Ads editor – there are definitely some things that you can’t do. For example, you can’t create experiments, implement ad scheduling, make bid changes or create data analysis. So, keep these in mind before opting for the Google Ads Editor.

The “Other” Features: Custom Audiences, Life Events, and Responsive Search Ads

In the digital world, executing a proficient marketing strategy is not difficult, thanks to cutting-edge platforms such as Google Ads. The plethora of high-tech, great features it introduces to its users makes our marketing journey considerably more convenient and immersive. 

However, are you sure you have a sufficient understanding of all the features available to you? I bet not! 

Today, we’re going to cover the underrated “other” features you’ll find on Google Ads, namely Custom Audiences, Life Events, and Responsive Search ads. Understanding how to use these to elevate your marketing and advertising strategy is essential to ensure your venture’s overall success.

Custom Audiences

First of all, let’s start with Custom Audiences. What are Custom Audiences?

According to Google:

“Custom audiences help you reach your ideal audience by entering relevant keywords, URLs, and apps. You can set up a custom audience in your Display, Discovery, Gmail, and Video campaigns by adding specific keywords, URLs, and apps related to your product or service. Google Ads will then show ads to people with these interests.” 

Custom audiences is a handy feature offered by Google that makes audience targeting incredibly convenient for users. This feature by Google has an accuracy rate of 50.4 percent, making it an essential, must-use component for your ad strategy. 

Essentially, the Custom Audiences feature allows your business to use customer match marketing and create a custom audience from your email lists, which you can upload directly to Google Ads. This considerably improves audience targeting and enables your brand to focus its sources and effort on a very particular set of people that are likely to engage with your message.

So, what is the primary purpose of the feature? The primary purpose of custom audiences is to choose the audience that fits your campaign’s needs the best! The algorithm of this feature is based on your campaign goals and bidding strategy. The system identifies and interprets all the data that comes from and chooses an audience focused on either reach, consideration, or performance. In short, Google employs complex yet advanced AI practices that reduce your workload as a campaigner and ensures that the ad experience is reaching the right people.  

Sounds cool, right? However, what’s even better is that you can easily create custom audiences by following these steps laid out by Google.

Through Audience Manager:

1. Sign in to your Google Ads account. 
2. Click the tools icon in the upper right corner.
3. Under “Shared library,” select Audience manager.
4. From the menu at the top, select the Custom Audiences page. 
5. Click the plus button to create a new list.
6. Fill in a name for your custom audience. 
7. Then select the following two:
   People with any of these interests or purchase intentions.
   People who searched for any of these terms on Google. 
8. Click Save audience.

Within the Campaign:

1. Sign in to your Google Ads account. 
2. From the navigation bar on the left, click on the specific campaign you are adding custom audiences. 
3. From the page menu to the right of the navigation bar, click on Audiences.
4. Click the pencil icon Edit.
5. The “Edit audiences” section will appear. In that section, click Browse.
6. Select Your custom audiences.
7. Select the following:
   People with any of these interests or purchase intentions.
   People who searched for any of these terms on Google. 
8. Click Save audience.

Life Events

Now, onto another essential feature: Life Events.

As per Google, this is what Life Events does enables you to do:

“Engage with viewers on YouTube, Gmail, and Display around important life milestones. By understanding when these moments are taking place, you can tailor your advertising to reach the right users with the right messages.”

This feature allows you to create a target audience based on the following life events/milestones:

1) Business Creation

• Recently Started a Business
• Starting a Business Soon

2) College Graduation

• Graduating Soon
• Recently Graduated

3) Home Renovation

• Recently Renovated Home
• Renovating Home Soon

4) Job Change

• Recently Started New Job
• Starting New Job Soon

5) Marriage

• Getting Married Soon
• Recently Married

6) Moving

• Moving Soon
• Recently Moved

7) New Pet

• Adding Cat to Household Soon
• Adding Dog to Household Soon
• Recently Added Cat to Household
• Recently Added Dog to Household

8) Purchasing a Home

• Purchasing a Home Soon
• Recently Purchased a Home

9) Retirement

• Recently Retired
• Retiring Soon

You can set up life events by following the instructions laid down below:

1. Sign in to your Ads account. 
2. Click Audiences on the left-hand sidebar. (In the middle of the screen, you’ll see a table that shows all your audiences. It will be empty if you haven’t defined any audiences yet.)
3. Click on the plus sign next to Audiences to create a new list. 
4. Next, click Select to add an ad group. Choose one of your ad groups from a campaign.
5. The table below selects the type of audience you want, i.e., Intent and life events.
6. Below Life Events, you’ll see several life event choices – click on the event that’s best suited to your ad group marketing message!
7. Click Save.

Responsive Search Ads

Google says that:

“Responsive search ads let you create an ad that adapts to show more text—and more relevant messages—to your customers. Enter multiple headlines and descriptions when creating a responsive search ad, and over time, Google Ads will automatically test different combinations and learn which combinations perform best. By adapting your ad’s content to match potential customers’ search terms more closely, responsive search ads may improve your campaign’s performance.”

Responsive Search ads are Google’s latest, most flexible, and possibly best search ad format. They enable users to write up to 15 different headlines and up to 4 other descriptions! The ads become unique since, with traditional search ads, you can only write your headlines and descriptions together to create one monotonous ad text, which is not very appealing to the audiences. 

With Responsive Search ads, all the headlines and descriptions can be arranged in 43,680 different permutations! In short, the ad testing possibilities with Responsive Search Ads are endless, and so is your ability to elevate your marketing strategy. 

The fun part is that Google automatically tests different combinations of headlines and descriptions to analyze which combination performs best. This ensures that eventually, your Responsive Search Ads serve the best possible message to different searchers depending on the keyword they search for, their device, their past browsing behavior, and other signals!

The best practices for setting out Responsive Search ads are as follows:

• Add as many headlines and descriptions as you can.
• Recycle content from your existing text ads.
• Incorporate popular keywords into your headlines.
• Improve Ad strength.
• Don’t over-pin.
• Test only one Responsive Search Ad per ad group.