Optimizing Google Ads - 4 New Tips You're Not Using

Did you know that as of January 2020, 40,000 searches happen on Google every second, and 8,000 are searches the search engine has never seen before? It's no question that Google continues to be the number one go-to place in the world for anyone looking for more information on any topic (followed by YouTube, which now has over a billion video views each day).

After recently attending a Google Partner Premiere conference in Austin, I was able to ask some questions directly to the source to validate some new strategies I utilized in 2019 (along with some new ideas they shared with me). Without further ado, here are 4 new tips I learned that I plan to use in the weeks ahead. As a side, I'm going to share a few photos from the presentations I reviewed today, so pardon the crappy lighting/framing.

1. Custom Affinity Audiences

Affinity audiences have been a tool in the Google Ads arsenal for a while now. For a quick refresh, here's a definition straight from Google's resource library help page:

With affinity audiences, you can reach people based on a holistic picture of their lifestyles, passions, and habits. Affinity audiences have demonstrated a qualified passion in a given topic, allowing advertisers to reach the people that matter most with their products or offerings.

Currently, all Google advertisers can access affinity audiences in Search, Display, Video, and Shopping campaigns, as well as Gmail and Display & Video 360.

What I learned that was different today was that you can now target your competitors websites for your display ads! You can also now target a specific location people have been (like your competitor's office) or an app they are using. On top of being able to target their search terms in Google Text Ads, this new development provides an excellent way to show up to people that are already looking at your competition.

2. Social Ads + RLSA = Super RLSA

RLSA (Remarketing Lists for Search Ads) can be a powerful way to tailor specific search ads to people who have been to your site before (this article has more details on how RLSA works). However, a great point brought up in the conference today focuses on the fact that you can now show specific retargeting ads in Google search results that specifically tailored to what ads people have seen on social media!

Social media ads on Facebook & LinkedIn are much more cost-effective than Google paid search ads, so this is an easy way to re-target tens of thousands of people on Google search with the knowledge that they have already seen your brand (at least one time) on social ads.

3. Custom Intent for YouTube

The screenshot above is from a real-time data feed into YouTube video analytics from January 13th, 2020. It's no question that YouTube is still the juggernaut of all online video (on top of being the #2 most visited site in the world). On top of these numbers, the Google Partner conference revealed that 82% of all online traffic is from videos alone. Let that sink in.

We've all been told we need to use video ads as part of our digital marketing strategy, but how do we stand out? How do we make the investment in video worthwhile? One key is leveraging Custom Intent for YouTube. This means looking at the top 50 search terms that consistently drive the most traffic/engagement and adding those to your YouTube video ads strategy. YouTube will then show your video ads to people that have searched for your search terms on Google on Youtube! In other words, they don't have to search for these same terms on YouTube, your video ads will still show for those people based on their Google search history. Here's a few quick screenshots on how to set this up (access this screen by going to in-market audiences in your google ad audiences setup).

4. Advanced Retargeting

These days, you can't escape re-targeting ads. Go look at a product on Amazon, and low and behold that Mandalorian coffee cup will just follow you all around the internet. Being cognizant of how annoying that experience can be for your potential customers, the Google Partner team has some recommendations to more effectively leverage their retargeting platform.

The team walked us through new ways you can show specific retargeting message to specific individuals based on what content they've seen. In short, you should personalize the experience as much as possible, depending on a few factors:

• Stage of funnel - Users that visit your website but never engage or convert (i.e. submit a contact form/purchase product), should see re-targeting messaging that has proven to push people further down the funnel (use retargeting to test different messages). For folks that are more in the middle of the funnel (i.e. reached out for more information but didn't buy yet) they should see different messaging that has proven to lead to a sale (again - use retargeting to test multiple messages at each stage of the funnel)
• Video retargeting - On top of showing video to people who have been to your site, you can also now show ads to people who have only seen specific video content. In other words, if you have a particular video that is resonating with your customers, you can use re-targeting to reinforce that specific message to nurture them further through the funnel.
• Change membership duration depending on sale cycle - By default, Google retargeting ads show up 30 days after someone visits a page or views a particular piece of content/video. If your sales cycle is shorter or longer, you can adjust this time frame accordingly. You can also segment out retargeting content to show at certain times (i.e. 5 days after viewing show X, 6-10 days after viewing show Y, 11-30 days after site visit show Z, etc.)
• Negative retargeting lists - To save further funds in your Google Ads campaign, you can create a negative retargeting list, which will prevent your paid search ads from showing up to groups of people that you don't need to see your messaging any more. For example, you can setup a negative remarketing list that will not show brand awareness retargeting creative to those that have already made a conversion on your site. Alternatively, if you're bidding on your brand term (which typically has very low cost per click), you can not show these ads (and save ad spend) to anyone that has already seen your ads or visited your website or app.