Articles
A freelance Google Ads specialist can
By Carsten Bjerregaard, Marketingcapacity.dk (Link to the article. Copying/publishing without agreement is not allowed)
A Google Ads specialist can help your business utilize all of Google's advertising tools and the world of platforms that Google has access to. For many businesses, it will be one of the most effective ways to invest in marketing. Because Google Ads combines the key ingredients into a powerful cocktail: 1) the most used search engines, 2) the words users search for, 3) millions of websites and 4) a cost-per-click purchasing system.
View Google Ads specialist profiles
What is Google Ads?
Google Ads makes paid marketing effective. Paid Media, as it's also known. As opposed to SEO, which is all about attracting traffic organically (Earned Media). The whole idea of Google has always been to help Internet users find what they're looking for (nothing less). And Google Ads is the commercial way of doing that. Making it 'easy' for advertisers to find users who might be interested in their products or services.
And it's actually relatively 'easy' considering how complex the internet is. Millions of new websites are added every day, and you can search through them in less than 1 second. But it's just hard enough that most businesses need a specialist to optimize this investment. A Google Ads specialist.
Google Ads currently has four cornerstones:
A. Google Ads Search Ads
- Search ads are the ones that appear at the top of the search results when people search on Google. If you sell carpets, you might be interested in showing up when people search for 'flooring' and you can buy that through Google. Google Ads is the tool you can use to bid on these words. You can bid on keywords that you want and you can also specify words that you do NOT want to appear in the context of. The so-called negative keywords.
B. Google Ads Display ads
- Display ads are the so-called banner ads you can see all over the place on websites everywhere. Google has access to over 2 million websites where they can place these ads. With Google Ads, you can buy space for your ads. And you don't just buy blindly. A skilled Google Ads specialist can buy ad space in relation to user profiles and on specific pages, among other things. Display ads are mainly used to build knowledge - awareness. Be it knowledge of a concept, a brand, a company or a product. Not many people click on banner ads today, but they are still seen. Adblocking notwithstanding.
C. YouTube ads
- Since 2006, Google has owned the world's second largest search engine, the movie service YouTube. This means that you can also buy space on YouTube via Google Ads. You can buy in relation to your target audience's profile and also in relation to different movie formats that you can use. At the time of writing, it is:
- TrueView In-Stream
- TrueView In-Search
- Bumper ads
D. Google Shopping ads
- The last format is aimed at direct product sales. You can build a catalog or inventory of items on Google Merchant Center. And while you're still buying against some defined target audiences, it's not keywords that determine whether your product appears. It's your description of your product. This category of Google advertising is obviously ideal for businesses with an online shop.
And one thing's for sure. Google doesn't stop here. So you need to stay on your toes and seek out new knowledge if you want to create value over time as a Google Ads specialist.
What else is a Google Ads specialist called?
We used to talk about Adwords specialists because Google started its advertising adventure with pure text ads that 'answered' keywords. But now that Google offers so much more than just text ads - and advertisers can target more than just keywords - it's more commonly referred to as a Google Ads specialist.
But there are also people with other titles who know how to operate in Google Ads. They may call themselves Digital Specialists, Digital Marketing Specialists, E-commerce managers, or whatever. So if you need a Google Ads specialist, be sure to ask in-depth questions. Because there are many levels of Google Ads competence.
How does Google Ads specialist create value?
A specialist is worth his weight in gold because he can oversee and orchestrate that:
- Define your company's target audiences and their search patterns
- Use the many functionalities of the Google Ads tool
- Understand and utilize the different advertising formats and media
- Develop ad formats and activities that convert
- Invest money in relation to where you measurably get the greatest ROI
The Google Ads platform allows the specialist to target your company's advertising via:
- Keywords you choose
- Keywords that entire audiences are interested in (e.g. hobbies)
- Topics you choose
- Types of websites
- Demographics
- Geography
- People who have already visited your website (remarketing)
A Google Adwords specialist - or Google Ads specialist, as it is more commonly referred to today - must have a fairly broad spectrum of skills and competencies. At least in relation to the fact that it is a specialist function.
What should a Google Ads specialist know?
If we look a little deeper into the toolbox, a Google Ads specialist needs to have a handle on
- SEO and keyword analysis and keyword planning
- Negative keywords
- Quality score
- Cookies and Cookie rules
- CPC, cost per click
- Google partner network
- Display network (where your ads end up)
- Rankings
- PPC, Pay per click
- CPM, cost per thousand impressions
- Remarketing
- Goal setting and KPIs
- Double click ad exchange
- Geography
- Demographic criteria
- Ad prices
- Return on ad spend
- Google ads performance grader
- Google ads editor
- Spyfu (monitoring your competitors' keyword advertising)
- Canva (a design tool for creating ads via templates)
- Keyword planner
- Google trends (is there anything happening that we can follow?)
- Optimization
- Budget allocation
Sound geeky? Well, it is. It's a world where, as a specialist, you need to know a lot. You need to be able to handle a lot of tools and, ideally, you need to have a certain level of personal skills at all levels:
- Strategic overview
- Tactical agility
- Creative intuition and the ability to find new paths
- Business acumen
For many businesses, Google Ads will be the most important specialist marketing function. Because today's media landscape is so fragmented - a few large media have been replaced by a huge amount of smaller media - that you can only succeed with mass marketing if you buy and optimize via electronic tools. Few - if any - people can keep track of the media landscape and thus the advertising market anymore. Only digital technology can understand and act optimally in the marketplace, and these are the tools that the Google Ads specialist can control and utilize.
Examples of great work done by a Google Ads specialist
If you're assessing an AD or a copywriter, you can look at a marketing element. A movie or an ad can show you if they know their stuff. Not so with a Google Ads specialist. It's impossible to know from the outside. You could almost say that good Google Ads specialist work is distinguished by the fact that you DON'T notice it. You're just affected by it...
If we take remarketing as an example, we're all familiar with the phenomenon of searching for something - a pair of boots, for example - and then being besieged by the boot company's advertising for the next six months. Is that good or bad? There's no easy answer to that question, because you'd have to look at the numbers to know. But the numbers alone may not fully account for any long-term badwill that may have been created.
So if you want to assess how good a given Google Ads specialist is, you can use this step-by-step model:
- Ask about their methodology
- Ask about their successes - how? And why?
- Ask about their 'golden rules' - what usually works?
- Try the Google Ads Specialist for a while
- Discover how the Google Ads specialist works
- Is there enough testing and analysis?
- Are analytics results used in the briefing of creatives?
- Are the results showing?
There are no truths. There's no eternal recipe. Google Ads advertising is a never-ending learning process. Where what you were successful with yesterday is not necessarily the right thing to do today. That's why a good Google Ads specialist is more adaptable and opportunistic than most.
Why a freelance Google Ads specialist?
In the past, most people might have thought of freelancers for one-off projects. However, many companies have now realized the benefits of working with freelancers on a long-term basis:
- You can cover needs that don't justify a permanent position
- In periods when you don't need it, you don't pay for the skill
- In a long-term relationship, the freelancer gets to know the company almost as well as a permanent employee
- Compared to buying the desired skill set from an agency - such as an advertising agency - working with freelancers is usually much cheaper
- You have the flexibility to rethink the overall competency profile of the person responsible for an area
- More and more really talented people prefer to work freelance
- A freelancer can still look at your business 'from the outside' - which is a valuable thing when thinking about creative
- Freelancers can bring fresh, outside inspiration to your business
How do you find a good freelance Google Ads specialist?
Finding the right freelancer can be difficult. And above all, it can take a long time. Because there are many freelancers within the same field, and even if they boast the same skills, there can be a big difference when it comes to the way they work and the work they deliver. When you ask Marketingcapacity.dk to help you find a freelancer to work with, the process is simple:
- You describe your needs to us (either in writing or verbally - we'll confirm in an email)
- We screen our 600+ profiles and, if necessary, the market through our channels
- We nominate a list of candidates and talk to them according to your needs
- You will be presented with 3 candidates that seem to meet your needs
- During the 3 meetings (at your location or digitally) you can ask questions and see examples of their work
- You choose the freelancer you would like to start working with
- We set it up in our systems with time tracking etc. so you have an overview and full control
In other words: After describing your needs, simply set aside 2 hours to meet with 3 hand-picked and screened candidates. That's your guarantee of a good result with reasonable effort.
