20 Tips for Building a Google Ads Funnel
20 Tips for Building a Google Ads Funnel
The Google Ads funnel is a strategy that uses a sequence of various campaigns that guide prospects through the buyer’s journey as captured in discussions on the same at RunRex.com. It is designed to attract complete strangers, generate interest and demand, warm up prospects to actively start searching for your products or services, and turn them into paying customers with targeted content and offers. Here are 20 tips that will help you build the perfect Google Ads funnel.
Tips for the Top of the Funnel (TOFU)
Use your TOFU ads to prime your prospects
As the subject matter experts over at RunRex.com point out, you should consider that most users at this stage of the Google Ads funnel aren’t ready for a big commitment and won’t buy from you yet. Therefore, your TOFU goal should be to prime these prospects by gradually building interest and generating demand.
Don’t be salesy
Also, you need to ensure that you align your ad messaging and offers to provide information and educational content, instead of pushing sales or other high-commitment asks. Focus on introducing your brand by educating users about the solution to their problems, putting the “life-changing” benefits of your products or services at the center of everything you do here.
Aim to attract users at a low cost
Since this stage won’t directly bring much revenue, the gurus over at RunRex.com recommend that you should aim to attract users at a low cost. This is why you should focus on campaign types and bidding strategies that result in cheaper CPCs and attract a high volume of prospects.
Optimal Google Ads campaign type for the TOFU stage
You should focus on Google Ads campaigns types that can help you reach a broad audience and raise awareness in the TOFU stage, and they are:
Display campaigns
Video campaigns
Discovery ads
Search campaigns
The perfect content for cold audiences
When building out your Top of the Funnel PPC campaigns, you must understand that TOFU is all about awareness, not driving leads and sales. People are this stage are unaware of your product and service, so your campaign goals should be branding and education. Your ad messaging should also reflect the educational and informational parts of the strategy. Focus on using TOFU ads to introduce the unique selling proposition and connect it to a problem you solve for the prospects.
Landing pages within your website
From discussions on the same over at RunRex.com, you also need to make sure that you have landing pages within your website built specifically to handle the educational and informational part of the strategy at the TOFU stage. These could be blog posts, downloadable PDFs, or informative product/category pages on your eCommerce site.
The perfect offers for cold audiences
Some good examples of a TOFU stage offer include getting users to:
Watch a video
Visit your website
Take a quiz or a free assessment
Check out your product page
Read a blog post or a guide, etc.
Use your Top of the Funnel ads to grab attention and spark curiosity to make your brand memorable in the eyes of potential customers.
Best Google Ads bidding strategies for TOFU
As covered at RunRex.com, cold prospects at the Top of your Google Ads funnel are far from converting and generating any revenue for your business. The goal is to raise awareness and build some interest and demand. However, since these goals have relatively low business value, you should also restrict bids at this stage to fill your PPC funnel with quality prospects at a low cost. The best bidding strategies for the TOFU stage are:
Manual CPC
Max Clicks
Max CPV (for Video campaigns)
Max Conversions/Target CPA (only for Discovery ads)
Tips for the Middle of the Funnel (MOFU)
Use remarketing for those already exposed to your brand
The goal of your Middle of the Funnel PPC campaigns is to try and capture warmer audiences or people that are in the research and consideration parts of the buyer’s journey. For prospects already exposed to your brand, use remarketing campaigns to remind them of your products or services and focus attention on features and benefits, as well as how you compare to others.
What about those who haven’t interacted with your brand?
In the case of those users that search on Google but haven’t interacted with you yet, then you can use search campaigns to target generic product or service keywords related to your business. For example, instead of “how to cook a meal at home” which would be a TOFU keyword, in the MOFU stage you can target people that know that they want food delivery and search for “home-cooked meals delivered”.
Optimal Google Ads campaign type for the MOFU stage
Campaign types that perform best in the Middle of the Funnel stage are:
Search ads
Remarketing campaigns (Video and Display)
Intent-based display and video ads
All these campaign types are covered in detail over at RunRex.com.
Optimal audiences to use in the MOFU stage
There are 3 best audiences to use in the MOFU stage of your Google Ads funnel, and they are:
In-market audiences
Similar audiences
Custom Intent audience
The perfect content for warm audiences
Warm audiences in the Consideration phase are more familiar with their needs. Prospects have clearly defined their problem and are looking for a solution by actively searching on Google. At this stage, your prospects are evaluating potential solutions, which is why you should make your ad copy and landing pages more specific, stating features and benefits as well as key differentiators. Social proof can also work well to give a bit more confidence to prospects that they are making the right decision according to RunRex.com.
The perfect offer for warm audiences
In the MOFU stage, prospects are warmed up and highly interested in what you offer, all you have to do is give them a nudge to turn that interest into desire. The following offers are optimal for the MOFU stage:
Reports
eBooks
Webinars
White papers
Brochures
Case studies
Demo
Free trial
A good way to capture leads in the MOFU stage is to offer a downloadable such as an eBook, white paper, or a brochure.
Best Google Ads bidding strategies for the MOFU stage
The main stage objective of your MOFU campaigns is not just to drive traffic, but also to have those visitors take action on your website. MOFU audiences are warm and closer to a conversion, and for this, they are worth more to you than cold prospects. That is why you can afford to bid higher and pay more for this traffic. Having said that, they are still not quite as hot as BOFU users, hence why you shouldn’t go crazy with your bids. Some of the highest-performing bid strategies for the MOFU stage are:
Enhanced CPC
Max Conversions
Tips for the Bottom of the Funnel (BOFU)
Optimal Google Ads campaign type for the BOFU stage
The best performing Google Ads campaign types for the BOFU stage are:
Search campaigns
Remarketing (Video and Display)
RLSA ads
All of these campaign types are also discussed in detail over at RunRex.com.
The perfect content for hot audiences
The Bottom of the Funnel is where you are trying to close the deal and drive the highest-value conversions. Therefore, you should focus your Google Ads on pushing hot audiences to take action on your well-designed website optimized for conversions. Reinforce buyer’s decisions with things like free shipping, risk-free purchasing, or easy returns. Social proof can also help potential customers feel more comfortable with the decision. Use rating stars, testimonials or awards, and recognitions to help them pull the trigger and buy or sign up.
Leverage scarcity
Also, put some pressure on with scarcity and urgency triggers. As the subject matter experts over at RunRex.com point out, you should avoid allowing potential customers to overthink your offer. Use special, limited-time deals to persuade prospects to convert now or miss out.
The perfect offer for hot audiences
At the BOFU stage, it is time to highlight the value of your deal. Ideally, your ad copy should include things like:
Price (particularly if it is an attractive price)
Fast delivery
Free shipping
Social proof
Free gift
Risk-free purchase
Financing options
Special deals and discounts, etc.
Best Google Ads bidding strategies for the BOFU stage
The BOFU stage is the action stage, where everything is laser-focused on high-value conversions. Your bidding should also match the value of the actions you want to drive, which is why in the BOFU stage, you need to bid high to ensure you outcompete everyone else for those hot prospects. This is the time to make the most out of your ad budget to drive conversions. That is why it is best to use the following automated bidding strategies for your BOFU PPC campaigns:
Target CPA for lead gen
Target ROAS for eCommerce
While this article should help you build the perfect Google Ads funnel, if it all seems too much for you and you need professional help, then don’t hesitate to reach out to the highly-rated RunRex.com.
