Search engine advertising – or also Search Engine Advertising (SEA) or Search Engine Marketing (SEM) – is the purchasing of advertising space above, next to and below the natural (organic or non-paying) search results by bidding in an auction on (among other things) search terms (keywords) or products (product groups), whereby initially payment was made per thousand impressions (CPM or Cost per mille), but nowadays (usually) payment is made per click on your advertisement – i.e. per visitor delivered (hence the term CPC or Cost per Click).
History
Since the origin of the auction system and self-service online advertising platform, Google Ads (then Google Adwords) has come a long way and undergo various transformations and grew into an indispensable tool for companies and marketers to put their products or services in the spotlight online. It is now a $38 trillion dollar advertisers platform.
How does Google Ads work?
The Google Ads network is based on an auction system, where all ads are auctioned based on a number of variables and settings. Your budget, audience, targeting and settings determine whether, to whom and when your ads are shown. The bid you make for a keyword, combined with the user experience and relevance of your ad and landing page and a number of other variables determine the position your ad gets. What we like about the platform is that, thanks in part to the quality score, super good ads and landing pages that are relevant to the user's search query can win the auction from an advertiser who bids more.
Google Ads Campaign Types
The two main pillars within the Google Ads auction system are the text ads in search results and the advertise with productsEach of these pillars has different campaign types, such as Google Search & Dynamic Search or DSA for the text ads and Performance Max – formerly Smart Shopping and before that Standard Shopping – for the product ads.
Search with Responsive Text Ads
Since June 2022, it is no longer possible to create Expanded Text Ads (ETAs). Instead, Responsive Search Ads (RSAs) are now used. These are ads to which 15 headlines and 4 descriptions can be added. Google's machine learning technology then makes combinations of these based on the user's online search behavior.
Because more headlines and descriptions can be added than with Responsive Text Ads, your offer can be better and more lucratively highlighted, but Google can also predict better which combinations produce the best results per user. With Responsive Search Ads you can better respond to the needs of your target group(s) and ensure that you bring the right message (just a little bit more) to the attention of the right target group at the right time.
Performance Max
Since 2022 there is a brand new type of campaign, namely Performance Max in Google Ads. It is the replacement of Smart Shopping, which in turn was a successor of Standard Shopping. Performance Max combines the following ad types to create ads:
- Responsive Text Ads
- Display ads
- Shopping ads
- Discovery ads
- Video ads
In Performance Max you can add multiple items in so-called asset groups such as:
- Images
- Logos
- Videos
- Heads
- Descriptions
Google shows the best combinations of the items and also creates its own content based on your input. In addition to the items, you also have other things that you can influence that are important within Performance Max such as:
- Daily budget
- Target Group Signals
- Product feed
- Location settings
- URL Expansion
- Extensions
- Advantages
Black Box
As experts, we find the Performance Max campaign type very controversial. On the one hand, it is a particularly high-tech product that uses advanced artificial intelligence with which everyone can achieve better results up to 20%. On the other hand, you have the least control ever because the algorithm takes over a particularly large part of the work, many functions are no longer possible, and a lot of information is shielded from the marketer and the entrepreneur, such as what share of your advertisements is shown on which platform and in which format.