Advertise with Google AdWords

Google AdWords

With a bazillion sites on the interwebs these days, how do you get noticed? You advertise, duh! Google has one thing going for it (well, maybe more than one) and that is the fact that the majority of people use Google as their search engine. And when you have a bazillion web users using your search engine, you have a bazillion users searching for something out there on the interwebs (I'm assuming a one to one correlation here). This is why using Google's AdWords can be great way to increase market awareness of your particular site, product, and/or service.

What seems to be a fairly straightforward concept is actually a lot more complicated once you open up the hood and take a look underneath. This is coming from someone who has never taken any marketing or advertising courses, nor have I ever tried to produce a campaign of any sort. This isn't to say that one shouldn't let the experience overwhelm you. I'm sure the algorithms they use could land an astronaut on the sun blindfolded, so I'll take their word for it and trust that they work.

Essentially, you create advertising campaigns (and there are many different types that I will not go into details here). Within each campaign, you can set the targeted key words and a budget. This budget guarantees that you will not go over the predetermined allocated amount that you have budgeted. You can also control your costs by your bids and ad quality. There is no minimum spending requirement and you pay a small one time activation fee. You will always have the option to have total control over every minute detail, but Google does offer recommendations based on their metrics and analytics that they have measured on the keywords you've specified.

Each time your ad is eligible to appear, an auction takes place among your ads and all the other eligible ads. Your bid is one of the factors that determines whether your ad shows, and in what position. Based upon those criteria and your Quality Score, Google determines when and where to place your ads when the relevant keywords are searched. Your Quality Score is a measure of how relevant your ad, keyword, or webpage is.


Below is my attempt at a Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) flowchart representation of the AdWords' process. This is only scratching the surface of the business process but it gives a broad overview of what a newcomer can expect once they open the front door and step inside AdWords' world.



Click on the image for a closer view.