What you need to know about Google search network campaigns

Search network campaigns, an opportunity for brands to enhance the promotion of their products or services

Digital advertising has become a great alternative for companies and brands looking to increase their visibility online. Increasing our visibility has never been easier than with online promotion and the use of advertising campaigns.

Within the Google Ads platform, we can find different types of campaigns, such as search network campaigns, which are ads that appear in search results when we perform a search on Google.

All the qualities that make up this type of search engine allow companies to create effective strategies, well-defined and designed for their target audience. Creating search engine campaigns is a great opportunity to generate more web traffic and, therefore, more sales opportunities, which is why we want to delve deeper into this type of campaign.

From our  digital marketing agency in Madrid,  we want to share all the secrets of search engine campaigns, so stay tuned!

What is the Google search network?

The search network is a type of advertising campaign where brands can offer their ads on the Google search results page. It’s a way to find qualified customers because users are the ones who perform related searches and can find those results instantly. 

These search network ads are text-based and appear both in Google search results and on pages that use the Google search engine and display  Google Ads .

Thus, ads in search network campaigns will be positioned within the ranking based on the determined bid and the ad’s Quality Score. This means that when a user performs a search, an auction is held, with the winning ads positioned. 

When the user clicks on the ad, they’ll be taken to a landing page where they’ll be provided with all the information about the product or service, making it, without a doubt, the most optimal campaign type for achieving conversions.

How do Google search network campaigns work? 

Search Network campaign ads appear at the top or bottom of the Google search results page and are labeled “Ads.”

These are displayed based on the keywords the advertiser has selected, so that when the user performs a related search, the ads will appear alongside the list of results.

Advertisers pay for each click a user makes, known as CPC (cost per click).

That is, when the user performs a search, our ad will appear if we have included among our keywords some of the search terms typed into the search engine.

Another important factor in search network campaigns is  Google Ads bidding types . We invite you to learn all about this in our digital marketing blog.

Keyword match type

Match types are very important when designing search network campaigns because they influence keywords and how ads are displayed to users. Depending on your goals, you’ll need to choose the match type that works best.

This concept, so important in search network campaigns, will tell us what type of relationship we want to have with the terms we have selected in our search network campaign.

The more restrictive the agreement, the less variation in terms we will find. 

Broad match

Broad match is defined as the match type assigned to all keywords. This allows ads to appear on searches with misspelled words, synonyms, related searches, or relevant variants. 

Any search that references the selected keyword will be indexed in the results. By including this keyword in search network campaigns, we can find several advantages:

• More visits to the website, because there is greater reach.
• Less time is spent creating the keyword list.
• You invest in keywords that perform well, and when a keyword variable doesn’t receive clicks, Google stops showing it.

Broad match should be used when you want to increase the visibility of your brand’s offering, when the offering is new and you want to attract a lot of customers, or when you’re just getting started with Google Ads.

Objectively speaking, this isn’t the most convenient bid when running a search network campaign, since our ad will appear on a very high volume of searches, which may not even interest us.

Broad match modifier

This type of match arises in search network campaigns from the previous one, and this option allows ads to be displayed in searches that include the selected keywords with the “+” sign in front or similar variants of these.

Before using this match type in your search campaign, keep in mind that terms with a match modifier can match any part of the search query, and that more words can appear before or after it. This also means that your ads are guaranteed to appear on searches that include the words marked with a “+.”

This agreement should be used when:

• Once we have analyzed the behavior of broad match keywords, we want to increase the specificity of some of them.
• In case we want to have more control over broad match words.
• When we want to be more specific without removing or editing broad match keywords.

Phrase agreement

This match type is more specific than broad match, but still more flexible than exact match. It’s one of the most commonly used types in search network campaigns, as it ensures your keyword appears, allowing you to display more content that you may not have planned.

Among its advantages we highlight:

• Provides greater control over how the keyword must match the user’s search term to trigger the ad.
• Show your ad when customers search for your exact keyword or close variants with other words before or after your keyword or variants. 

Keep in mind that close variants include misspellings, singular and plural forms, acronyms, derivations, abbreviations, and accents. Furthermore, order is very important, as the ad won’t show if there’s a word in between the keyword.

In this case, search network campaign ads are displayed when someone searches for a keyword that contains a phrase within their query. This should be applied in the following cases:

• To create ads with the same keywords that customers use.
• When we want to increase the conversion rate.

Exact match

This is the most extreme match type within search network campaigns. Unlike the previous types, exact match only shows the ad when the user’s search includes the keyword or close variations. It offers greater control over who sees the ad and can generate higher conversions. 

Keyword variants include spelling errors, singular or plural, derivations, abbreviations, accents, words arranged differently, addition or deletion of key words, functions such as prepositions, conjunctions, etc.

This match should be used when the advertiser wants the search network campaign ad to be shown to users who perform a more precise search, interpreting the purchase decision as almost certain.

What are negative keywords? 

Negative keywords are a type of keyword that prevents your ad from showing when a specific word appears in a search. Also known as negative match, it helps you more efficiently target your ads to your target audience.

Its use within search network campaigns is essential to optimize a campaign. 

Below, we’ll provide a list of negative keywords that we typically include in our agency’s search network campaigns:

• Practices
• Employment
• Notes
• Degree
• Career

How to create search network campaigns on Google?

To create ad campaigns on the Google search network, you must follow a series of steps, which we will explain below.

Create the campaign and define the objective

It is the fundamental step before starting, creating our campaign and defining the type of objective we want to achieve.

There are a wide variety of objectives, from generating web traffic, visibility, and conversions. Depending on your choice, you can adjust the search network campaign settings offered by Google Ads.

Determine campaign settings

Here you select who your ads will target, how you’ll spend your budget, and how you should improve your campaign using resources.

Create ad groups

Each ad group in a search network campaign must be relevant to the online searches of users interested in the products or services offered. We can differentiate between standard and dynamic ad groups.

Standard ad groups are those that select a set of keywords related to searches and create ads that may be relevant to them. They are no longer used in search network campaigns.

Dynamic ad groups refer to ad types where Google uses website content to automatically create ads.

Today, search network campaign ads are dynamic by default, allowing for greater ad variation and improving CTR.

Creating search ads

When creating search ads, we must focus and pay close attention to keyword relevance. Titles and descriptions should have some connection or alignment with the ad group’s keywords.

Our advice is to always use the minimum number of keywords in your search network campaigns, as otherwise, the ad quality will be low, as it will be impossible to include all the keywords.

We should also create ad extensions for search network campaigns. This is a way to provide additional information to users, which always improves conversion rates.

Choosing the budget

Once we’ve selected all the above aspects, we need to determine the budget and bid to determine how many people see the ad.

You should keep your daily budget in mind, which is the average amount you should spend each day. In this case, Google recommends several options.

Google offers us a budget similar to that of campaigns like the one we’re going to create. In addition to budget recommendations, we can define this amount in a personalized way.

It’s also possible that on certain days, you may achieve more clicks and conversions, causing your search campaign spend to exceed your daily budget. Therefore, your average daily spend for the month should match the amount you specify in this section.

After following all these steps, your ads should be approved and will begin showing once all the factors that influence them, such as bidding, have been optimized.

Advantages of search network campaigns 

Running ads on the search network can be very beneficial because it helps your business reach more users.

Still, we want to elaborate on all the benefits of search network campaigns:

• The brand can appear among the first pages of search engine results, increasing its presence and increasing the chances of users clicking on the ad.
• Google takes into account the relevance of the information the user is searching for, which is why ads are displayed when the user performs a search that includes the keyword, becoming a potential customer.
• Advertisers quickly gain insight into user behavior and trends, so they can discover new keywords that trigger ads through reports. 
• It’s possible to control costs and budgets, managing them based on the campaigns we’re most interested in.
• By activating a Google search campaign, we can quickly position the website.

We can see that, with all the advances in tools and technologies, the internet has become a medium of opportunity for businesses. They can invest their budget in digital marketing tools that will help them achieve their goals more efficiently, such as digital advertising.

On the Google Ads platform, we find different ad creation options, such as search network campaigns, which allow us to show ads to users who perform related searches and have a certain interest in those services or products. This allows us to more precisely specify the characteristics of our audience and show our ads to potential customers.

We hope that one more day we’ve helped you expand your knowledge and launch new search engine campaigns to increase your visibility in the sector.

We hope this article on search network campaigns has helped you gain a deeper understanding of these types of campaigns.

As always, we’re happy to answer any questions you may have about search engine campaigns or any other digital marketing concept. We’ll be happy to hear from you!

Digitalvar digital marketing agency

0/5 (0 Reviews)