Different Types of Google Ads Campaigns Best Practices in 2024

Last Updated on April 3, 2024 by Subhash Jain

Getting the best ROI in terms of traffic and high-potential lead generation is at the core of Google Ads campaign planning. All digital marketers follow the best tricks but the outcome varies at large. Are you also feeling that your Google Ads marketing is lacking a killer instinct to derive the expected benefits to beat the competition? The key to beating the competition is knowing all the different types of Google Ads and how to use them to your advantage. Google Ads can do a lot for your business, like increasing visibility, targeting specific audiences, and giving you measurable results. With Google Ads, your ads show up right at the top of search results, so more people see them. And you can target your ads to reach. The probable reason for the low outcome of the Google Ads campaign is working with the traditional Google Ads marketing approach because of not knowing different types of Google Ads to optimize campaign strategy accordingly and have a competitive edge. In this situation, you may consider the option to outsource a Google Ads Services Agency with extensive experience in optimizing online advertising strategies. I & my Team has helped numerous businesses achieve their marketing goals and drive success through Google Ads.

In this blog, I will help you unlock the maximum potential of Google Ads by incorporating the latest updates to Google Ads types in 2024 and converting the existing ad types into new ad formats. I will also share some experience-based tips to help you choose the right ad type for your particular business niche and optimize your Google Ads campaigns to achieve gala success.

Introduction: Unlocking the Potential of Google Ads

Google Ads is an excellent tool for organizations of all sizes because it allows them to reach many people. The most popular search engine is Google. Your advertising has a good chance of getting viewed. You can target specific demographics depending on their interest and geography. The best part is that you only pay when someone clicks on your ad, making it cost-effective. You may customize text, display, video, and app advertising to meet your needs. Google advertising also provides useful reports to help you track how well your advertising is doing and make improvements.

Google Ads is a useful tool for businesses because

It reaches many people: Since Google is the most popular search engine, your ads have a good chance of being seen by many people.

It targets specific groups: You can select who sees your adverts based on criteria such as their interests and location. Doing this lets you connect with people interested in your goods or services.

It’s cost-effective: You only pay when someone clicks on your ad, so you’re not wasting money on ads that don’t get results but you do pay for impressions on display ads. However, the cost per impression is typically much lower than the cost per click on search ads. This is because display ads are less targeted than search ads, so there is a lower chance that someone will click on your ad.

It offers different ad options: You can choose from various types of ads, like text, display, video, or app ads. This allows you to create ads that suit your needs and goals.It provides useful reports: Google Ads gives you information on how your ads perform, so you can make adjustments and maximize your investment.

Types of Google Ads

Search Ads Campaigns	Find what you’re looking for, instantly. (Targets active searchers with high purchase intent)
Performance Max Ads Campaigns	Reach customers across all of Google’s channels. (Automates ad placement across Google’s entire network)
Display Ads Campaigns	Be seen everywhere they go. (Reaches potential customers across websites and apps)
Shopping Ads Campaigns	Showcase products to ready-to-buy customers. (Promotes products with images and shopping information)
Video Ads Campaigns	Capture attention with engaging video. (Tells your brand story and drives action through video ads)
App Ads Campaigns	Get your app installed, fast. (Promotes your app to users across platforms)
Smart Ads Campaigns	Automated ads, maximized results. (Uses Google’s AI to optimize campaigns for all goals)
Hotel Ads Campaigns	Get found by travelers looking for a place to stay. (Promotes hotels on Google Search and travel planning sites)
Demand Gen Campaigns	Generate high-quality leads for your business. (Focuses on acquiring new leads and driving sales conversations)

Search Ads Campaigns

Search Ads campaigns are short text ads placed above the search results to let the advertisers reach high-potential buyers already searching for the advertised products and services. Depending on picking the right keyword, optimization of your ad, and bidding perfection, you can effectively manage your ad display in search listings to maximize the performance well under the budget.

Setting Up and Managing Effective Search Ads:

• The 1st step for setting up a Search Ads campaign is to find a Campaigns icon in your Google Ads account. Click on the + icon to create your new ad campaign. Now you get three choices to choose the goals- Sales, Leads, and Website traffic; though, choosing a goal is optional. The “Select the ways you’d like to reach your goal” feature allows you to add additional information about the products being promoted and your business. Click on ‘continue’ will take you to the next page demanding the name of your ad.

• The 2nd step in creating Search Ads is fixing campaign settings. Here you get options to choose the target audience, expand the budget, and enhance your campaign reach with assets selection.  The ‘Include Google search partners’ feature allows you to choose search engines in addition to Google. ‘Display Network’ allows you to extend your ad reach to other relevant websites also. ‘Location options’ allows you to choose the specific areas where your ad will be displayed. In addition, you can choose your preferred language and target audience type based on their particular interests and activities.  
•  The 3rd step in the Search Ads campaign setting is creating ad groups. Here are two options to create ad groups- Standard and Dynamic. Under the ‘standard’ category, you enter a set of keywords and create your ads according to these keywords. If you choose ‘Dynamic’, Google will use your website content to create ads and target searches.
• The 4th step is creating keywords relevant to Search Ads. Creating 3 ads per ad group is standard practice. Here too, you can create standard Search ads or Dynamic Search Ads.
• The 5th and last step for setting Google Ads campaign is budgeting. Google recommends several budget options, you can choose the best one suitable to the average amount you can spend each day. Search Ads start appearing in search results after one business day.

Why Choose Search Campaigns and Their Benefits:

“The first page of Google results gets between 71-92% of all traffic.”

Search Ads are highly effective to increase targeted traffic, potential leads, sales conversion, and signups. The most convincing reason for choosing a Search Ads campaign is that your ad display perfectly matches the query; so, you have more chances to get high potential leads. The nine key benefits that encourage advertisers to choose Search Campaigns are-

Display Ads Campaigns

Display Ads Campaigns promote the products/services by displaying visually optimized ads on the Google Display Network. Display ads campaigns help you reach wider communities using millions of apps, websites, and Google-owned channels. The display ad campaign is the most effective solution to optimize all the variables. It helps you reach potential buyers at all the buying stages. Driven by ML and AI capabilities, the Display ads campaign displays your ad to potential customers at the right time.

Engaging Your Audience with Visual Ads

After identifying your goals, fixing the budget, and structuring the bidding strategy, the next task for you is to reach the right people and keep them engaged. Optimized targeting helps you find relevant new customers. The ROI of any paid advertising depends upon target audience engagement; and, the same is the case in Display ads campaigns. Here I list six tips to help you engage your audience with visual ads-

Exploring Different Types of Display Ads Campaigns

There are two types of Google display ads:

1. Uploaded display ads or Standard Display Ads: It is a good choice if you have design resources to create your display ads. These ads support PNG, JPG, and GIF. However, your ad does not display if it does not meet the specific size specifications for the particular placement. Therefore, you need to upload different versions of each ad to suit the variation in sizes. 
2. Responsive Display Ads: These are the default ad type for Google display campaigns. Google tests different combinations of your assets (ad copy, logo, videos, images) to determine which version performs well. Responsive display ads automatically adapt to the size requirements of different web pages.

Changes to Display Ads Campaign Creation

Incorporation of AI capabilities has simplified making changes to display campaign creation. Google AI’s involvement improves your display campaign experience with enhanced abilities for optimized bidding, creating ads, and targeting audiences. The optimized targeting results in increased impressions, clicks, and conversions. The other benefits of recent changes to display campaign creation are pay-for conversions, higher transparency, more control to manage ads and data-driven attribution.

Why Choose Display Ads Campaigns: Their Advantages

Almost 27% of consumers initiate a search for a particular business after viewing its display ad.  When users conduct a display ad-related search, conversion rates increase up to 59%. Reach to vast audiences, lower CPC, various targeting options, flexible pricing models, topic targeting, etc are the key values that justify choosing Google’s Display ads campaign.

The commonly experienced seven advantages of choosing display campaigns are-

Smart Ads Campaigns

Smart Ads Campaigns help you highlight business attractions to draw customers’ attention. The smart campaign needs you to write an ad about your business. You choose particular keyword themes to target your ads and fix the budget. Your Smart campaign ads appear automatically for interested customers across the Google partner websites, Google Maps, YouTube, Google Search, and Gmail. Your ad appears in the specified geographic areas responding to searches related to promoted services/products.

Writing Effective Ads for Smart Campaigns

A good ad copy is one of the important metrics to measure the success rate of a Smart ad campaign. The standard format of a Smart campaign ad is – ‘3-15 headlines up-to 30 characters each and 2-4 descriptions with up-to 90 characters each’. After you submit details, Google Ads uses the text pieces to make multiple ad combinations to avoid redundancy.

Now, the question is how to write effective ads for Smart ad campaigns?

The answers to the following questions will guide you create performance-oriented Smart ad copies-

• Who are the target customers?    
• What are the customers’ circumstances? 
• What are the important needs of customers?
• What action do I expect from the customers to take?
• When should the customers act in response to my ad?

Why Choose Smart Ad Campaign & Advantages of Google Smart Ad Campaign

AI-powered Google Ads Smart campaigns need minimum effort to manage ads. Google’s AI updates your set search terms automatically. The numbers of advantages make Google Smart Ad campaign a popular choice for advertisers having limited resources to manage their campaign-

• Save time on Smart campaign setting up 
• Optimizing campaigns is easy 
• Simple to use dashboard for custom-to-need report creation
• Metrics to scale success rate  
• More views of ads on YouTube
• Pay only for clicks
• Responsive to multiple desktops and mobile devices

Google Ads Smart campaign is a good choice for you-

• If you want to increase signups for your promoted services/products
• If you want to increase sales 
• If you want Google’s AI to setting up your campaign
• If you want Google to optimize your ads and targets

App Ads Campaigns

These ad campaigns help you tap new app users to increase sales through mobile apps. App campaign type uses your shared information to optimize it and display it automatically across Google channels and partner websites.

Driving Installs and Engagement for Mobile Success

‘App installs’ features are available in ‘App promotion’ heading under the New campaign category that you can access through Campaigns and ‘+’ buttons. Here, you need to select a platform for your app. It also allows the system to fix the locations, language, start and end dates, average daily budget, bidding for target users, and OS. For the App campaign, you can use three types of assets- Images, Videos, and HTML5.

Why Choose App Campaigns and Their Benefits

If the marketing objectives are related to engagements, signups, installs, multi-channel marketing, and AI-powered target bidding, then you should choose an App campaign. The key benefit of using an app campaign is deeper reach to a wide audience. The other benefit that justifies choosing an App campaign is popular channels used by Google to promote your apps.

Exploring Different Types of App Campaigns

There are three types of App campaigns-

• App Instals: Objective is to encourage more people to install your app. 
• App Engagement: Objective is to re-engage customers having installed your app and encourage them to act.
• App pre-registration for Android OS Users: Objective is to create excitement and awareness about an app before its release.

Discovery Ads Campaigns

This ad campaign type is designed to help you reach more than 3 billion potential customers across Google’s feeds to achieve performance goals. Discovery campaigns allow you to convey your business message through engaging, encouraging and inspiring visuals delivering personalized ad experience. Discovery campaign empowers you to promote your brand’s story for the target audience across Google’s feeds.

Setting Up and Managing Discovery Campaigns

Most settings in Discovery campaigns are automated to deliver optimal performance in line with particular marketing objectives. To achieve the expected success, you should set a budget that you can afford for at least two weeks. The thumb rule is- 10 X the value of the target CPA bid. You can set your Discovery campaigns for automatic targeting also to reach the audience segment missed in manually selected audience segments. The ‘Optimized targeting’ section is available within “Settings”.

Why Choose Discovery Campaigns and Their Benefits

If the prime marketing objective is brand awareness, drive conversions, and remarketing, choosing Discovery campaigns is a good strategy. The key benefits of Discovery campaigns are- Deeper reach with a single ad campaign, more engagement, ad rendering natively across Google properties, automated bidding, etc.

Shopping Ads Campaigns

Shopping ads use product data of Merchant Center to decide relevancy to show it. The product data, submitted to Merchant Center, has complete details of the products/services you want to promote. You can manage Shopping ads using the Shopping campaign option to promote Merchant Center product inventory.

Maximizing Sales with Product Showcasing

‘Shopping ad’ campaign offers a range of options to display products for the right customers. To maximize sales, you can use different optional enhancements like Add promotions to products, displaying product ratings, and Google customer reviews. Promotions appear as a clickable “special offer” annotation. Customer Reviews allow you to get valuable feedback from end users.

Video Campaigns

Video ads are run on YouTube and Google video partner websites and apps. To create compelling Video campaigns, you have a number of options like Skippable in-stream ads, Non-skippable in-stream ads, Bumper ads, In-feed video ads, Outstream ads, etc.

Captivating Your Audience with Dynamic Video Ads

Dynamic video ads are tailored based on data input adding the particular relevance for particular target audience. These ads help you reach your target audience contextually. You can choose different ad formats, campaign subtypes, and campaign goals. Google Ads allows you to add certain content exclusions and locations to optimize ad running for maximum performance. To optimize ad running for campaign costing, you can use device-specific targeting, exclusion settings, and geographic locations also.

Why Choose Video Campaigns and their Advantages

If your marketing strategy is to run your video ad on YouTube and other Google-associated websites and apps for maximum reach just from the start of Google Ads campaign, Video ad campaign is for you. Whether you are a first-timer or an experienced merchandiser, Video ads campaign gives you a reasonable ROI. The key benefits of Video ads campaigns are more sales, increased website traffic, brand awareness building, deeper reach to the target audience, and real-time success tracking.

Exploring Different Types of Video Campaigns

1. Skippable in-stream ads: It runs before, during, or after a video with ‘skip it’ option.  
2. Non-skippable in-stream ads: Designed for maximum 15 seconds, these ads allow you to deliver the entire message.  
3. Bumper ads: Designed for maximum 6 seconds with no option to skip it, bumper ads deliver a memorable short message to increase brand awareness. 
4. In-feed video ads: These ads run only on YouTube when a viewer discovering particular information clicks the thumbnail of your ad.  
5. Outstream ads: These ads run on Google video partners available on mobile devices. Brand awareness strengthening by increasing reach beyond YouTube is the major objective.

Local Ads Campaigns

Local Ads Campaigns help businesses to provide essential information facilitating the potential customers to visit their stores and buy conveniently. Local ad campaigns promote your business across Google’s properties.

Targeting Local Customers for Offline Success

The best part of a Local ads campaign is that it offers radius targeting; the radius varies according to targeted locations and users’ preference for distance of store from them. The customer’s interaction with your store starts online and finishes offline. Here are a few tips to help you target local customers for offline success:

• Highlight the stores nearby to you to increase in-store visits
• Optimize Local ads campaigns for maximum return from offline conversions also
• Measure in-store purchases
• Track Store visit conversions with ML (Store visits feature is available for all Google Ads campaigns) types
• Track offline buyers’ intent through local actions

Getting Started with Local Ads Campaigns

To create a Local ads campaign, define the store-preferred locations for your store. You can set this by linking your Business Profile or selecting affiliate locations. To be eligible for Local ads campaign launch, you are required to have active affiliate location assets or your location assets in your account or you should have a Business Profile linked to Google Ads. Select the Local ads campaign settings carefully.

Why Choose Local Campaigns and Their Benefits

If you want to increase foot traffic to your store, build relationships, create a base of loyal customers, and increase the conversion rate of online visits, Local ads campaigns are a good choice. The key benefit of a Local ads campaign is that you can promote your products/services on a demographic basis. Local ads campaign is a highly-targeted and precise marketing tool to reach the particular customer segment in a particular area and make your business popular.

Performance Max Ads Campaigns

If you want to reach new audience segments based on real-time metrics of user behavior, intent, and contexts, you can opt for AI-driven Performance Max campaign also which is a goal-based campaign type; it allows performance advertisers to run a single campaign across Google Ads inventory. Performance Max campaigns use conversion tracking of results like online purchases, purchases from phone calls, signups, and more.

Taking Your Campaigns to the Next Level

On February 23, 2023, Google added some new features to Performance Max campaigns to help you take your campaigns to the next level of success. Now, you can optimize the results through Search inventory. Performance Max and AI-powered Search campaigns paired to help you maximize conversion rate all across the Google network. 

Creating Performance Max Campaigns

Performance Max appears in the campaign type selection. While creating and publishing a new Performance Max campaign, you need to choose your goals, set a budget limit, bidding strategy preferably maximize conversion values, add your location, choose language, ad scheduling, build your asset group, add ad assets through a streamlined process.

Performance Max for Store Goals

Advertisers with conversion objectives to set store goals, local contacts, and directions set up can create a Performance Max campaign. Local campaign users can also use Performance Max for offline goals at no additional cost.

With a Merchant Center feed

Feed labels allow Merchant Center account holders to promote their products with the same feed label in Performance Max and Shopping campaigns. One feed label works only for one campaign. Merchant Center feed labels drive-in more flexibility in targeted campaigns.

Understanding Asset Groups in Google Ads

Asset group is a set of parameters used to create an ad for the particular channel. You can use different asset groups for different products or services groups. You can add a new asset group to a created campaign. More assets allow the system to create more ad formats suitable for a wider inventory.  

Upgrading Smart Shopping and Local Campaigns to Performance Max

Performance Max offers all the features of Smart Shopping campaigns in addition to automation insights and access to a new inventory. You can upgrade a Smart Shopping campaign to a Performance Max campaign from a “notification in your account”, “Campaigns” page, or “Recommendations” page. Some Smart Shopping campaigns and Local Campaigns are not eligible for an upgrade to Performance Max-

• Campaigns with an end date that has passed 
• Campaigns managed by suspended/ inactive/ canceled accounts
• Campaigns targeted to a restricted region
• Campaigns having a future start date

Hotel Ads Campaigns

Hotel ads campaigns are a good choice to promote a hotel business by bidding for hotel ads when a traveler searches for a hotel in a particular location on Maps or Searches. Hotel Campaign ad appears in the hotel booking module showing hotel info, photos of your hotel, prices, amenities, and a link for booking.

Evaluating the Worth of Google Hotel Ads

The ‘Google Hotel Ads’ attract travelers searching for a hotel in a particular area. It automatically sets hotel’s prices based on availability and traveler’s itineraries. These ads encourage travelers to book your hotel by going to your hotel website. It also allows you to set a budget and reach the travelers of a particular locality using a particular device. The bidding options are- Commission (per conversion), Max CPC bid (fixed or percent), Commission (per stay), and Enhanced CPC (ECPC).

The Significance of Impression Share for Hotel Ads and its Impact on Performance

Search Impression share is the percentage of received impressions against the total impressions that your ads might get. Impression share data is available for all the ad groups, hotel groups, and campaigns. Other than Search Impression Share, other Impression Share metrics are- Search top impression share, Search absolute top impression share, Search lost impression share, absolute top impression share, etc. Impression Share metrics help you understand how you can improve your ad performance by re-optimizing your budget or bidding strategy.

Call AdsCampaigns

Call ad campaigns help you get more phone calls from your potential customers and respond better. It allows you to set the display timing of your ads.

Leveraging Google Ads for Effective Call Generation

Call ad campaigns are designed to promote a business by encouraging potential customers to call directly; therefore, ads are displayed only on mobile devices. URL verification is a must for creating a new Call ad campaign. You can set and categorize business assets that should appear or not in the available mobile device space. To leverage the benefits of Call ad campaigns, add only the key assets relevant to the products/services being promoted.

Understanding Google Ads Call Campaigns and their Significance

Call ad campaigns help you improve your business visibility in search results. The importance of Call ads is that you can share phone numbers in an ad group or across an entire ad campaign. You can measure calls as conversions also. The search-based metrics also help you to tap the potential customers who have already shown interest in your business.

The Difference between Call-Only Ads and Call Assets

Call Asset is the extension to Text Ad; the ad still inspires the viewers to visit the business website. The phone number appears next to the display URL. You get call reporting sharing insights about the numbers of calls received through your ads. In addition to taking ad viewers to your business website, it facilitates them to call for quick purchases or solutions.

Call Only Ads are primarily designed to encourage the ad viewers to call and make quick purchases.  Phone number is the highlighted call to action. Call Only ads are good if your marketing objective is to increase the numbers of calls. It is a good choice if you don’t want a risk of leads bouncing from the website landing page; instead, you prefer interested buyers to call your salespeople directly.

Pro-tip: As a Google Ads advertiser, you can’t convert your existing campaign type into a new campaign type after it is created. To adjust a fresh choices for the appearance of your ads, you will need to create a new campaign based on desired campaign type.

Demand Gen Campaigns

Generate Interest Across Google’s Top Channels

Demand Gen (demand generation) campaigns are a powerful tool in Google Ads designed to spark user interest in your brand or product.

Demand Gen campaigns offer a streamlined approach to generating user interest and brand awareness by leveraging Google’s AI and premium ad placements. Demand Gen campaigns are ideal for businesses looking to expand their reach, tell their brand story visually, and gain deeper insights into campaign performance.

Demand Gen campaigns Use Google’s AI to showcase your most compelling visuals (images and videos) on high-impact placements like:

• YouTube Feed – Capture attention while users browse YouTube content.
• YouTube Shorts – Reach viewers engaged with short-form videos.
• Discover Feed – Engage users actively exploring new content on their mobile devices.
• Gmail – Get noticed within inboxes, a prime location for brand awareness.

What Makes Demand Gen Special?

Here’s what sets Demand Gen campaigns apart from other Google Ads campaign types:

• AI-powered Optimization: Google’s AI automatically identifies your best-performing visuals and tailors their placement across these channels, maximizing impact.
• Effortless Targeting: Focus on your ideal audience demographics and interests, letting Google AI handle the ad delivery to the right users at the right time.
• Multi-touchpoint Engagement: Reach your target audience across various Google properties, keeping your brand top-of-mind throughout their browsing journey.
• Rich Visual Storytelling: Showcase your brand with eye-catching visuals that resonate with potential customers. This is especially powerful for products that benefit from visual demonstration.
• Enhanced Measurement: Go beyond clicks and conversions. Track brand lift, search lift, and conversion lift to gain a holistic understanding of your campaign’s effectiveness.

When Demand Gen Campaigns Shine in Google Ads

Knowing when to use Demand Gen campaigns. Demand Gen campaigns are a powerful tool, but knowing when to use them is key. Here’s when they excel:

• Building Brand Awareness: Launching a new product? Revamping your image? Demand Gen spreads brand awareness like wildfire.
• Reaching New Audiences: Want to tap into a fresh customer base? Demand Gen targets those who haven’t actively searched for your niche yet.
• Upper Funnel Focus: Need to generate interest and consideration before driving sales? Demand Gen is your secret weapon.
• Visually Driven Products: Selling something that speaks for itself? Eye-catching visuals in Demand Gen campaigns will have them hooked.

Conclusion

In essence, Google Ads is a game-changer for businesses. It has an incredible reach, incredibly fine targeting, and a variety of campaigns to pick from. With Google Ads, you can establish your brand, reach the right audience, increase sales, lure visitors to your website and applications, make people download them, and even increase foot traffic in your store. And the best part? You’ve got dynamic ads, AI optimization, and fancy reporting to ensure your campaigns are killing it. Seriously, don’t miss out on the chance to take your biz to the next level with Google Ads. Start using it today and watch the magic happen.

Frequently Asked Questions

About Author:
Subhash Jain is the founder of Samyak Online, a digital marketing agency with a deep understanding of Google Ads and its various campaign types. Their expertise and insights provide valuable guidance for businesses looking to leverage the power of Google Ads for effective online advertising. For consultation or inquiries, feel free to contact.