Google Ads for Dropshipping in 2024: Learn to Drive Sales

Since its inception in 1997, Google has completely captured the search engine market. As an online retailer, the Google search engine is your business’s best friend. Approximately 5.9 million Google searches are conducted every minute, and 66 per cent of web referrals come directly from Google. This means that for many businesses, the initial point of contact a customer will have with your business is through Google. This could be via a high-ranking search result, a welcome email through Gmail, a pop-up on Google Pixel, or a product recommendation through Google Lens.

There are two ways your business can rise to the top ranks of Google: through search engine optimisation and marketing (SEO/SEM) or via paid search advertising. For the former, you can check out our other blogs for extensive tips and tricks. For the latter, you need Google Ads (formerly known as Google AdWords). 

In this blog, we’ll give you a crash course on how to use Google Ads for dropshipping and how you can use this amazing platform to drive sales. 

What are Google Ads and how do they help your dropshipping store grow?

Google Ads is a pay-per-click (PPC) advertising platform that enables businesses to boost brand visibility on search engine results pages (SERPs). If you’ve ever searched for a product or service on Google, you may have seen top results labelled as “Sponsored” - this is just one type of search ad available to your dropshipping business.

Your brand can advertise on more than just Google searches. You can place your ads across the entire spectrum of Google products and on other websites within the Google Display Network. These ads can be in various formats including text, image, video, or interactive advertisements. 

For dropshipping stores, Google Ads can be a powerful tool for driving traffic to your website and increasing sales. Here's how they can help your dropshipping store grow:

Increased visibility

Google holds a staggering 91.54 per cent of the search engine market share. So many people use it that the brand name has become a transitive verb: you don’t just search for something, you “google it”. However, just being on Google isn’t enough. Ranking on page 1 of Google is critical to brand awareness. The engine’s reputation aside, Google Ads can help increase your store's visibility by displaying your ads to users actively searching for products related to your business.

Targeted advertising

Google Ads allows you to target your ads to specific demographics, ensuring that your ads are shown to the most relevant audience for your products. You can also bid on specific keywords related to your products, which guarantees that your ads are shown to users actively searching for those relevant keywords.

Detailed analytics

Google Ads provides detailed analytics and reporting tools that allow you to track the performance of your ads in real time. You can see metrics such as clicks, impressions, conversions, and return on investment (ROI), which helps you make data-driven decisions to optimise your advertising campaigns.

Flexible budgeting

With Google Ads, you have complete control over your advertising budget. You can set daily or monthly spending limits, or follow recommendations provided by Google's campaign management tools. This flexibility allows you to adjust your budget based on the performance of your ads and your business goals.

Remarketing capabilities

Google Ads offers remarketing capabilities, which allow you to target users who have previously visited your website but did not make a purchase. By displaying ads to these users as they browse other websites or use Google's search engine, you can remind them of your products and encourage them to return to complete their purchase. You can remarket to these users at any stage of the buying journey as long as users have clicked on your ad or visited your web page.

So, how does Google Ads work, and how can you create your first dropshipping Google ads?

How to get started with Google Ads

Step 1: Define your advertising goals.

What are your objectives for your Google Ads campaign? Do you want to focus on building brand awareness, increasing site traffic, or boosting conversions? It’s crucial to identify your main goal as Google will offer personalised recommendations to align with your chosen goals and help with tracking.

Step 2: Create your Google Ads account.

To create a Google Ads account, you need a regular Google account. If your business has a Gmail account, you’re ready to go. If you don’t have a Gmail account or it’s your personal address, you’ll need to make a Gmail account for your business. 

Once you have a Google account, go to the Google Ads homepage and click Sign in to start the account and campaign creation process.

Step 3: Create your first campaign.

When setting up your first campaign on Google, you will be asked to enter your business name and URL, and whether you want to link to any existing Google business accounts or a Google My Business profile. Google will use the information provided at this stage to lay the foundation for your new campaign.

Next, Google will ask for your main campaign goals. These include conversions like form submissions, purchases, or calls to your business. Select the goal most relevant to your advertising goals and your business.

Next, choose your campaign type. To find out more about the types of campaigns available, you can skip to the next section of this blog.

Google will now prompt you to define who can see your ads. The first thing you’ll need to input your desired keywords. There are four types of keywords you can set:

• Broad match: This is the default keyword match. Ads may show on searches related to, but not necessarily containing, your keyword terms. For example: for the keyword "running shoes", ads may show on searches for "best shoes for running" "buy sports shoes" or "athletic footwear".

• Phrase match: Ads may show on searches including the meaning of your keyword. The keyword must appear in the search query in the same order, but there can be additional words before or after. For example: for the keyword "running shoes", ads may show on searches for "best running shoes", "cheap running shoes online" or "reviews of running shoes".

• Exact match: Ads may show on searches that have the same meaning and intent as your chosen keyword. For example: for the keyword "running shoes", ads may only show on searches for "running shoes" with no additions.

• Negative keywords: As with audience exclusions, negative keywords will prevent your ads from being shown on searches with the specified keywords. For example: if you only sell running shoes for women, you might exclude the keyword "running shoes for men".

You can also input the landing page you want your customers to see plus the products or services you want to advertise, and Google will generate a list of keyword suggestions.

Step 4: Create Ad Groups.

In this section, you’ll be asked if you want to target specific locations, languages, and audience segments. You can choose these segments based on various factors such as parental and marital status, age, education, and employment. You’ll also choose whether you want your ad to be displayed on the Search or Display Network. 

Step 5: Write your ad.

In this next step, you’ll provide the assets Google needs to compile and display your final ads. On the left, you’ll be able to input your information. On the right, you’ll see a preview of your ad on both mobile and desktop, as well as a rating of your ad strength.

First, input the URL you want customers to visit. This could be your homepage or a specific webpage developed for your campaign, such as a landing page or a product category page. Google will then scan your page and make suggestions based on the content it finds. Then, write your headlines and descriptions. You can provide multiple headlines and descriptions at this stage - Google will combine these options based on best practices. 

Once your ad is written, it’s time to set your bidding strategy. Select what you want this strategy to focus on - you can choose from clicks, conversions, impressions, or other strategies. You can also set a target cost per action (CPA), which will help you get as many conversions as possible at your optimal cost. Next, set your daily budget. Google will offer an average daily budget, or you can set a custom budget. We recommend starting with a small budget and steadily increasing as you optimise your ads. 

Finally, input your payment information and await approval from Google. Once your ad is reviewed (approximately 1-2 business days), your first ad campaign will go live.

Step 6: Set up tracking.

Conversion tracking allows you to measure the effectiveness of your ads and optimise your campaigns for better results. You can install Google Ads conversion tracking code on your website to track valuable actions, such as purchases, form submissions, or sign-ups. Google Ads Help offers a full tutorial on how to set up conversion tracking for your website. 

Step 7: Monitor and improve.

Your first ad campaign is just the beginning. As you collect more data and monitor your ad’s performance, you’ll determine which variations are the most effective. Continuously test, monitor and improve your ads to achieve the best results. 

For more information on creating your first Google Ads account, visit the Google Help Center.

Understanding the different ad types within Google

Now that your Google Ads account is up and running, let’s dive deep into the types of ads that you can use to grow your dropshipping business.

Google Ads offers two primary networks where advertisers can display their ads: the Search Network and the Display Network. 

The Search Network consists of Google search results pages, including Google Search and other Google search sites like Maps and Shopping. Advertisers can target specific keywords, and ads are triggered when users search for those keywords. This means your ads are being shown to audiences with high intent.

The Display Network consists of millions of websites, apps, and videos where advertisers can display visual ads, including text, image, video, and rich media ads. This network offers more granular targeting options compared to the search network, with advertisers targeting audiences based on specific demographics, interests or behaviours. The Display Network is a form of contextual advertising, where ads are shown based on the content of the webpage or app, rather than user search queries. While this offers more opportunities for brand awareness, it typically has lower click-through rates.

Across these networks, Google offers 9 Google Ads campaign types. Within these campaign types, there are multiple ad choices available. With that in mind, let’s explore the ad types available to your dropshipping business on Google Ads.

Google Search ads

Search campaigns are the most commonly recognised ads on the platform. These ads require businesses to bid on keywords, ensuring their ad shows at the top of SERPs for that keyword. There are three types of Search ads:

• Responsive search ads: A business provides up to 15 headlines and up to four descriptions for their ad, and Google builds the displayed ad to align with the current user’s queries.

• Call ads: Promotes a clickable phone number as the ad headline. 

• Dynamic search ads: Google crawls content from a business’s website to generate headlines and direct users to relevant landing pages.

These ads are incredibly effective because they reflect user intent. Customers who are already Googling your products are more likely to click on your ads, leading to higher conversions. However, the cost-per-click adds up depending on the keywords you’re using. 

Google Shopping ads

Google Shopping campaigns are visual ads that appear in the Google Search and Google Shopping tabs. These ads are created using product data fed to the Google Merchant Center. Ad types include:

• Product shopping ads: Standard campaigns that use your product data to create effective and relevant product ads.

• Local inventory ads: These ads only appear for consumers physically near a shop with the product they are searching for in stock. This is most beneficial for omnichannel retailers with brick-and-mortar stores.

These ads are perfect for ecommerce retailers looking to drive store traffic and boost sales. 

Performance Max

Performance Max is an automated campaign type that displays ads across Google’s entire network. Businesses provide campaign goals, assets and product information, and Google will auto-generate ads in every available placement and multiple formats. Although this type of campaign can produce amazing results, it’s not a beginner or budget-friendly option. Unless you have the time, money and experience to know what to feed the Performance Max algorithm, this may not be the best type of advertising for your business. However, established businesses with a higher marketing budget may benefit.

Display Network

Display campaigns are image-based and show passively on websites within the Google Display Network. There are three main aspects to Display campaigns:

• Bidding: Google recommends Smart Bidding campaigns, which use AI to determine your ideal bidding strategy. You can also manually set bidding strategies.

• Creatives: Display campaigns are responsive by default, meaning Google's AI model will use pre-loaded assets provided by a business and determine the ideal configuration based on available ad space.

• Targeting: Display campaigns are set to Optimised targeting by default, meaning Google uses information about your business (such as keywords from your landing page) to find and reach new, relevant audiences likely to convert.

Display campaigns are great for building brand awareness and can trigger more branded searches, but they have lower conversion rates than other campaign types.

Video ads

Video ad campaigns are similar to Display campaigns, but have more ad formats available. Video ad types include:

• Skippable in-stream ads: Ads that play before or during a video and feature a button allowing viewers to skip after 5 seconds.

• Non-skippable in-stream ads: Ads that cannot be skipped and may play before, during or after the main video.

• In-feed video ads: Ads appear on the Youtube homepage, through search results, and in the sidebar of related videos on watch pages.

• Bumper ads: The shortest type of YouTube ad, bumpers are only six seconds long, unskippable and appear before the main video.

• Masthead ads: This ad format is only available on a reservation basis. A featured video will autoplay on mute at the top of the YouTube Home Feed, which when clicked will take viewers to the watch page for that video.

• Outstream ads: Mobile ads that only show on Google Video Partner websites and not on YouTube. 

Video ads allow you to create effective ads that show off your product and brand story in an appealing, engaging way. For more information on video or YouTube ads and how they can benefit your dropshipping business, check out our blog “How to Use YouTube to Grow Your Business in 2024”.

Discovery ads

Discovery campaigns are another type of automated campaign that displays Google-created ads across all of Google’s available feed placements, such as Gmail’s Promotions and Social tabs, the YouTube Home and Watch Next feeds, and the Google Discover feed. Similar to Performance Max, businesses provide the assets and information while Google creates and places the individual ads. This type of campaign is great for businesses looking to expand their reach without requiring extensive campaign oversight. However, it provides limited control over ad placements, which may impact its effectiveness. 

Retargeting campaigns

Retargeting campaigns (also known as remarketing campaigns) are a practice where businesses follow up with customers who may have visited their website but not completed a purchase. Retargeting is an incredibly cost-effective method of increasing revenue and conversions. Google remarketing campaigns require businesses to be familiar with Google Tag Manager and conversion tracking on their website. For more information, you can visit the Google Ads Help page: “Tag your website using Google Ads”.

How to optimise Google Ad campaigns

Ad quality & creative

The key to succeeding with Google Ads is to create compelling ad copy. Regardless of where the ad is placed, audiences aren’t going to click on ads that appear boring or complicated. It’s important to adhere to Google’s content guidelines and follow best practices for content length and format. Here are some tips to help your content stand out:

• The headline is the most important part of your ad. It should convey who your business is and/or what you have to offer. Keep headlines to 30 words or less.

• Descriptions should be specific, relevant to your target audience, and include an attractive offer. It should also match the tone and content of your landing page. Keep descriptions to 90 words or less.

• Create a strong call to action (CTA). A good call to action is clear, concise, and tells the audience exactly what to do when they see your ad. Examples include “buy now”, “sign up today” and “learn more”.

• Always proofread your ads before publishing them! Google holds their ads to strict, professional standards. Ads or assets that don’t use commonly accepted spelling or grammar (except for trademarked terms, brand or product names), contain unsupported characters, use inconsistent capitalisation or don’t identify a business may be disapproved, leading to their removal, remarketing disabling or even an account suspension. You can find out more about Google’s editorial policies here. 

• Conduct competitive research to understand how your competitors are advertising their products. This can give you a general idea of the state of the market and customer expectations. For more information, check out our blogs “How To Do Effective Competitive Analysis for Dropshipping” and “20+ Best Dropshipping Spy Tools To Improve Your Business Profitability”.

A/B testing

A/B testing, also known as split testing, is a method used to compare two versions of an ad to determine which one performs better. It involves creating two or more variations of an ad, such as different headlines, descriptions, or images, and running them simultaneously to see which version generates better results. A/B testing provides valuable data and insights into ad performance, helping you to optimise your marketing, maximise returns, and stay competitive in an ever-evolving market.

Content & audience targeting

There are two main forms of targeting available on Google Ads:

• Content targeting: Based on topics, ad placements, and keywords.

• Audience targeting: Based on audience behaviour, demographics, location and past interactions with your website or ads.

Content targeting allows you to reach people looking for specific types of content. Audience targeting allows you to choose or set specific audience segments to see your ads. For best results, you may want to experiment with both types of targeting - you can even combine them for a multifaceted targeting approach. 

Targeting tips

Use market segmentation to know your audience

Market segmentation is a marketing process that involves splitting your market into smaller groups (called segments) based on shared characteristics. Market segmentation helps ecommerce businesses to identify the needs and expectations of specific target audiences, which can boost personalisation and customisation efforts and lead to higher conversions and more cost-effective campaigns. Market segmentation can help you specify which audiences to target in your Google Ads campaigns. 

Use exclusions

Google Ads allows you to exclude certain audiences or placements from your ads. Among other benefits, audience exclusions will prevent your ads from being seen by non-converting audiences or invalid traffic, reducing wasted ad spend. It also serves to optimise the performance of automated campaigns. You can set up exclusions under the “Audiences” tab in your Google Ads account. 

Don’t forget ad scheduling

Ad scheduling allows you to advertise your products at the optimal time of day for maximum reach. If you notice that your ads are performing better at certain times of the day or on certain days of the week, schedule your ads to show at these times and exclude times with poor engagement.

Google Ads or Social Ads?

Social media advertising is another avenue dropshipping brands can use to advertise their products online. While both methods can help generate leads and drive traffic, they are executed differently. 

Search intent

Customers looking for products or services on Google have higher search intent than customers who come across your ad on social media. You’re more likely to capture customers in the middle of the buying process using Google Ads. However, consumer behaviour is changing in this regard. More social media users are starting to use their favourite social media platforms as a search engine - in fact, 40 per cent of Gen Z users prefer searching on TikTok or Instagram over Google and Maps.

Cost

Although you can set a flexible budget for Google Ads, the average cost per click is still higher than other platforms. The average cost per click for Google Ads is somewhere between $2 and $4, with costs varying depending on the industry. The average cost per click for Facebook ads (now under Meta Ads) is around $0.59 and TikTok is around $1. 

Targeting

Google Ads, Meta Ads and other social media platforms offer unique and effective targeting options based on demographics, location, devices, engagement, and more. They allow marketers to reach target audiences with increasing precision. However, the Google Ads platform primarily focuses on intent-based targeting through keyword targeting and search intent, while social media platforms offer interest-based targeting, demographic targeting, behavioural targeting, and lookalike audience targeting based on users' interests, behaviours, and social connections. Each platform also differs based on its proprietary algorithms.

Available ad formats

Google Ads offers a variety of ad formats tailored for search, display, and video advertising across Google's properties, while social media platforms provide ad formats optimised for users' social feeds, including images, videos, carousels, stories, and interactive experiences. Your ideal ad format will depend on your industry and products.

Analytics

Google Ads and social media platforms differ in their approaches to analytics and the type of data they collect and provide to users. Google not only provides detailed performance metrics and audience insights, but businesses can use and combine other Google tools, such as Google Analytics, to track their site performance and audience behaviour after seeing their ad, giving a fuller understanding of their campaign performance. Social media platform analytics, on the other hand, are platform-specific, making it harder to track audience behaviour across channels. 

Summary

Google Ads is an incredible resource for dropshipping and ecommerce businesses that want to reach a wider audience and maximise ROI. With access to two comprehensive networks and integrations with Google’s extensive suite of tools, you can make informed, data-driven decisions to ensure your ads drive sales without burning a hole in your budget.