Google Ads without Keywords: How to Go About It

Google Ads advertising is so synonymous with keywords, it’s often difficult to think of one without the other. In fact, Google started as a keyword advertising platform and has been so for many years. So, the thought of running Google Ads campaigns without keywords is not something that many advertisers have considered or even done before.

However, the Google Ads platform has grown over the years and today provides you with many ways to advertise without keywords. In fact, with all the campaign types available and the features and tools, keyword-based advertising is only one of many ways to advertise.

So, here are a few prominent ways you can advertise on Google without keywords:

Shopping campaign

Shopping ads are one one of the best ways to advertise a business that sells products online, like an e-commerce store. So, to advertise with Shopping ads, you’ll need to submit your products to Google and then setup a campaign. But you won’t need to add any keywords, like you would with a Search campaign.

First you’ll need to create a Google Merchant Centre account. Then you’ll create a product feed and submit it to Merchant Centre. The feed will be reviewed by the Google team, usually within 72 hours, and if all is ok, you can create a Shopping campaign in Google Ads.

And your product Ads will appear on Google, as people search.

Display campaign

With Display ads, there are many targeting options that are available to you. And using keyword targeting is one of them. However, there are so many other options, that adding keywords is often one of the lesser used targeting options.

Some targeting options besides keyword-based targeting include:

⁃ placements  – choose specific websites and apps to advertise on

⁃ topics – pick topics that relate to your industry or sector and the Google Ads system will place your ads automatically on the most relevant websites and apps

⁃ demographics – target people based on their demographic information like age and gender. And also target people based on detailed demographics like parental status, marital status and education

⁃ remarketing  – target people who’ve been on your website before, so you can bring them back as they browse websites and apps that are part of the Google Display network.

App campaign

If you have an app on the Android and iOS platforms, you can create an App campaign in Google Ads to promote it. This campaign will help you to drive installs for your app and also boost engagement for people who’ve already downloaded the app.

Like other campaign types that I’ve listed here, you won’t need to do any keyword research and add keywords in your campaign.

The app listings are contextually targeted and appear in relevant locations that are relevant for your app.

Video campaign

A video campaign is another way to advertise in Google Ads without using keywords. You can advertise on YouTube and on video partner sites to promote your videos and website.

So, you can advertise on specific videos and channels that are relevant to what you want to promote. You can pick these individually or allow the system to contextually target based on your requirements. And of course you can use keywords, but you don’t have to.

Performance Max campaign

Performance Max is a new campaign type that automates your advertising and targeting. And your ads appear across all of Google networks and platforms to reach the people that are most relevant for you with a single campaign. So, you can run a Performance Max campaign to promote your shopping products that you’ve uploaded in Google Merchant Centre.

Conclusion

Thank you for reading this blog post. I hope it has helped you to understand the different ways you can advertise on Google without keywords. I’m a Google Ads expert and PPC consultant and I’d be happy to help if you have any questions. Use the form below to contact me.