Chapter 1 

What Are Google Ads? 

So, you’ve begun your quest into the world of Google advertising. 

(Trust us when we say it’s addictive)​ First thing’s first, let’s get some 

high-level ideas defined and out of the way. After that, we can get 

into the good stuff -- teaching you how to make real money for your 

company on Google Ads. 

To start off, we’ll need to define what "PPC" is -- a term you'll hear 

thrown around a lot in the Google Ads world -- and establish a basic 

understanding of how PPC advertising works. PPC stands for 

pay-per-click, a model of internet marketing in which advertisers 

pay a fee each time one of their ads is clicked. 

To put simply, it’s a way of buying traffic and visits to your site, 

rather than attempting to “earn” those visits organically or with 

traditional SEO or social efforts.​ (You might consider it a more 

 
 
impactbnd.com  2 
traditional "outbound" approach to marketing, although it's been 

adapted to fit into our inbound world.) 

Now, to dig in a little further, search engine advertising (e.g., 

Google) is one of the most popular forms of PPC advertising. It 

allows marketers (like yourself) to bid for ad placement in a search 

engine’s sponsored links section when a user searches for terms and 

keywords related to a company's services or product offerings.  

 
 
impactbnd.com  3 
Let me tell you, it’s a​ lot ​easier to buy traffic to a particular landing 

page on your website with PPC advertising than it is to optimize it 

and cross your fingers, hoping for that coveted first-page ranking to 

happen organically. 

Take this guide you're reading right now, for example. 

If we want more users to read this page, we might consider bidding 

on keywords like “what are google ads” or “what is ppc” And if 

someone were to enter those keywords while performing a search, 

this page might show up on the very top spot on the search results 

page, were we to pay for it. 

OK, enough of that. Let’s get to why you’re here -- learning Google 

Ads. 

Google Ads are the single most popular PPC advertising system in the 

world. It’s the Coca-Cola of online advertising -- or the Amazon or 

Nike, depending on your consumer preferences. Bottom line, Google 

 
 
impactbnd.com  4 
Ads are the go-to advertising solution for anyone looking to sell 

anything anywhere in the world… like, ​ever​. 

More than that, however, the platform enables ​anyone t​ o get their 

piece of the pie -- if they're willing to pay for it. Big corporations. 

Small shops. Anyone can advertise their stuff on Google. 

So, how does it work? 

We're going to cover the intricacies and idiosyncrasies of Google Ads 

throughout this guide. 

But at a high-level, what Google Ads does is enable businesses to 

create ads that appear on Google’s search engine and other places 

within the Google-sphere. Ads operate (for the most part) on a 

pay-per-click model in which marketers bid on keywords and pay 

for each click that happens on one of their advertisements. 

Every time a search happens, Google will scour the pool of 

advertisers bidding on that particular search keyword. It then 

chooses the “winners” to appear in the ad space on the search page. 

 
 
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The “winners” are chosen based on a few factors, including the 

quality and the relevance of their keywords and campaigns, as well as 

the monetary value behind the advertiser's bid. 

Easiest lottery win ever, right? 

Just kidding. 

Of course, there’s more to it than that. Specifically, the winners are 

chosen based on an advertiser’s Ad Rank. Ad rank is a metric 

calculated by multiplying two key factors -- the max CPC bid (the 

highest an advertiser is willing to pay for each click) and their 

"quality score," a value Google calculates based on your 

click-through rate, relevance, and the quality of the page you send 

clickers to.  

This method allows the winning advertisers to reach more of their 

potential customers at a cost that fits within their overall advertising 

budget. With this model, even smaller budgets can compete for the 

top spot if their ads best answer the query of the user. 

 
 
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It’s a David and Goliath battle, where the best ad to answer the user’s 

need wins. 

And it all happens in a​ fraction​ of a second. 

Chapter 2 

Are Google Ads a Good 

Choice for Your Business? 
As long as there has been such a thing as PPC advertising, Google Ads 

have been thought of as a great way to bring in new sales and leads 

for your business. On the other hand, it's also been compared to 

gambling, called an unsafe investment, and avoided by risk-averse 

advertisers who consider that level of money-based experimentation 

to be a bridge too far. 

 
 
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Everyone along their marketing journey has heard of the failures just 

as much as the successes companies can have with Google Ads. 

People have lost money, and had campaigns fail and budgets that 

just seem to have disappeared. 

It’s definitely true. Google Ads are, in essence, gambling if not 

approached strategically. You are putting your own money on the 

line, hoping that the money spent converts into revenue for your 

company. Might as well create a table out of it, have waitresses serve 

cocktails, and ask for that Blackjack dealer to hit you one more time.   

However, despite its sometimes negative associations, if you know 

what you’re looking at and smart with your ad spend, Google Ads are 

relatively safe. They also can be very lucrative. In fact, Google even 

goes as far as saying that on average, every dollar spent on Google 

Ads ​returns $2​. 

So, are Google Ads right for you? The easy answer is to just say yes, 

seeing as Google is the most widely used search engine ever, 

 
 
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meaning you can reach any target audience you want to. But it’s not 

that easy. 

Google Ads can make or break a marketing budget. General 

characteristics about your company’s space -- industry, 

competition, search volume, and location -- all play a role. But 

attributes specific to your company also come into play. Variables 

like team capacity, ad budget, and internal structure can all 

determine whether or not you should be dabbling in Google Ads. 

Moreover, Google Ads can be very time-consuming. In fact, it very 

well may take you a few weeks before your account is situated and set 

up for success. 

And that’s before you take into account all of the daily and weekly 

tasks you’ll need to perform, such as creating new ads, adjusting 

your ad spend, pacing your budget, analyzing search terms, and 

adding more keywords to your campaigns. So, if you have a 

one-person marketing team -- where that person is already wearing 

 
 
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multiple hats -- you might not have the time to manage your Google 

Ads with the necessary amount of tender loving care. 

Needless to say, Google Ads aren't for everyone. For a variety of 

reasons. 

But how do you know if Google Ads is right for you? 

1. Discuss Your Google

Ads Budget, Time
Constraints, & Product
Offerings
By far the largest obstacle to get around when looking at Google Ads 

is your budget. 

 
 
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"Can I afford to spend more money in marketing/advertising? Will my 

money be wasted?" 

There is a concept in psychology called "loss aversion theory," which 

is best defined by the old saying, "A bird in the hand is better than 

two in the bush." Or, more simply, people would much rather avoid a 

potential loss than they would risk acquiring an equivalent gain. 

To determine what potential "risk" might look like for you, begin 

your research by looking at your industry and learning what your 

average cost per clicks are. Then you can compare that data with 

whatever current or benchmark conversion rate data you may have 

on your website. This will give you a better idea as to what you will 

likely need to spend in a given month, and what the return of that 

budget will be. 

It’s a simple cost-benefit analysis that can provide clarity into the 

industry’s paid space. 

 
 
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Here is what Acquisio​ found to be the cost-per-click (CPC) standards 

in 2018, by industry: 

Start with this chart and take the current CPC “without machine 

learning” as your benchmark for your industry. Write that number 

down and now look for the average click-through rate (without 

machine learning) for your industry: 

 
 
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With those numbers in hand, you can easily calculate how many 

clicks you can afford with whatever your budget would be. 

Now, look at the data your site is bringing in. How are your 

conversion rates on your landing pages? Using these three metrics 

-- average CPC, average CTR, and conversion rate -- you can 

extrapolate what the return on your ad spend would be. 

 
 
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2. Do Keyword Research
to See Your Google Ads
Traffic Potential
One easy way to see if Google Ads are right for your company is to 

perform ​keyword research​ -- looking to see how many people are 

searching for your product or service can determine if Google Ads are 

worth it. 

If you look at search terms related to your services and find that only 

10 people are searching for you per month, the time and effort 

required to do Google Ads right won’t be worth it for your bottom 

line and marketing budget. 

However, there are a couple of ways to look at keywords and search 

terms related to your company. 

 
 
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One of the best tools we use to perform keyword research is 

SEMRush​. SEMRush is an incredible tool to see historical data about 

your site and valuable SEO insights, but you can also look at how 

keywords are performing. 

The key metric here to look at is ​volume​. Volume is an estimate of the 

number of users searching for a given search term within a given 

month. If your volumes are relatively high, it’s a good sign that there 

are plenty of users interested in your space. 

Another great ​keyword research tool​ we use daily is ​Keywords 

Everywhere: 

 
 
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Keywords Everywhere is a free Google Chrome extension that shows 

you the estimated volume, competition, and CPC for everything that 

you search for. It also gives you a list of related keywords with every 

query. 

 
 
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If you're only seeing a few hundred users a month your product or 

service-specific search terms, you might be a little too niche to see a 

great return from Google Ads. 

Of course, we aren't saying you definitely shouldn't use Google Ads 

in those cases. Google Ads can still be a great tool to promote 

awareness for your product or service, even though users might not 

click or convert from your ads. Impressions are still valuable for your 

brand recognition, but you'll need to go in with realistic 

expectations. 

3. Look At Your
Competition
Competitor research is a great way to uncover if people are 

advertising on search terms that you want to target. Your 

competitors wouldn’t be bidding on specific keywords for no reason. 

 
 
impactbnd.com  17 
Chances are they are seeing some good leads and sales as a result of 

their bid strategy. 

So, don’t sit back and let them have all the fun! 

Competitor research can also give you some great data on what they 

are spending per month on those terms, and help you make better 

decisions when it gets to be budget time. 

An easy way to look at what your competitors are doing is to head to 

Google. Search some relevant keywords to your company and see 

whose ads are showing up. Then -- ​with your Keywords Everywhere 

tool in-hand​ -- you can see what the cost per click is for those terms. 

If you find some competitors bidding on terms that you wanted to 

target, we like to use ​SpyFu​ to dig in a little deeper as to what’s going 

on: 

 
 
impactbnd.com  18 
  

SpyFu in action, courtesy of SpyFu. 

With SpyFu, you can type in a competitor's website and get detailed 

readouts on their keywords, what their ads look like (copy, 

messaging, formatting), and what they are spending per month. The 

budget information can help you understand how much you have to 

spend to compete against them. 

 
 
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Using their keywords as a starting point, you can come up with your 

own strategy for competing with them on Google Ads. 

4. Test Test Test

Google Ads has a nearly endless amount of advertising options. From 

different ad and audience customizations, to ad types and bidding 

strategies, any company can find some useful tactics to generate a 

decent return and complement their other marketing efforts. 

However, you should never “set and forget” Google Ads. You have 

such granular control over your account and what you are spending 

that anytime something might look a little sideways or not 

performing as you’d like it to, you can easily pivot and make 

adjustments. 

There is never a “done” stage for Google Ads. Algorithms change all 

the time, and your industry will evolve, as well. So, remember the 

golden rule of Google Ads -- always be testing. 

 
 
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When it comes to Google Ads, always remember your A, B, Ts! 

 
 
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Chapter 3 

How to Set Up a Google 

Ads Account for the First 
Time 
So, you’ve evaluated whether or not Google Ads is right for you, done 

the keyword research, and decided to take the leap -- 

congratulations!  

Now, let’s make sure you have all your ducks in a row so you can see 

the best success possible with your new Google Ads account. 

The 2 Things You Need

 
 
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1. A Relevant, Easy-to-Use,
Well-Built Site
That's right -- your first step to setting up Google Ads has absolutely 

nothing to do with the Google Ads platform itself, as your success 

with Google Ads will live and die by the quality of your website. 

With Google Ads, you are bringing more qualified searchers to your 

site. But after they click, it’s your site’s job to make them convert. In 

order for this to happen, you must have compelling landing pages 

that will compel users to take action. 

If your site or landing pages are cluttered, lack relevant information, 

or make it hard for users to understand what actions they need to 

take (e.g. no clear conversion path), the money you’re spending on 

Google Ads will not generate a return. 

 
 
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If your website is in dire need of a facelift -- d
​ on't stress, we've all 

been there!​ -- we recommend diving into our p

​ erfect inbound 

website playbook​. 

2. A Commitment to the
Long-Term
When setting up your account for the first time, it is important to be 

committed to the process for the long haul. It takes time to dial-in 

the right structure, keywords, and messaging. You will also likely 

start out with a poor quality score, which will hurt your positioning 

and increase your CPC. 

Fear not! Once you’ve established your brand’s reputation within 

Google Ads, these numbers will improve. But it may take anywhere 

from three to six weeks for your quality score to begin to lift. 

 
 
impactbnd.com  24 
Google Ads Account
Setup
In order to sign up to advertise on the Google Ads platform, you will 

need to c
​ reate a Google Account​. Then simply head over to 

ads.google.com​ and sign in -- you will land on the welcome screen: 

This interface gives us a few key items to consider as we prepare to 

launch our first campaign. 

 
 
impactbnd.com  25 
The Basics
You will be prompted to choose “Your Main Advertising Goal” -- 

whether it’s more phone calls, foot traffic, or web leads/traffic/sales 

-- followed by some questions about your company, such as the 

name and website. 

Next, you'll need to pick a location, and you've got a few options. 

We can choose a radius around a specific city or address, or choose 

multiple locations in a group: 

 
 
impactbnd.com  26 
From there, you will need to provide the following basic information 

to create your campaign and then click the save and continue button 

at the bottom of the page when you are done. 

● Budget: Enter the amount you're willing to spend each day for 

this ad campaign. Your budget will help determine how many 

times your ad can be shown each day. 

● Networks: Select where you want your ad to appear. You have an 

option to select devices on which you want your ad to appear or 

use the default setting. 

● Keywords: Enter search term keywords that will trigger your ad. 

● Bid: Enter the most you are willing to pay for your ad to be 

clicked on each time 

● Text: Enter the text of your ad. 

Billing Setup

 
 
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 ● Choose the country or territory where your billing address is 

located from the drop-down. The other fields should 

automatically update. 

● Enter your billing information -- your credit card details, etc. 

● Here is also where you will set time zone information. Be 

careful here; time zone and currency settings can't be changed 

after you set up your account. 

● Click save and continue when you are finished. 

There a few one-time account activation fees. Account activation 

fees and payment options vary according to the currency you use and 

the location of your billing address. 

One Final Note About Billing

With Google Ads, you have two payment options. Automatic 

payments allow you to pay after accruing clicks. You will be charged 

 
 
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upon reaching your billing threshold or 30 days after your last 

payment, whichever comes first. 

If, on the other hand, you opt for manual payments, you will prepay 

Google Ads and charges will be deducted from the prepaid amount. 

When your prepaid balance is diminished, all advertising will be 

suspended until you make another payment. 

You can elect to have payments drafted from either a credit card or a 

bank account. Keep in mind that Google must verify the bank 

account, which can take a little while. If you are eager to get your ads 

up and running, your credit card may be a better option. 

 
 
impactbnd.com  29 
Chapter 4 

What Are the Different 

Types of Google Ads? 
Whether you want to advertise for your e-commerce store and sell 

specific products on Google’s shopping platform -- or promote your 

services to people searching for relevant keywords -- there’s an ad 

format to suit any company and ad budget. 

In fact, the sheer diversity of types of Google Ads available allows 

advertisers to closely monitor and adjust how much they’re spending 

on advertising and directly target the specific demographic of people 

they want to. 

To put this into perspective, there are more than ​63,000 searches​ on 

Google e
​ very second. 

 
 
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Talk about an opportunity for your brand.​ Google Ads are a gateway to a 

whole new world of visibility for your brand. Also, as an advertiser, 

you can make use of a huge network of websites to get maximum 

exposure with thousands -- or millions! -- of potential buyers. 

So, what are the different types of ads you can leverage and (most 

importantly) when should you be using them? 

Google Search Text Ads

Search ads are the most common, most visible, and most utilized 

form of PPC by companies globally. These ads appear above or beside 

organic results, based on whatever the user queries.  

So, if a user searches for the product or service you offer, your ad can 

be the first thing they see. And you only pay if they click on the link. 

 
 
impactbnd.com  31 
  

To set up a search ad, you start by telling Google when, where, and 

why to display your ad. This involves not only ​writing your Google Ad 

but also selecting the keywords a user needs to search in order for 

your ad to show. 

The most important piece of advice for using search text ads is to 

take advantage of e
​ very little piece​ that Google gives you control over. 

 
 
impactbnd.com  32 
To explain what we mean, let's start with an anatomy lesson. And to 

make things easier, we can put the different parts of a search ad into 

song: 

🎶​ “​ The headline is connected to the

Google bone…” ​🎶

Just kidding.​ But seriously, there are a lot of different parts to a search 

ad, so getting our vocabulary down will help immensely down the 

road. 

Headlines
Your headlines are the most important visual part of your text ad. 

Headlines are what your users are going to see first: 

 
 
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As you can see, Google gives you the option to have up to three 

different headlines (separated by a bar “|” above) for each of your 

ads. You are guaranteed that at least two headlines will show -- but 

depending on the relevance of your ad and your quality score, the 

third one can show. 

Headlines are limited to 30 characters each. So, make your headlines 

as eye-grabbing and as concise as possible 

Descriptions
Here is where you get to tell users a little more about your product or 

service, or the page you will be sending users when they click on your 

ad: 

You have a little more wiggle room here, with 90 characters per 

description. Google gives you up to two of these descriptions -- 

 
 
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same as with headlines -- what shows will depend on your relevancy 

and quality score whether or not your second description will show. 

URL Paths
Google also gives you the option to customize the URL that displays 

in the ad. This way, you don’t have to show users the actual URL, 

which could have tracking metrics or query strings in it: 

Your root domain needs to be the same, but you have two 15 

character paths that you can customize based on the context of your 

ad. 

Sitelink Extensions
Sitelink extensions are extremely valuable; you can add more links to 

your ads and give users more options to view within your site: 

 
 
impactbnd.com  35 
  

Again, they display when your ad is relevant to the keyword that the 

user searched and when your quality score is good. The more real 

estate your ad takes up on a search results page the better, and 

sitelink extensions are a great way to accomplish that. Google allows 

you to pick and choose which sitelinks display for each of your ads, 

so you can always provide appropriate, relevant links to users. 

Callout Extensions
With callout extensions, you can promote unique offers to shoppers, 

like free shipping or 24-hour customer service. When customers see 

your ads, they get detailed information about your business, 

 
 
impactbnd.com  36 
products, and services. Callout extensions are similar to sitelink 

extensions, but without the links: 

Google recommends that advertisers use callout extensions to draw 

attention to unique selling points and important product details and 

benefits. You can feature up to four callouts in your ad, each limited 

to 25 characters each. Additionally, you must have at least two 

callouts for them to display. 

Structured Snippets
Structured snippets allow you to highlight aspects of your products 

or services, and shed light on the service areas you cover: 

 
 
impactbnd.com  37 
  

Structured snippets show beneath your text ad in the form of a 

header (e.g., "Destinations") and list of values (e.g., "Hawaii, Costa 

Rica, South Africa"). 

Best Practices for Expanded

Text Ads
Expanded text ads are the traditional ads that you will create for each 

of the ad groups within your campaigns. For those, we recommend 

that you...  

Write at least three ads per ad group. You don’t want to put all your 

eggs in one basket here. Having multiple ads gives you a good 

rotation and can give you insight into what messaging performs 

 
 
impactbnd.com  38 
better. Google by default will also have the option “Prefer Best 

Performing Ads” checked off. 

This means that Google will look at the performance of your three 

ads and favor the best one. 

This might sound like a great feature, but Google is often too fast to 

choose a winning ad. Let your ads run for a while and get some data 

behind them before you turn this on. This way your data is at least 

statistically significant before you let Google take over. 

Include your most important information in your headlines. This is 

what users will see first, and not everyone will read your descriptions 

and extensions fully. So tell them what is important right off the bat. 

Also, keep in mind that H1 is far more important than H2. 

Build your ads to work for users on all devices. Just make sure you 

aren’t frustrating mobile users with content that doesn’t make sense 

or by sending them to a page they can’t interact with on their 

phones. 

 
 
impactbnd.com  39 
Include your top keywords in the URL paths. This will increase the 

likelihood of a click. 

Make good use of all your extensions. Once more with feeling -- 

make good use of all of your extensions.​ The more relevant callouts, 

structured snippets, and sitelinks you have, the better. 

Now let’s look at another type of Google Ads -- responsive search 

ads. 

Responsive Search Ads

When using responsive ads, you are giving Google control over their 

overall composition. This means that, based on the available “real 

estate,” Google will modify your ad to fit in that given space. So, 

Google will custom-make an ad with different configurations, so 

that you can see which headlines, descriptions, and extensions 

perform best. 

 
 
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With responsive ads, you are basically testing which aspects of your 

ads resonate better with users, as well as which ones result in more 

clicks, conversions, etc. Unlike an expanded text ad, you will enter 

multiple combinations of headlines and descriptions. Then Google’s 

machine learning will test and optimize for the best performing 

combination. 

The more headlines and descriptions entered, the more Google Ads 

can test and then learn which combinations work best with different 

search queries. 

Advantages of Responsive
Search Ads
Let "Skynet" Do the Heavy-Lifting
Responsive ads allow you to put in up to 15 different headlines and up 

to four different descriptions. Now, if you remember correctly from 

 
 
impactbnd.com  41 
the section above, you get 30 characters per headline and 90 

characters per description. 

That’s a whole lot of information you can get in front of your 

potential buyers.  

Google will then test and run all possible combinations and record 

what happens, so that you can see which headlines and/or 

descriptions perform best for any given campaign. 

This eliminates your need to A/B test your ads. Google’s AI will now 

automatically test everything so that you can focus on other areas of 

the campaign.  

Boost Your Relevance

Just like traditional text ads, responsive ads can also show three 

headlines and two descriptions. You can also specify the width of 

your ads, giving you granular control over how your ads appear on 

mobile screens.  

 
 
impactbnd.com  42 
Your Ads Will Appear More Often
By using multiple combinations of headlines and descriptions, your 

ads will have the opportunity to compete in more auctions. This will 

help your message reach more customers by showing up for more 

searches.  

The optimized ads have a much higher chance of sending the right 

message to the right user, and will boost the click-through rate and 

lower the CPC of your campaigns. 

Best Practices for Responsive

Search Ads
Here are six quick tips for using responsive ads s
​ traight from Google​: 

● Create as many headlines as you can. Google will have more 

options to play with, which will give you more data to evaluate, 

as a result. 

● Use a strong keyword in at least two of your headlines. 

 
 
impactbnd.com  43 
 ● But also create at least three headlines without any of your 

keywords. 

● Experiment with different lengths. Don’t try to maximize your 

character count in every headline. 

● Add at least two distinct descriptions 

● Make good use of pins. “Pinning” allows you to designate in 

which slot your headline or description will show. So, if you 

never ​want your brand name to show in the H1 or H2 slot, pin it 

to the H3 slot so that it will only show up there. If you want to 

experiment with slight variations of headlines, make sure they 

are pinned to the same slot as well. For example, if you want to 

see if “Official Site” or “The Official Site” perform better, pin 

them both to the same slot so that Google doesn’t try and 

display an ad that says “Official Site | The Official Site.” 

Again, you are guaranteed an H1, H2, and one description. So, make 

sure the most important information you want to get across is 

included in those. If an H3 or a D2 shows, that’s just gravy. 

 
 
impactbnd.com  44 
Display Ads
One of the coolest parts of having a Google Ads account is the 

opportunity to advertise on Google’s Display Network (GDN). 

The GDN is, quite literally, a network of websites that allow 

advertisers to display ads on them. The GDN breaks the mold on 

traditional search ads and lets advertisers reach users on sites that 

they browse regularly. This way, users don’t need to be searching for 

your product or service to see your ads. 

 
 
impactbnd.com  45 
The GDN supports a variety of ad formats: 

● Text: Literally the same ads you use for your search campaigns 

can be used here. Kill two birds with one stone by applying your 

existing ads to a new GDN campaign. 

● Image: A picture is worth a thousand words, right? Image ads 

are a more eye-catching ad type, allowing you to use imagery 

from your current marketing or brand colors. 

● Rich media: These are similar to the image ads, but are more 

interactive. 

● Video: Similar to rich media, but with an embedded video. 

The way GDN ads work is similar to your search ads. You bid on 

keywords to choose where the ads appear. There is a difference here, 

however. You have a choice of placement and how you target users 

on the GDN: 

● Contextual/topic targeting: Here, you select keywords and your 

ads display on sites relevant to your business or industry. Users 

 
 
impactbnd.com  46 
 will see your ad while browsing or reading about topics related 

to your company. 

● Placement targeting: This type of targeting can get tedious, as 

you are choosing specific sites to display your ads on. But if you 

have great user data and know where your customers browse, it 

can be extremely effective. 

● Remarketing: Remarketing isn’t exclusive to the GDN, but with 

this model, you can advertise to users who have been on your 

site recently. (​ We will cover remarketing as a whole in a later 

chapter.) 

● Demographic/geographic and language: If you have lots of user 

data, you can target potential customers based on certain 

demographics or language. 

Best Practices for GDN

Advertising

 
 
impactbnd.com  47 
 ● Start with remarketing. If you’re ever going to see any success 

with GDN, it will be here first. ​(Again, we'll get to this in a 

subsequent chapter.) 

● Manage your placement targeting. This is the only targeting 

method that gives you control over the specific places your ads 

show. If you use contextual or topic targeting you’re giving 

Google the reigns. It’s best to get some data before you let 

Google take over. 

● Test your budget. Display ads reach about 90% of the United 

States every day -- while the extent of that reach sounds 

incredible, the potential to spend money is also incredible. Start 

out with a small budget you are comfortable with. 

● Test different formats. Try all formats at least once. Visual ads, 

in general, have a much higher click-through rate, but some 

sites only show text ads. And if you are the only advertiser 

bidding on a certain format for a given site, you are going to get 

more exposure at a much cheaper price. Surprisingly enough 

given the better performance of visual ads, two-thirds of ads on 

the GDN are text ads. 

 
 
impactbnd.com  48 
 ● Treat your display campaigns like you would your search. Many 

advertisers treat display campaigns much like an “add-on” to 

their search, and their campaigns suffer. It’s like a second child 

-- no favoritism until you can honestly say you see a significant 

winner. 

● Keep an eye on where your ads display. After your campaigns 

have run for a while, it’s a good idea to periodically look at the 

sites that they are showing. You don’t want your brand 

associated with some of the “not so nice” (for lack of a better 

term) sites on the network. 

● Don’t let mobile games spend all your money. Ever see those 

ads at the bottom of your Candy Crush game? Every free app out 

there uses the display network to monetize their apps. They end 

up being a huge money suck for the majority of companies. You 

can (and should) exclude the mobile GDN in your campaign 

settings. 

Shopping Ads
 
 
impactbnd.com  49 
E-commerce stores rejoice! Get in on all this Google Ads fun with 

shopping ads. While you can use search advertising to promote your 

site or deals going on with traditional search, Google Shopping 

allows you to advertise every product individually without having to 

customize ads for each product. 

Starting off in ​Google Merchant Center​, you can upload a feed of your 

products and set a budget for your ads. Now your products will 

appear on the Google Shopping platform and on Google search result 

pages as well: 

 
 
impactbnd.com  50 
Most often, however, your product will appear within the shopping 

platform. The platform compares your product prices to your 

competitors, and lets users search for the product they are looking 

for. It’s a good idea to add a promotional offer to your shopping ads 

when you are starting campaigns, so your costs will appear as low as 

possible to the user. 

Gmail Ads
Gmail ads are a great opportunity for brands trying to expand their 

advertising reach. They operate based on the account activity of a 

 
 
impactbnd.com  51 
given user. They are interactive ads that show at the top of your 

inbox. 

When someone clicks the ad, it can either launch your landing page 

or expand to the size of a regular email to show your full ad: 

People can interact with your expanded ad in different ways, 

depending on your ad’s layout. They can play video, fill out a form, 

click to go to your website, or (when they’re on mobile) click to call 

or to go to an app marketplace. 

 
 
impactbnd.com  52 
The nice thing about Gmail ads is that they don’t charge you as a user 

interacts with the ad. Only when they first click to expand the ad does 

it count as a click. 

Best Practices for Gmail Ads

Put your ads in front of the right audiences. Gmail has more than a 

billion active users every month, so your targeting is just as 

important as with search ads. Use keywords and purchase intent 

targeting to reach the right customers. 

Gmail also lets you upload a list of email addresses you can target. 

From there, Google will create lookalike audiences based on that 

customer list. Then you can target other Gmail users that are similar 

to the customers on your list. This way you are only targeting 

prospects that are already likely to purchase or convert. 

Make your collapsed ads as enticing as possible. Put your most 

important calls-to-action in the front of your ad so that users get the 

 
 
impactbnd.com  53 
point right off the bat. Only about 45 characters will display on 

mobile, so keep this in mind when creating your ads. 

It’s also a good idea to highlight your promotions in your collapsed 

ad, as well. Don’t hide the deal where no one can see it unless they 

click. A good starting point is to look into your analytics. What are 

your best performing subject lines? Carry these successes over to 

your Gmail ads. 

Make use of Gmail ad templates. These pre-built templates perform 

a lot better than a custom HTML ad, especially on mobile. 

 
 
impactbnd.com  54 
  

Using these templates, you can make your expanded ad look like a 

landing page on your site. Why would you want to do that? Because 

landing pages convert, end of story. 

YouTube Ads

 
 
impactbnd.com  55 
YouTube is the second-largest search engine in the world​ -- right 

after Google -- with almost two billion users a month. There are also 

50 million content creators, generating half a million hours of 

content every day. So yeah, YouTube is a big deal. YouTube should be 

your second stop in the paid media world, before even tackling other 

search engines like Bing. 

Google Ads for video enables you to display ads in the YouTube 

search results or before, during, and after videos on YouTube and the 

GDN. You can display text, video, or display ads on YouTube and 

across the web, wherever YouTube videos are embedded. 

You will often find less competition and much cheaper keyword 

costs. All good things, right?  

Of course, costs will vary greatly depending on your industry and 

keyword focus -- but on average, they are about $0.06 per view or 

click, which is much cheaper than traditional search. 

 
 
impactbnd.com  56 
Different Types of YouTube
Ads
Google TrueView offers three different kinds of ads.​ (They are called 

TrueView because you only get charged when a user actually views a 

video.)​ The biggest advantage of TrueView ads is that they provide a 

ton of data for advertisers: 

● Who are the users that are viewing your ads? 

● Where are they coming from? 

● And probably most importantly, what are the videos that they 

are watching? 

You should be able to make some pretty educated decisions based on 

this information, enabling you to improve your keyword targeting 

and lower your CPC.  

In Stream Ads

 
 
impactbnd.com  57 
These play before, during, or after the end of a YouTube partner 

video. A YouTube partner is a channel that has elected to make 

money by showing ads during their videos. 

Viewers can skip these ads after five seconds. If your ad is longer 

than 30 seconds, you are charged for a view if a user hits the 

30-second mark. With anything shorter you are only charged if they 

view the entire ad. 

In Search
 
 
impactbnd.com  58 
These ads are displayed on the results page of a YouTube search. 

They are pulled based on keyword bids, just like traditional search 

ads. With in search ads, you are charged when a user clicks to play 

the video. 

In Display

These ads appear in the suggested videos section next to the video 

the user is currently watching. 

 
 
impactbnd.com  59 
  

With these ads, you are charged when the viewer clicks. It’s also 

worth noting that a single advertisement may appear in any number 

of formats, allowing you to test which works best for your brand. 

 
 
impactbnd.com  60 
Chapter 5 

The 2 Things That Will 

Make or Break Your 
Google Ads Campaigns 
If you only take one thing away from reading this guide -- well, two 

things -- we hope that they are the importance of messaging and 

content, and the importance of tracking conversion correctly. 

Friends, these are the two variables that will make or break your 

Google Ads campaigns, more than anything else you have control 

over. 

 
 
impactbnd.com  61 
The Importance of
Content & Messaging
One of the most crucial components of creating a successful Google 

Ads campaigns is to ensure that your content and messaging are spot 

on. And by spot on, we mean there is a direct correlation between the 

search query, your ad, and the landing page it drives to. 

We like to call this “keeping the scent.” 

If you implement the best practices we’ve outlined in the guide, 

chances are your ads will be served to the right person at the right 

time -- however, it’s up to you to ensure that you are serving them 

the right message. When a user searched for “keyword phrase,” they 

are expecting search results that address their query. 

That means when they decide to click,​ they want to see something 

relevant​. 

 
 
impactbnd.com  62 
Why Is This Important?
If you deliver content through your ad that addresses the needs and 

intent of the searcher, you'll build immediate trust between you and 

the searcher and increases the chances of them doing business with 

you. This is also the key to success with Google Ads. Because if there 

is a misalignment anywhere in that path (search query ➡ ad ➡ 

landing page) -- meaning you deliver something that does not 

match what they're looking for -- your quality score will be affected, 

and... 

Poor Quality Scores = Higher CPC (​ Source: Neil Patel) 

 
 
impactbnd.com  63 
Additionally, 39% of your quality score comes from the landing page 

experience and 22% comes from the ad relevance: 

So, needless to say, not working to make sure your content and 

messaging are spot on will definitely "break” your Google Ads 

experience. 

 
 
impactbnd.com  64 
How to Nail Your Content &
Messaging
There is no shortcut with this step. You need to take the time to plan 

your campaigns and ad groups, what they will focus on, as well as 

where they are driving the user. On top of that, you need to plan out 

what you want the user to do once they get to your landing page. 

Put yourself in the shoes of the searcher and ask yourself the 

following questions: 

● Are my ads answering the searchers' questions or query? 

● Is the copy compelling, and does it tell the user what I should 

expect when they click through? 

● Does my landing page provide a solution to the users' pain 

points? 

● Are my keywords in the ad copy and on the landing page? 

● Is the landing page mobile optimized? 

 
 
impactbnd.com  65 
Approaching your content and messaging as if you were the end user 

will ultimately help you create the perfect journey to take the users 

from searcher to customer and keep Google happy along the way.   

The Importance of
Tracking Conversions
Bottom line, you are not tracking conversion correctly (or at all), 

your perception of ROI will be skewed, which will lead to you not 

being able to confidently make decisions within your account. 

When done correctly, conversion tracking in Google Ads is powerful. 

It helps you identify how well your campaigns are performing and if 

they are actually generating sales/leads. Additionally, having 

conversions set up correctly allows Google to understand what 

success looks like for you and your campaigns. That means Google's 

AI (machine learning) can better optimize your account. 

 
 
impactbnd.com  66 
Without conversion tracking in place, Google will be optimizing your 

ads blindly based on your campaign goals, not your actual data. 

More specifically, the effects of not having conversion tracking set 

up correctly include poor signals (from improperly set up 

conversions) making for poor conversion optimization through 

machine learning, which will lead to unqualified leads and wasted ad 

spend. And of course, this will ultimately lead to poor quality scores, 

the effects of which we’ve discussed at length in this guide. 

Take the time to focus on your content and messaging and to set up 

your conversions from the get-go. Analyze the data coming in, 

iterate and pivot based on what you learn. That is how you will find 

success with Google Ads. 

 
 
impactbnd.com  67 
Chapter 6 

The 7 Most Common 

Google Ads Mistakes (AKA 
How to Not Waste Your 
💰​) 

Whether you are new to Google Ads or have been managing accounts 

for years, we're certain that you have had a moment when you’ve 

stopped and wondered, “

​ Why, why is this happening?!” 

Even the most experienced Google Ads specialist will tell you, Google 

Ads are difficult to figure out and sometimes best practices that work 

for one account will leave you banging your head against the wall on 

another. 

 
 
impactbnd.com  68 
While no one tactic is guaranteed to work, there are several common 

mistakes we've seen in the majority of the accounts we've audited. 

Our goal with this chapter is to explain each of those mistakes and 

why they happen, so you can avoid them entirely (and save yourself 

some money).  

1. Using the Wrong

Keyword Match Type
Keyword match type is a tricky thing and definitely not something 

Google does a good job of explaining to those just getting started. 

Not only do they not explain things, they default accounts to add 

keywords in the broadest manner possible which can lead to unwise 

ad spend and bogus traffic and leads. 

An issue with using the wrong keyword match type typically occurs 

for two reasons: 

 
 
impactbnd.com  69 
First, in the hopes to get your ads up and running quickly, you have 

done some basic keyword research and popped the keywords into 

your ad set, not paying attention to how the format Google has added 

them. 

OR

Second, a few days of your ads running, you start getting 

“suggestions” from Google that outline all the potential traffic you 

are missing by not adding their suggested keywords. 

The suggestions Google provides are there to help those who are not 

sure about what they are doing, but they are not always the right 

choices to make. It's very tempting when getting started with Google 

Ads to simply click that apply now button and hope for the best. 

But what happens when you do this? 

Well, that part is actually deceiving, too. 

 
 
impactbnd.com  70 
Typically, clicks start flowing in and your money starts flowing out 

at a faster rate. The problem is your click quality is poor, and you'll 

quickly lose control over your searchers. 

"What's Going On?!"

It's simple. By default, Google uses the “broad match” keyword 

match type. This means that your ads are now eligible to show 

whenever a searcher searches for any word in your keyword phrases, 

in any order, which would also include misspellings and synonyms. 

We call this a "wide cast net," and it truly will reach the widest 

audience possible, b
​ ut​ it could also bring in a large amount of 

irrelevant traffic. Which as you know, irrelevant traffic is money 

wasted. 

There are four different keyword match types you should get to know 

better if you're working within Google Ads. 

● Broad match​ (defined above) 

 
 
impactbnd.com  71 
 ● Broad match modifier 

● Phrase match 

● Exact match 

Each of these match types has there own set of advantages and 

disadvantages, but ultimately are necessary for you to gain the most 

control on which search queries trigger your ads to appear when you 

want them to. As mentioned above, by default Google starts with 

Broad Match Type. 

Broad Match Modifier

With this keyword match type, you are still taking advantage of the 

wide cast net of Broad, but gaining back some control. You do this by 

appending a “+” in front of any specific words within your keywords 

that you want to lock in place. 

By locking these words in place, you are telling Google that you only 

want your ads to show when that particular word or close variant 

appears somewhere within the search query. The key is that the 

 
 
impactbnd.com  72 
modified broad keyword has to be present in order for your ads to 

serve. 

"Why would I want to use Broad Match or Broad Match Modifier keyword 

types, to begin with?" 

Well, they are a great way to build your keyword list -- search 

queries are very unpredictable. By utilizing broad match type 

keywords you will have more queries that trigger your ad(s). 

Spend time reviewing these in the early phases of your campaigns 

and use them to quickly find relevant search terms to add to you list. 

Doing this for brief periods of time allows you to grow your 

keywords quickly and waste less time trying to find new search 

terms. 

Phrase Match
This, by far, is our favorite match type for keywords in the Google 

platform. With phrase match, you will have better control over what 

 
 
impactbnd.com  73 
triggers your ads to serve. By placing your keywords inside of 

quotations (e.g., “some important keyword”) you are telling Google 

that you want your ads to appear only when a searcher searches for 

your exact keyword phrase. 

The quotations keep your keyword in your exact order and will not 

allow Google to add any words in between, however additional words 

at the beginning and or the end of the search query is OK. 

Exact Match
Exact match is the most restrictive keyword match type, but it also 

gives you the most control. If using this match type, your ads will 

only show when users are searching for your exact keyword or a 

close variant of your exact keyword. This provides the best 

opportunity to show your ads to those most interested in what you 

have to offer. 

We strongly recommend that you test each match type to see what 

works best for your campaigns. Try combining various match types 

 
 
impactbnd.com  74 
within your campaigns and analyze the data until you are confident 

about the relevancy and quality of your keyword traffic. Keep an eye 

on how close your search terms are to your keywords. 

Take advantage of your search term report to get both positive and 

negative keyword ideas. 

 
 
impactbnd.com  75 
  

Note the special symbol (second column) used to offset keywords in 

each of the scenarios. (​ Source: Google) 

 
 
impactbnd.com  76 
2. No Negative Keywords
Having a negative keyword strategy is one of the most critical steps 

to success within your Google Ads Account. That's because choosing 

what not to target is equally as important as choosing what to target. 

Negative keywords are the means for you to set guardrails within 

your Google Ads account.  

They are used to prevent your ads from being served up in response 

to irrelevant search queries and, ultimately, help reduce wasted ad 

spend, thus maximizing your return on investment. 

Just like with regular keywords there are different negative keyword 

match types: 

● Negative broad match 

● Negative phrase match 

● Negative exact match 

 
 
impactbnd.com  77 
Negative Broad Match (Google
Default)
This will prevent your ads from serving if the search contains all 

your negative keywords, regardless of the order. However, it is 

important to note that your ads could still show if the search 

contains only some of your negative keywords. 

Example
Negative broad match keyword: r​ unning shoes 

(Source: Google) 

 
 
impactbnd.com  78 
Negative Phrase Match
This will prevent your ads from serving if the search contains your 

exact negative keywords in the same order even if additional words 

come before or after. 

Example
Negative phrase match keyword: "
​ running shoe" 

(Source: Google) 

 
 
impactbnd.com  79 
Negative Exact Match
This will prevent your ads from serving if the search contains your 

exact negative keywords without any extra words. However, it is 

important to note that your ad will appear if the search contained any 

additional words. 

Example
Negative exact match keyword: ​[running shoes] 

(Source: Google) 

 
 
impactbnd.com  80 
Pick Your Negative Keywords
Carefully
Always think through the ramifications of your keywords and the 

delivery of your ads. Make sure that you are looking at your search 

term report for how people are searching for you and also taking 

advantage of ​Google’s Keyword Planner​. ​(This will help you see actual 

user query data to help find negative keyword ideas, especially on related 

searches.) 

Another great tactic for finding negative keywords is to use Google to 

search for your primary keyword and mine through the search 

engine results data for what Google sees as relevant to that search 

query. 

Just remember that Google has no trouble spending your money, so 

please use negative keywords to take that control back and stop 

spending on useless keywords for your product or service. 

 
 
impactbnd.com  81 
3. Not Setting Up Goals &
Conversion Tracking
According to D
​ isruptive Advertising’s Google Ads analysis​, 57.7% of 

Google Ads accounts have some level of conversion tracking in place. 

While that number seems OK, it actually means that 42.3% of Google 

Ads account managers have no idea whether or not their campaigns 

are working. 

Ladies and gents, this is a ​huge​ issue. 

Without having a clear definition or understanding of your goals and 

conversions, you are unable to clearly define success within your 

Google Ads account -- meaning you will never be able to see how 

effectively your ad clicks lead to valuable activity. On top of that, you 

won't be able to scale your Google Ads campaigns properly, and you 

 
 
impactbnd.com  82 
won't be able to take advantage of Google's machine learning 

capabilities effectively. 

Of course, goals and conversions can mean many things -- so, let's 

run through what these could look like. 

First, you have to have a conversion source. This could mean your 

website, mobile app, phone calls or custom goals imported from 

sources like G
​ oogle Analytics​. 

We typically like to work with clients by reviewing their current 

conversion points on their site. Usually, we find: 

● Contact us forms 

● Schedule a demo 

● Product purchase 

● Download 

● Event registration or ticket purchase 

● Pages to visit 

 
 
impactbnd.com  83 
Once you have established your most valuable goals (actions/events) 

you want to make sure that you have set up your tracking properly. 

You can set up your conversion tracking within Google Ads itself or 

create goals within Google Analytics -- then, by linking the two 

accounts, import them into Google Ads. 

Let's start with Google Ads -- you will need two codes snippets on 

your website. 

The first one is the Global Site Tag. This adds website visitors to your 

“All Visitors” remarketing lists. You must install this code on all 

your website pages, but you only need one Global Site Tag per Google 

Ad account. The second code snippet is the Event Snippet itself. This 

tracks the action or actions that should be counted as your 

conversion. 

If you decide to take advantage of setting up goals inside of Google 

Analytics you will need to run through some small steps inside of 

your Google Analytics account to create your goals and link the two 

 
 
impactbnd.com  84 
accounts. Once you have linked the accounts you will be able to 

import the goals you would like to apply to your Google Ads account. 

Think of Google Analytic goals as a way to gauge how well your 

website is meeting your critical objectives. 

To find your goals inside of Google Analytics: 

● Go to your Google Analytics account. 

● Click on the “Admin” button in the lower left. 

● Click on “Goals” (far right column). 

● Click “+ New Goal” to set up a new goal or click on any goal 

listed to view what it is you are exactly tracking. 

All this is critical to having visibility into which keywords, ads, ad 

groups and campaigns are driving your most valuable searcher 

activity. This is where you see your ROI and can make more informed 

decisions within your account to scale. 

 
 
impactbnd.com  85 
4. Running Ads Around
the Clock
By default Google out the box will run your ads 24 hours a day, seven 

days a week nonstop, until your ad spend if gone for the month.  

Unfortunately, we see companies make this mistake a lot with 

Google Ads. 

One of our most important checklist items while building out a 

Google Ads campaign is to set the campaign up with custom 

scheduling (also known as “dayparting”) even if we are going to run 

ads all day, every day anyway.  

The main reason for doing this right away is because we would be 

unable to view previous data later on down the road if we waited. 

 
 
impactbnd.com  86 
How Ad Scheduling Works
It is important to note that Google Ads schedules are set at the 

campaign level and will direct Google on exactly which days and time 

to run your campaigns. In other words, your ads won’t run during 

times outside the range you specify. Ad schedules only run on a 

weekly basis, which means you won't be able to run your ads on 

certain days of the year -- like holidays or other major events.  

The amount of control here is incredible. For example, you can set 

which days of the week you would want to run your ads as well as 

start/stop times for each of those days. You are also able to set up 

multiple ad schedules for each of those days (Monday, 6 a.m. to 11 

a.m.; Monday, 5 p.m. to 9 p.m.) Once you establish your custom 

schedule you can set bid adjustments for each individual time block 

you created. 

Scheduled bid adjustments are also a great alternative to shutting 

campaigns off certain days or hours. Being able to adjust your bid 

 
 
impactbnd.com  87 
allows your account to continue running your ads but at a lower or 

higher average CPC. 

Here are your main reasons to utilize custom ad scheduling: 

● Business hours 

● Supply and demand 

● Limited daily budget 

● Your data says so! 

Simply put, you will want to see what days and times provide you the 

most value to your business. We often like to look at this data not 

only with Google Ads, but within Google Analytics, as well. As you 

start to make bid-adjustments you will always want to revisit your 

data and re-adjust where necessary.  

If you stop delivering ads on the weekend or late at night you will not 

see new fluctuation. By utilization of hours of day and day of week 

reporting. 

 
 
impactbnd.com  88 
Better insights to your searches activity matched up with your 

account goals and conversions will always lead to better account 

performance which will lead to a much higher ROI on your account 

spend. 

5. Bad Mobile Google Ads

Experience
Hoo boy, this one is a really, r​ eally​ big deal. We all heard in the past 

couple of years ​how important responsive websites have become in 

our now mobile-dominated world​.  

But what does that all mean to you inside of your Google Ads 

account? It means the game changed. It means that you have to be 

either all-in and committed to creating mobile ad experiences or 

step aside. 

 
 
impactbnd.com  89 
The truth is that competition soared once the shift happened. This 

meant that if you were not positioning in the one or two spots for 

your mobile ads you were pretty much wasting your time. Remember 

that the s
​ earch engine results page (SERP) space​ difference between 

mobile, desktop, and tablet is significant. 

Google made it clear that Ad Ranking would be the primary driver for 

your success. This means that your maximum CPC needs to play well 

with mobile, as well as your quality score -- Max CPC x Quality Score 

= Ad Rank. The CPC part is easy, it's the diligence needed to ensure 

that your ads are taking your searchers to a mobile-friendly and 

optimized landing page. P

​ age speed is your friend in this. 

Mobile users are very goal-oriented. They expect to be able to get 

what they need immediately and on their own terms. And if the site 

your Google Ads point to fails to deliver that mobile-optimized 

experience that loads quickly, they'll abandon your site in seconds, 

no matter how "quality" the content you're delivering might be. 

 
 
impactbnd.com  90 
Quality of content doesn't matter if the experience in which it's 

delivered is subpar. 

Keys to mobile experience success for Google Ads include: 

● Keep your CTAs prominent 

● Keep your menus Short 

● Make it easy to return to your home page 

● Make site search visible 

● No pop-ups 

● Utilize filters to help narrow results 

Make sure to always be testing and take advantage of such tools like: 

● Google Mobile Friendly Tool 

● Google Mobile Testing Tool 

● Google PageSpeed Insights 

 
 
impactbnd.com  91 
If you think we're kidding about the impact of a poor mobile 

experience on your Google Ads placement and return, check out the 

drop-off that happens after the fourth placement: 

(Source: Wordstream) 

 
 
impactbnd.com  92 
6. Leaving Google Ads
Defaults in Place
Given what we've talked about thus far, you know many of the 

Google Ad defaults could ultimately accelerate your ad spend with 

very little return. But to get you pointed in the right direction, here is 

a quick rundown of some of the most offensive defaults... 

Automatic Opt-in to Both the

Google Search & Display
Network (GDN)
The idea of serving a single campaign across the search and GDN at 

the same time will end up costing you money. Ultimately, you are 

limiting your targeting and optimization capabilities and risking a 

 
 
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faster ad spend with the GDN. The more control you have over your 

campaigns, the more successful you will be with them. 

Automatic Inclusion to
Google’s Search Partner
Network
By extending your reach across hundred or non-Google websites, 

you put your campaigns at risk for either poor click-through rate 

(CTR), which will bring down your quality score or a boost in clicks 

that eat up your daily budget with little to no conversions. 

Remember, it is extremely difficult to manage the sites your ad could 

end up on which means you no longer have control. 

Automatic Selection of Broad

Match Type for Keywords
Remember from the last chapter? Utilizing broad match type will 

open your campaign up for high spend on irrelevant traffic. Why 

 
 
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spend money on searchers who are not looking for your product or 

service? 

Automatic Selection to
Optimize Your Ads
When you first build out your campaign, you typically would want to 

have three ads in your newly built ad group. By default, Google will 

start optimizing right away for the better performing ad. The 

problem with this is that Google will make that decision quickly, not 

allowing the other two ads to rotate evenly as your keywords trigger 

on searches. 

You cannot control the benchmark (impressions, clicks, 

conversions). The best you can do is turn off the default and move to 

the option of “Rotate Ads Indefinitely.” This option will get you as 

close to an even rotation as possible while you are testing out your ad 

copy. 

 
 
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Quality of your ads will always play a part in delivery -- so, if you 

have a poorer performing ad, it may not trigger as much as the 

others. Always remember that poor quality could take your ad off the 

first page of the search results page and move you to the second 

where your impressions will significantly drop. 

Automatic Serving of Ads to

Mobile
Not all businesses are created equal, and so their Google Ads may not 

convert as well on mobile or tablet. When building out your 

campaigns you are automatically opted into serving your ads on 

mobile, tablet, and desktop. If your site is n

​ ot​ mobile-friendly and 

you know that your mobile traffic performs poorly make sure to 

remove yourself from these devices. 

Automatic Opt-in to Automatic

Ad Creation via Google AI
 
 
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By default, Google would like to assist you on writing new ads to help 

boost your campaign performance. If you don’t go in and adjust this 

setting Google will not only write these ads for you, they will turn 

them on. This could result in a lot of different outcomes but, most of 

all, you'll experience a loss of control and testing would dynamically 

affect your campaign performance. 

Automatic Location Setting

This is a must to fix straight away. If left as is, will spend your daily 

fast on irrelevant clicks from other countries or states fast. Here's an 

example to help better explain: 

Let's say you're a car owner in Maryland in need of “car repairs,” but 

the day before you had been looking at vacation rentals in Orlando, 

Florida. An ad for a car repair shop in Orlando might show up in my 

search engine results page if the advertiser for that car repair shop in 

Orlando had left that setting enabled. 

 
 
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Automatic Inclusion of Mobile
Apps for Display
Always pay attention to where your ads place. The default is to place 

on all devices, which could mean falsely categorized websites and 

mobile apps driving under-qualified traffic, mainly due to accidental 

clicks. Mobile game apps are notorious at spending your money fast 

for that exact reason. 

7. Not Taking Advantage

of Ad Extensions
Google Ads extensions help provide your searchers additional 

information they may be looking for and allowing them to take 

action directly from the search results page. 

During these intent-rich micro-moments, Google Ad extensions 

give your ads more prominence and get you more clicks and valuable 

 
 
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user interactions. They simply own more real-estate on the SERP. 

Google Ads extensions will help make your ads more appealing to the 

searcher, often at a lower cost per additional click than the cost of 

moving up a position. 

Make sure that your extensions are as relevant to your ad as possible 

helping to maximize the performance of your ads. 

The most popular extensions include: 

● Location  

● Callout  

● Call 

● Sitelink  

● Structured snippets 

● Price  

● App 

● Promotion 

 
 
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Taking the extra time to ensure that your account is set up correctly 

and that you are not falling prey to any of these common mistakes 

will pay off tenfold. 

We encourage all my clients to create a checklist of the items above 

and review each and every one of them one step at a time. By turning 

off any leaky spending holes will help any Google Ads manager level 

up their Google Ads account. 

 
 
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Chapter 7 

How to Retarget Website 

Visitors Through 
Remarketing 
OK, guys. We promised we'd discuss remarketing -- which is also 

referred to as retargeting -- and here we are! A really great way to 

move prospects through the sales funnel is to use retargeting within 

the Google Ads platform to drive users back to your site. 

Retargeting is the method of serving ads to users (all around the 

web) based on their activity on your website. Once a visitor comes to 

your site a cookie is set and you can now target them on other sites 

they visit. 

There are several ways to do this within the Google Ads platform. 

 
 
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Getting Started with
Retargeting
Let's start with Google Analytics audiences. You are able to both 

create an audience from scratch or take advantage of preconfigured 

audiences developed directly from the Google Analytics team inside 

of your Google Analytics account. 

There are a few things you need to know about Google Analytic 

audiences: 

● You will need edit permission for the Google Analytic property 

you want to create your audience for. 

● You are limited to 2,000 audiences per property. 

● You can only publish an audience to one destination type (e.g. 

Google Ads). 

 
 
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 ● You can only publish a maximum of 20 audiences to Google 

Analytics.  

No matter which method you choose to create your audience, you 

will be able to see an estimate of your audience size under users over 

the last seven days when going through the verification process. 

Please note that this value is determined by the number of users who 

would have met your conditions for that time period. 

The major advantage of creating audiences within Google Analytics 

is that you can better understand the acquisition behavior and 

conversion performance of your searchers. 

Some key steps to always make sure you are following when creating 

your audiences include: 

● Enable remarketing and advertising reporting features within 

your Google Analytics account. 

● Properly link your Google Analytics account with your Google 

Ads account. 

 
 
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 ● Define your audience objective. 

● Decide on the conditions/criteria of this audience. 

● Determine your audience membership duration (one day to 540 

days). 

When you have created your audience don’t forget to publish your 

audience. With having both your Google Analytics and Ads accounts 

linked, your newly created audiences will automatically be ready for 

you to use within your Google Ads account. 

Now you can take advantage of audience targeting, which will allow 

you to be more accurate when choosing who sees your Google Ads. 

You will be able to take advantage of bid modifiers with your 

audience or outright target that specific audience. 

You are also able to create audiences with Google Ads if you choose to 

not create them within your Google Analytics account. Just make 

sure that you have installed your global site tag on all of your website 

pages, as discussed previously. 

 
 
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Once you are in your Google Ads account, simply navigate to your 

audience manager and click on audience lists. Here you will be able to 

create your audiences from a template of “list members” drop-down 

and select the rules or conditions from your “visited pages” 

drop-down, along with the membership window and you are off to 

the races. 

No matter which way you decide to build your audience, you are not 

maximizing your campaign engagement unless you are applying 

your lists to your campaigns. Find your most responsive audience 

and scale from there. 

Google Display Network

(GDN) for Your
Retargeting Efforts

 
 
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Google Ads on the GDN help you promote your product and/or 

service while people are browsing their favorite website online. The 

reach is tremendous, reaching 90% of internet users worldwide. 

These locations include: 

● Gmail 

● YouTube 

● Apps 

● Search partner websites 

The whole idea of the GDN is to help you find the right audience.  

This is supported with the many targeting options you will have 

available within your Google Ads account, such as placements, 

keywords, and topics. All helping you find the right potential 

customer/client at the right place at the right time. 

 
 
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You have many approaches you can take when approaching your 

GDN targeting: 

● Re-engage with your custom audiences. 

● Build similar audiences. 

● Build custom, in-market audiences. 

Targeting assets you can use include : 

● Video 

● Images 

● HTML5 (animated images) 

Ultimately, driving people back to your site or bringing in new 

prospective visitors.  

Whatever you end up choosing, make sure that you plan ahead -- 

when building out or modifying your GDN, Google can take from 12 

to 24 hours to approve. 

 
 
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Responsive Display Ads
Responsive display ads are the latest addition to the GDN family of 

Google Ads formats. What we really like about them is that they are 

automated and are another option in place of creating traditional 

display ads. They are time-saving and 100% responsive, which is 

great for those without a design team available, as they look great on 

mobile devices. 

Responsive display ads actually work in a similar manner to 

Facebook’s dynamic creative ads. You simply upload your images or 

video and your logo along with several headline and description 

options and Google will create various combinations to serve for 

optimal performance. 

We strongly suggest checking them out and adding them into your 

campaign structure where you see fit. 

 
 
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If you are not utilizing retargeting with Google Ads, now is the time 

to set it up -- it's not only easy, it's a great way to make the most of 

your budget. Then spend some time developing a strategy to drive 

warm traffic (your website visitors) back to your site and get them to 

convert. 

This means greeting them with a compelling message that will get 

them to click back to your site and take the next step -- whether 

that’s to make a purchase, schedule a demo, or make a phone call. 

👋, D
​ an Baum​ & J​ ason Linde 

 
 
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