Google Discovery Ads Can Be A Conversions Machine.

When done right, Google Discovery ads can really improve your account’s performance. I have had quite a bit of experience with Discovery Ads and this blog will give you a brief overview how you can make Discovery Ads work for your business and increase conversions. 

What are Google Discovery Ads? They are visually rich ads that appear on the YouTube Home and Watch Next feeds, Google Discover on Android devices, and Gmail; Some might wonder “why can’t I just use Google Display Ads instead of Discovery Ads?”. Great question! First of all, Discovery Ads uses Google AI’s interest signals to help you drive interest and action with consumers while they enjoy personalized content on popular Google feeds. I don’t own an Android Device but you can get updates for your interests in your Discover feed on Android devices. Plenty of people do own Android devices and with Discovery Ads, you can take advantage of that. It could be your favorite baseball team or news site and you don’t need to search for them because they’ll show up on your Discover feed since you have expressed interest. Also, see this article on why you should be using Google Discovery Ads.

So, one question that usually arises is how much budget should I give Discovery Ads? When it comes to Paid Search, we can research Branded, Unbranded, and Competitive keywords and plug them into the forecast tool and calculate an approximate budget based on SOV (Share of Voice). For Branded keywords, for example, it’s best practice to have an SOV of at least 80%+ to defend your Branded terms and rank high on the SERP (Search Engine Results Page). We don’t have that similar demand luxury research when it comes to Discovery Ads.  

It’s best to start with a Paid Search strategy to gauge the demand. You need to have your conversion tracking in order. This is paramount. Conversions will eventually give you a CPA (Cost Per Acquisition) data insight can that can help you to set a Discovery Ads monthly budget. Once you have enough CPA data insights, you can set the Discovery Ads budget to at least 10 x the value of your target CPA. If you don’t have any CPA data, then best practice is to set your Discovery Ads daily budget at $100. For your Discovery Ads, set your bidding strategy to Maximize Conversions at first. You cannot apply the Maximize Clicks bidding strategy to Discovery Ads by the way. You should wait until you have at least 50 conversions. Once you have reached that threshold, switch to Target CPA to gain more control cost and efficiency and scale your Discovery Ads campaign. 

What is the beauty of Discovery Ads? Like mentioned earlier, you’ll have the opportunity to show your ads to highly interested users. Create audiences around your Discovery Ads to maximize conversions for your vertical. You can create an audience around high-performing keywords for example to drive more conversions with visually rich images. You can also create audiences around in-market interests that are good fits for your particular industry. For example, you can create an interest audience for users that in-market for test preparations or tutors. For best practice, leave Google’s “Optimized Targeting” on since it may help your campaign to find people beyond your selected audience. The Optimized Targeting Google machine learning can increase your Discovery Ads conversions. Keep it on! The Google machine learning looks at your targeting signals, landing pages, and assets to find more conversions with Optimized Targeting enabled. 

You should not launch Discovery Ads with only a handful of creative assets. You need between 15-20 assets to optimize performance. This is very important since Google will find the best performing combinations and the more creative assets you have, the better your Discovery Ads campaign can perform. See this article on some great information on Discovery Ads creative assets.

When do you want to use Discover Ads? You can use Discover Ads at scale to drive conversions. You can also use Discover Ads to reach new customers for your business. Lastly, to build a funnel, you can use Discover Ads to reconnect with your most valuable customers. If you know what you’re doing, Discover Ads can really give your business a good return. If you are interested in more blogs by 4 Elements Digital, click here. Setting up the correct targeting is a big key for a successful Discovery Ads campaign. The high-interest Google AI signals for Discovery campaigns can truly help your business to get more relevant conversions.