Google Ads Campaign Goals: How To Choose A Goal

Also known as campaign objectives, Google Ads campaign goals are a key part to setting up ads and running them on Google and its search and display partner sites.

 

They help to tailor your experience to the features and settings that work best for your campaign. And you’re still able to adjust these controls to your particular requirements.

 

 

So, what is your campaign objective? Choose from this list as you create your campaign to start advertising.

 

Sales

 

The Sales objective helps you to drive sales online, in app, by phone or in store. It is available for many campaign types including Search, Performance Max, Display, Shopping, Video and Discovery campaigns.

 

Search is the most popular for the ‘Sales’ objective and this is what many advertisers setup first. So, you use keywords and text ads to reach people who are looking for your products or services on Google. And this works well for B2B and B2C industries and also for non-profits.

 

However, for online retailers and ecommerce sites, a Shopping campaign is usually the best campaign type to start with. That’s mainly because conversion rates are usually better than Search campaigns because seeing a product with a title, image and price gives searchers a lot more information than a text ad, before they click through.

 

Later, as your budget grows, you can test other campaign types like Performance Max and Display Ads for Remarketing and to target audiences that are important for you.

 

And find out which bid strategy is best for your campaign and what Google Ads budget to set.

 

Because you’ll be driving sales from the campaigns you setup, it’s a good idea to setup e-commerce tracking early. You can do that in Google Analytics and import the conversions into your Google Ads account.

 

Leads

 

The Leads objective helps you to get leads and other conversions by encouraging customers to take action. Like the Sales objective it is available for Search, Performance Max, Display, Shopping, Video and Discovery campaigns.

 

And you can also setup conversion tracking to track leads that you get from calls and form submissions on your ads and on your website. And you can do the same with the Sales objective above and even setup goal tracking in Google Analytics.

 

Search is almost always the most important campaign type for the Leads objective. For many B2B and B2C service businesses this means targeting people are actively searching on Google and its search network partners.

 

Performance Max campaigns are also worth testing. Your ads are automatically placed across the internet on Google owned and operated platforms. And the bids are set to get you the most number of quality leads.

 

Website traffic

 

With the Website traffic objective, you’ll be looking to get the right people to visit your website. And you’ll be aiming to get as many as possible for your budget. So, you should start with an automated bid strategy like Maximise Clicks to get maximum click traffic.

 

 

This objective is available for Search, Performance Max, Display, Shopping, Video and Discovery campaigns.

 

Product and brand consideration

 

This objective is designed to encourage people to explore your products or services.

 

This is available for Video campaigns only and allows you to reach and engage viewers on YouTube and across the web.

 

You also have two sub-campaign types to choose from which includes ‘influencing consideration’ with skippable in-stream ads or in-feed video ads. And also using Ad sequence by telling your story by showing ads in a particular sequence with skippable in-stream Ads, non-skippable in-stream ads, bumper ads or a mix.

 

Find out how to setup a Video campaign to promote your business and brands on YouTube.

 

Brand awareness and reach

 

Brand awareness and reach allows you to reach a broad audience and build awareness for your brand, products or services.

 

It is available for Display and Video campaigns only. And with Display you can create responsive display ads or use uploaded image ads that you create yourself or both to advertise across the web. With Video, you’ll be able to reach and engage your audiences on YouTube and across the Google networks with video ads.

 

 

App promotion

 

For advertisers that have apps, this objective helps you to get more installs, interactions and pre-registrations for your app. And it’s available for App campaigns only.

 

And you can setup two separate campaigns for your Android and iOS apps.

 

 

Local store visits and promotions

 

With this objective you can drive visitors to your local shops including restaurants and dealerships. So, if you target a local audience in a town, city, postcode or neighbourhood then this is the objective to use.

Initially this was available for Local campaigns only but is now available for Performance Max campaigns too.

 

 

Create a campaign without a goal

 

You can also setup a campaign without a goal’s guidance as above. You choose a campaign type first, without a recommendation based on your objective.

 

This is available for all 9 campaign types, Search, Performance Max, Display, Shopping, Video, Discovery, Local, App and also Smart campaigns.

 

This is for more experienced users, so if you’re new to Google Ads, it’s best to use one of the other objectives listed above.

 

Conclusion

 

Google Ads campaign goals are an important part of advertising on Google and its advertising networks. So, picking the right goal is an important first step to your advertising plans and the system helps you to pick the right features to promote your products or services. I hope this article has been helpful and I’m happy to answer any questions you may have.

 

Get in Touch

 

As a PPC expert and Google Ads specialist I’ll be able to help you set the right Google Ads campaign goals and objectives and also update the campaign and features that are relevant for you. If you would like to learn more about my services and how I can help, please use the form below to contact me.