Google Ads is your best bet when it comes to reaching millions of people online or targeting a niche audience for your eCommerce business. Few other advertising options are as effective, but you need the right strategy first.

Keep reading to examine why eCommerce businesses should use Google Ads, the types of ads you can use, and how to track ad performance to maximize sales.

Benefits of Google Ads for eCommerce

Google Ads, formerly AdWords, is Google’s advertising platform. You can set up pay-per-click (PPC) advertising campaigns with text or image ads that appear on various online destinations.

Google Ads remains one of the most cost-effective ways to attract more customers online. It allows you to reach a wide audience, zero in on a specific target audience, and track your results.

Google has the largest ad network in the world, thanks to the combination of Google Search, YouTube, Gmail, and other platforms used by billions of people. No other platform offers the same reach.

Along with tapping into a large customer base, Google Ads allows you to target customers based on specific demographics, interests, habits, and their internet activity. This helps ensure that your ads are seen by interested individuals, rather than people who are unlikely to make a purchase.

Introduction to Google Ads Growth Formula for Online Sales

The Google Ads Growth Formula is a four-step strategy designed to maximize online sales. It’s made with eCommerce businesses in mind. The key components of the growth formula include:

• Set objectives
• Get ready
• Take action
• Evaluate and expand

You’ll start by defining your business objectives to ensure that your campaign settings and marketing efforts align. Do you want to boost your average order value (AOV) or generate more sales? Are you more focused on increasing your market share or increasing your profitability?

Answering these questions helps determine which key performance indicators (KPIs) to track. After setting objectives, it’s time to implement Google tags so that you can track the performance of your ads.

The next step depends on your objectives. If you want to sell more products, you can focus on the ads that perform best to take advantage of current demand from customers. If you want to increase your reach or generate more demand, you can follow Google’s strategies for connecting with more customers.

The final part of the Growth Formula involves reviewing and improving your ad campaign performance. You’ll look for new opportunities to expand your reach and connect with more customers continually.

Google’s strategy works for any type of eCommerce business. Whether you sell clothes, electronics, knickknacks, or high-end goods, you can follow the growth formula to get more out of your ad campaigns.

Types of Google Ads for eCommerce

If you want to make the most of your ad spending, you may use multiple types of Google Ads. Here’s a closer look.

Google Search Ads

Google Search Ads are the oldest and most utilized of Google Ads. These are the ads you see on the side of the search results pages. The text ads include a headline, a description, and extensions.

Pay attention to the following details when creating ads for Google Search:

• Keyword selection
• Writing ad copy
• Setting a budget
• Deciding on ad placement

Perform keyword research to find the most relevant search terms. The keywords you choose should appear in the headline, description, display URL, and the connected webpage to which you direct users.

When creating a search ad campaign, Google gives you quite a bit of flexibility. You can specify when and how often you want your ads to appear.

Google Display Ads

Google Display Ads are great for building awareness and remarketing, making them essential for an eCommerce PPC marketing strategy. The ads reach your target audience on websites and mobile apps instead of search results pages.

The three main strategies for Display campaigns include:

• Managed Placement Targeting: This option allows you to handpick where your ads appear.
• Contextual Targeting: This option lets you choose keywords and topics and let Google determine the best placement for your ads.
• Dynamic Remarketing Ads: Display Ads featuring products or services visitors have already seen on your site. You can remarket to visitors with tailored, more targeted ads.

Google Display Ads can help you reach visitors across over 35 million websites and apps, expanding your reach beyond the search results pages. Using the strategies discussed helps you attract more visitors, whom you can continue to target through remarketing ads.

Google Shopping Ads

Google Shopping Ads are another essential type of ad for eCommerce businesses, as they allow you to target potential customers actively searching for the products you sell. The ads include product photos, titles, prices, store names, and other information to help attract clicks.

Shopping Ads appear in a variety of places, including the shopping tab in Google Search and next to the results on search engine results pages.

As with other ad types, Google provides detailed performance tracking info that you can use to adjust your budget allocation and tweak your campaign. You can also use the available customization features, such as audience targeting, to serve your ads to specific demographics.

YouTube Ads

YouTube Ads allow you to target users watching videos on the most popular video-sharing platform. Choose from a variety of different types of ads, including:

• TrueView Ads: In-stream ads that appear before or during a video stream. Users may skip the ad after five seconds.
• Discovery TrueView Ads: Ads that appear in the search results when users search for content on YouTube.
• Bumper Ads: Short, six-second ads that cannot be skipped, making them useful for reinforcing other ads.
• Non-Skippable YouTube Ads: 15-second to 20-second ads that users cannot skip, requiring them to view your entire message.
• Outstream Ads: Ads that are targeted to users on platforms outside of YouTube and Google.

Each of these types of YouTube Ads helps you target customers based on their behaviors and identifying information, such as age and geographic location. You can reach potential customers on the second largest search engine after Google Search while targeting a specific audience.

Google Remarketing Ads

Google remarketing ads provide a way to display ads to users who have already visited your site but left without making a purchase. You can choose from several remarketing ad types:

• Customer List Remarketing: Google offers a customer match option that uses online and offline data to retarget existing customers on Google Search, Shopping, and Gmail.
• Display Remarketing Lists: With this remarketing solution, you can remarket to visitors across Google’s Display network.
• Dynamic Remarketing: This option helps deliver tailored ads chosen specifically based on a user’s behavior, such as showing an ad for a product that they recently viewed.
• Remarketing Lists for Search Ads (RLSAs): You can use this option to target users who visit your site and then search for related content on Google. This may help bring them back to your site
• instead of choosing a competitor.
• Video Remarketing: Along with text ads, you can create video remarketing ads to retarget visitors on YouTube.

No matter which type of remarketing you use, you can boost the value of your eCommerce PPC campaign by retargeting visitors instead of letting them slip away. As you’re targeting people who have already visited your site, you can use focused messaging to deliver a greater impression.

Shopify and Neil Patel both have informative guides on using remarketing for Google Ads. You’ll want to learn more about the process of setting up remarketing strategies to increase your chances of successfully converting more visitors.

Google Performance Max

Google Performance Max is one of the latest PPC campaign options available through a Google Ads account. It’s a combination of Smart Shopping campaigns and Dynamic Search Ads. It relies on Google’s AI technologies to optimize your campaign settings, including establishing your budget and bidding strategy for better results. You essentially put part of your campaign on autopilot.

With Google Performance Max, your ads can appear on a variety of ad channels, including Google Search, Shopping, Display, YouTube, Discover, and Maps. After setting up your campaign, Performance Max will help you find new opportunities to reach more customers.

Using Google Performance Max is effective but may impact existing Google Search PPC campaign performance. Google prioritizes your Search campaigns when a user query includes keywords that appear in both types of campaigns.

Use eCommerce Tracking to Maximize Sales

After launching a Google Ads campaign, you need to continue to track its performance and adjust your ad settings based on the obtained data. Luckily, you can find useful eCommerce tracking metrics through the Google Ads dashboard.

Some of the metrics you can track include: transaction data such as revenue per transaction, total revenue, conversion rates, and time to purchase.

Tracking ad metrics and online sales data helps you better understand customer behavior. You can learn more about what your customers want and how best to target them.

You may learn which products sell best, which ads perform better, and other details that you can use to optimize your sales cycles and ensure a better return on your ad spending.

Conclusion

The benefits of Google Ads include the ability to reach millions of people as they search and browse the web. Google Ads are also affordable and scalable, making them well-suited for eCommerce businesses of all sizes.

However, optimization is the key to a successful campaign. No matter which types of Google Ads you use, you’ll need to track, test, and optimize your campaigns. Google gives you the tools to monitor the performance of your ads. You can use eCommerce tracking metrics, A/B testing, and other strategies to continually improve your campaigns and attract more customers.