Types of Google Ads Explained - Best Practices and when to use them

Google Ads was launched way back in October 2000. It’s been nearly 24 years since then, but the efficacy of this advertising medium remains unrivaled even today. In fact, for every dollar an average brand spends on Google Ads, they make $8 in profit.

However, like every other successful advertising medium, Google’s offerings constantly evolve.

New ad offerings emerge at the speed of knots, replacing outdated ad types that are no longer viable to meet customer requirements.

As an advertiser, keeping up with Google’s ad changes can feel like a full-time job. To cut you some slack, we have come up with this handy list of the top 9 Google ad types that you can consider for your business.

9 Types of Google Ads You Must Know

Here is the current catalog of Google ad formats, along with some handy tips and the best candidates for those ad types:

1. Search Ads

These are probably the simplest types of Google ads you can adopt and set up for your business. They appear on Google Search Engine Results Page (SERP) just above the organic search results with a “sponsored tag.” Here is an example - 

Google search ads can target leads with a higher propensity (search intent) to buy from you. All you need to do is target the keywords relevant to your potential customers’ search terms and reach them right when they’re searching for that particular product type.

The good thing about these ads is that they potentially bring high returns. On the downside, some important and relevant keywords of your business might be highly competitive, which could lead to pricey traffic for your business.

What are they best for: Even though any type of business at any stage of the buyer’s lifecycle can adopt this type of campaign, they are particularly effective for those trying to drive leads or purchases. They are also ideal for those just starting out in the advertising world, as they are easy to set up and manage.

💡 Pro Tip: Always use transactional keywords in your search campaigns. These keywords show the strongest intent to take the desired action. Some common transactional keywords include “buy handbags online,” “car for sale,” etc.

2. Display Ads

As the name suggests, Display ads are visual ads constituting rich images. These ads are typically displayed when your customers are browsing their preferred online stores and apps. In the below example, a user finds a Google Display ad for a watch while going through their favorite news website - 

Google display ads run are part of the larger Display network, which constitutes millions of apps, websites, and Google services like Gmail and YouTube. They normally come up in the form of a large banner or smaller image ads stacked along the sides so that it doesn’t interfere with the main content of the website. Google determines which ads to display based on the topic of the webpage and the browsing history of the user.

What are they best for: Display ads are best suited for those brands looking to improve brand awareness. It is often used to target those who are interested in the brand’s products but aren’t searching for them yet. Businesses with longer sales cycles looking to connect with potential clients across different channels also find this ad type useful. 

💡 Pro Tip: Avoid ad fatigue by using an AI-powered ad creatives generator like Eacel.ai. Get instant and automatic access to hundreds of ad creatives for your Display ads, freeing your team to focus on strategy and results.

3. Video Ads

Did you know that people around the globe watch 1 billion hours of YouTube content on their TVs every day? Now, imagine if you could target these avid watchers and draw them to your website. It is possible via video campaigns. Google video ads are mainly short clips that play before the start of a YouTube video or in between. 

As an advertiser, you get to choose from a variety of video ad formats to offer a more engaging experience to users. Popular video ad formats include:

• Skippable in-stream ads
• Non-skippable in-stream ads
• In-feed video ads
• Bumper ads
• Outstream ads
• Masthead ads

Like display campaigns, these ads are perfect for achieving your upper funnel objectives. On the downside, it is recommended only for those companies who have the budget and resources to invest in video content.

What are they best for: Video ads are well-suited for businesses with products or services that are challenging to describe via text. This advertising strategy allows such businesses to visually showcase their offerings to the audience rather than relying solely on verbal explanations. 

💡 Pro Tip: Captivate your audience quickly, preferably in the first 5 seconds. Use upbeat music, bring in a recognizable influencer or celebrity, pose a compelling question, or use humor, etc., to achieve this.

4) Shopping Ads

Shopping ads appear on the Google SERP and show key information about your product, such as the name, image, price, ratings, store name, and other key information. These highly targeted ads appear to those who are searching for similar products. Here’s an example of a Shopping ad when the user has searched for the keyword “Buy laptop” - 

To run Google shopping campaigns for your business, you need to first connect your product data to Google Merchant Center. Since these ads are generated from your own product in the Merchant Center, there is limited scope for you to be creative in the ad copy or designs.

To the unversed, the Google Merchant Center is where your product data feed is hosted. It holds the list of all the products you sell in a special format required by Google. It requires several attributes that describe your products, such as :

• Unique ID 
• Product Title 
• Product Description 
• Product category 
• Product Type
• Availability status (in stock or not)
• Price
• Sale price

What are they best for: These ads are best suited for E-commerce businesses looking to drive traffic to their website and bolster sales for their business.

💡 Pro Tip: Since shopping ads don’t seek keywords separately, you need to make sure your product titles and descriptions are keyword-rich. At the same time, you must also ensure that titles and descriptions are appealing to the potential buyer.

5. App Ads

The goal of Google app ads is pretty straightforward - to promote your ads. App campaigns have three subtypes:

• App installs: These ads encourage ad viewers to install your app. It will be served until the ad viewer installs the app. It works with both iOS and Android apps.
• App engagement: These ads successfully re-engage your existing customers who have installed your app. These ads encourage the users to take specific, in-app actions such as making a purchase.
• App pre-registration: Users who click on this ad can pre-register for your app so that it is made available to them when it is released. These ads are predominantly used to build excitement and awareness for your app in the pre-launch stage. This ad type works only for Android apps.

Here is a Google app ad that has been served on another app:

Interestingly, Google does most of the heavy lifting in this ad type, including the creation and publishing of ads. All you need to do is submit a budget, provide a few lines of text about the app, and an image, which is optional. Google automatically designs and optimizes the ads and publishes them across Google networks and websites. Most importantly, Google will keep optimizing these ads for better performance so that your returns improve over time.

💡 Pro Tip: If you are trying to engage users who have already installed your app, then you can offer an optimized experience by using deep links. These links navigate users from your mobile web ad directly to the relevant in-app content. This ensures that they can easily take the desired actions. Advertisers who use deep linking see over 2X improvement in conversion rate.

What are they best for: If you are an app owner looking to drive more app installs, engage existing app users, or promote your app before launch to get pre-registrations, this ad type is your best bet.

6) Local Search Ads

If you have a physical business location, such as a store, you can encourage users to visit your location or call you using Google local search ads. Whenever a user searches for nearby businesses on their mobile devices, these ads get served. The search could happen either on Google.com or Google Maps.

For example, here is a user who has searched for the keyword “coffee shop near me.” A local business running this ad type has been featured at the top of the list so that users can consider that business for their purchase.

The biggest benefit of this ad type is that you don't miss out on foot traffic near your physical store. These ads can also be linked to your business location page so that users are better aware of some of the key information about your store, such as store hours, phone number, address, customer reviews, and photos.

💡 Pro Tip: In local search ads, targeting is the ultimate key to success. You need to reach an audience that is as close to the location(s) of your business as possible. You have the option to target a particular region directly or target by radius. In the latter option, you can establish a specified mile radius around your store location so that you drive search traffic within an operable distance.

What are they best for: Businesses with physical stores or multi-location enterprises can benefit the most using these ad types. These ads are also suitable particularly for businesses targeting mobile users, offering special promotions in-store, and focusing on hyperlocal markets.

7. Performance Max Ads

Performance Max was launched by Google in 2021 and has been their most popular ad offering ever since. This service by Google automates and displays your ad campaigns across all their real estate, such as Google Display Network, YouTube, Gmail, and Discovery networks. Google Performance Max ads tie your goals and assets with Google AI and other machine learning models to generate the best-performing ads.

You need to input your main goal to Google, which could be better sales, leads, and traffic. Along with this, you also need to provide all your assets, such as descriptions, images, videos, logos, and other relevant brand materials to Google.

Google auto-generates ads based on the above information and runs them across all the available placements. It uses advanced AI and ML models to pick the best-performing assets, create tailored ads for you, and run them at the best possible time to reach maximum users.

Long story short, you do not have to decide what kind of ads to run, when to run, and where to run. Google decides everything for you.

💡 Pro Tip: Since Performance Max ads are powered by AI and ML, you need to run the campaign for at least 6 weeks so that the base algorithm has sufficient data to compare performance. Additionally, you can help the algorithm by using relevant audience lists (remarketing lists, custom intent, and customer match) as signals to speed up the ramp-up and enhance your campaign’s results.

What are they best for: This ad type is perfect for new advertisers who prefer to keep it simple and let someone else handle the important stuff. It is also ideal for generating sales, as Performance Max ads are always optimized for performance with a focus on conversions.

8. Smart Ads

This ad type uses automation to make setting up and managing your Google ads campaigns quicker and easier. They are extremely easy to set up. All you need to do is select your primary campaign goal (e.g., sales, leads, or website traffic), choose “Smart” as your campaign type, and input some basic assets. In about 10-15 minutes, your ad campaign will be up and running.

At first glance, Google Smart campaigns might seem very similar to Performance Max campaigns. After all, both ad types automatically determine the best advertising surfaces among Google services to publish your ad. However, the difference ends there.

While Performance Max completely automates the ad creation process, Smart ads are a little more hands-on. Just like Search ads and Video ads, you need to provide the original copy, images, video, audience preferences, keyword themes, and bidding specs while creating a Smart ad campaign.

💡 Pro Tip: While setting up Smart ads, ensure that the campaign is linked to your Google Business Profile. Once you do this, your ads will show your business address along with a link to your Business Profile. It also makes the setting up of a campaign quicker as most of the information about your business is available to Google, and it can make more relevant suggestions for your ads.

What are they best for: These campaigns are perfect for small business owners who do not have the luxury of time to create and manage ads. By adopting Smart ads, they can leave the entire ad operation to Google while focusing on more mission-critical tasks. Even someone with very little knowledge of ad management can handle ads and enjoy high conversion rates.

9. Discovery Ads

The last type of Google ad is another automated ad campaign type that gets displayed across different feed placements of Google, such as the Promotions and Social tab feeds of Gmail and the Home feed of YouTube. Unlike Performance Max ads, you get to determine what assets to use in the ads. However, Google determines where it gets placed. This ad type might not be suitable for those who enjoy complete control over ad placements.

Also, Google Discovery ads have limited campaign settings. This means you do not have the luxury to adjust manual bid strategies or perform advanced targeting such as contextual targeting, placement targeting, or device targeting. You also do not have the ability to cap frequency or change delivery methods.

Here is an example of a Discovery ad in the YouTube home feed:

💡 Pro Tip:  While setting up a Discovery ad campaign, switch on the audience expansion feature. This enables you to serve ads outside of the chosen audience. This is useful to reach more users, particularly those segments who never came under your radar.

What are they best for: If you’re looking to reach new audiences, this ad type can be a great option. It is particularly useful for businesses looking to drive brand awareness via media-rich ads. For instance, they're perfect for E-commerce businesses looking to acquire new consumers and introduce their audiences to their products.

Wrap Up

We won’t sugarcoat it - it’s not easy to create, run, and manage Google ads, especially if you are new to advertising. Yes, this guide is a good starting point for you to know the different types of Google ads campaigns and when to use them. But advertising has a multitude of moving parts that become unmanageable sometimes. This is where a solution like Eacel.ai comes into the picture. It automates and scales up your creative production without compromising on the quality and freshness of the campaign. Sign up today to create your own ad creatives with Eacel.ai.