In today’s post, we will be giving a quick breakdown of the 5 main campaign types offered by Google Ads. You wouldn’t believe how many people we run into who have no idea that Google offers such a wide range of advertising options on their platform. If you’re one of those people, this article is for you. There are 5 different campaign types for you to choose from depending on your budget, business type or industry, location and overall advertising goals. Each of these campaign types open up some pretty cool secondary options which allow you to tailor the performance and functionality of your ads.
The five campaign types are as follows: Search, Display, Video, Shopping and App. These campaign types are centered around Google’s advertising networks which include the Search Network, Display Network and the YouTube Network. For the sake of simplicity, we’ll just give you a brief rundown of each campaign type; and hopefully provide a little insight on which one would be more suitable for your business and advertising goals.
SEARCH CAMPAIGN
A Search Campaign involves text-based ads which appear in the search results when someone is using the Google search engine to find your product or service. These ads allow for short, catchy headlines and descriptions, as well as several great ad extension options to increase ad visibility while providing additional information that could further entice the consumer to click on your ad. Other common ad types for this campaign include Dynamic Search Ads, Responsive Search Ads and Call-Only Ads (which are highly beneficial for when users are searching for your services from their mobile device…which is nearly 70% of the time nowadays). You can expand your reach even further with a Search Campaign by activating Google Search Partners which means that your ad can appear on hundreds of non-Google websites, as well as YouTube and other Google-based sites. Search Campaigns can accommodate any budget and are great for all business types (especially for local businesses) and is one of the most used campaign types that Google offers.
DISPLAY CAMPAIGN
A Display Campaign allows you to run an image-based ad on the Display Network. Great for branding and creating awareness, your ad will be seen by those browsing their favorite websites, spending time on YouTube, checking their gmail account or using apps on their tablet or mobile device. Ad formats include Responsive Display Ads, Uploaded Image Ads, Engagement Ads and Gmail Ads. A Display Campaign is perfect for business owners who have certain websites they’d like to advertise on and who also want to implement re-marketing as part of their online advertising strategy. Just as notable, Display Ads are great for those who want to catch people on YouTube without having to create an actual video ad.
VIDEO CAMPAIGN
Speaking of YouTube, let’s move on to Video Campaigns. Even though this is pretty self explanatory, we’ve got a few pieces of information you may find useful. You can show your video ads, not just on YouTube, but also across the Google Display Network (which, if we didn’t make it clear before, contains over a million websites!). Ad formats include skippable in-stream ads, non-skippable in-stream ads, video discovery ads (my personal favorite), outstream ads and those super short 6-second bumper ads. Though we don’t really have time to run through all the many features of these different ad formats, Google essentially gives you complete control of how you want to approach potential consumers with your message. Your video ads can be as invasive or non-invasive as you’d like. Google also gives you multiple ways to customize your Video Campaign while targeting a very specific audience that would find the most interest in what you’re actually advertising.
SHOPPING CAMPAIGN
So now let’s “talk shop” with Shopping Ads. As noted in Google’s online Help Center, this campaign type is perfect for retailers who want to promote their online and local inventory, boost traffic to their website or local brick and mortar store while finding better qualified leads. Shopping Ads typically appear in the Shopping tab on Google Search next to search results and Google Images. They can also appear on Google Search Partner websites, as well as the Display Network, which includes YouTube, Gmail and Google Discover. These ads are especially effective for merchants because they feature product information directly in the ads which help their potential customers make more informed purchase decisions. Have an eCommerce store? You definitely need to look into launching a Shopping Ad campaign.
APP CAMPAIGN
Finally, there’s App Campaigns. If you have an app or you want to drive in-app sales, what better way to promote than to advertise across Google’s largest properties including Google Search, Google Display, YouTube, Google Play and Google Discover. This is probably the easiest type of Campaign to build as Google does most of the heavy lifting for you. All you need is some ad text and assets, a starting bid and budget, and then set the language preference and locations. From there, Google will auto-create and disperse a variety of your ads across several formats and networks. Pretty simple, right?
Anyway, there you have the 5 main campaign types available on Google’s advertising platform. Hopefully this information helped you to get a better understanding of the various campaign types, as well as which ones may be more suitable for your business. For now, if you enjoyed this article, don’t forget to share with others (we like when people post links to our articles). If you have any further questions, please feel free to reach out to us on our contact page. We would love to hear from you!