To my delight, more and more businesses are grasping the value of building their brand via Google Ads.
For too long, the emphasis has been on performance (“How many sales are we getting? How many leads?”) while ignoring the fact that brand building is a critical contributing factor to performance success.
Brand building is an investment in your company. Because, everything else being equal, prospective customers are more likely to buy a product or service from a brand that they know (or have at least heard of) as opposed to a brand they don’t know at all.
However, brand awareness doesn’t happen on its own. You need to put some of your budget behind it.
This concept is well understood in traditional marketing and advertising. Which is why companies advertise on bus shelters, sponsor events, create eye-catching packaging and put ads in newsletters. They want to drive brand awareness!
But for some reason, when it comes to digital advertising — and Google Ads — that lesson gets lost.
The truth is, brand awareness is every bit as important in the digital environment as it is in the traditional.
And thankfully, Google Ads gives you lots of ways to do it.
Here are just a few:
1. Sitelinks
Sitelinks are a simple (and often cost-effective) way to build awareness of new products or services.
Rather than create a separate campaign to raise awareness, you can use sitelinks to sneak in impressions under your current campaign budget!
Here’s an example:
As you can see, the circled sitelinks are being used to promote awareness of different products and services offered by this company.
It’s like they’re getting four ads in one!
2. Non-branded search text ads
Non-branded search text ads are another great way to build brand awareness.
Your target audience may not know your brand name (yet), but they do know what product or service they need. When they search for said product and click on your ad, this is the first step in gaining brand recognition.
However, some advertisers find it hard to compete on the more popular non-branded keywords. They simply don’t have the budget to compete.
Fortunately, there is a workaround. By combining those high-demand keywords with specific audiences, you can optimize who sees your ad and still reach your preferred target audience.
3. Remarketing
Remarketing shouldn’t be overlooked as a brand awareness tool.
Remarketing is very flexible and precise. You can target people who have been to certain pages of your website or videos on your YouTube channel. Your ads can reflect your brand in general or promote specific products or services while continuing to build awareness.
4. GDN
The GDN is an amazing tool for brand building. It has many different targeting methods and combinations to choose from, so you can get really specific in your approach.
Even better, you can also use the GDN to build up your remarketing list, so there’s a multiplier effect there too.
Here’s an example of brand lift we got using the GDN for one client:
The screenshot shows activity from August 2018 to June 2019. As you can see, we achieved steady growth over the course of that year.
We were mostly bidding on low search volume keywords. Over time the volume on those keywords increased — and eventually we were bounced out of low search volume.
5. Video
Video is another great way to build brand awareness — especially when it comes to awareness of your products.
Below are the results of brand lift using video assets for a client:
The above chart shows activity from October 2018 to July 2019. As you can see, we achieved impressive growth.
These last two examples rely heavily on two specific methods/assets: the GDN and video. But we did this based on the specific goals, assets and preferences of those clients. In a perfect world, you would do both.
Start Building Brand Awareness With Google Ads Today!
So don’t let brand awareness fall by the wayside in the digital environment.
Google Ads give you many options to choose from. So choose the ones that are the best fit for your goals and preferences and give them a try.
When you do, you’re not only helping build your brand, you’re also helping to improve your company’s performance over the long term.
