What Do People Think You Do?
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This definitely varies on how tech-savvy someone is. If you’d ask my dad, he’d say “she works in advertising,” and couldn’t expound beyond that. For many people (including myself up until later in college,) I didn’t even realize that I was constantly subjected to digital advertising everywhere I went online. When people hear that I work in Google Ads, many times they don’t even know what that means. The watered-down description I respond with is “I set up campaigns to show ads to people online.”
What Do You Really Do?
As a Google Ads Specialist, it’s my job to work with our clients to develop and execute a digital marketing strategy in Google Ads that helps them reach their goals. This includes understanding what product or service the client has to offer, and then determining who their target audience is.
Once you have those two questions pinpointed, it’s simply a matter of putting in place Google Ad campaigns that effectively target that audience with ads that help drive conversions, whether that be sales for a retail business or leases for an apartment community.
A Day In The Life
To get started, I’ll work with a client to better understand what their actual goal is, whether that be to help drive sales, increase foot traffic to their business, or to simply increase local awareness of the business.
Once I know what their objective is, I’ll work with them to understand who they are trying to reach (aka their target audience.) For example, if the client sells fishing gear, it’s likely that their target audience is men who have an interest in fishing.
After I’ve determined their goal and target audience, I’ll work with them to determine a realistic budget that will help them meet their goals.
At that point, I’ll determine what types of campaigns would work best in combination with each other to help reach the goal that we’ve set.
Once I have these questions answered, I’ll get started started with setting up the campaigns. The two most common types of campaigns that we use are called “Search network campaigns” and “Display network campaigns.” Search network campaigns allow us to show ads to someone who is located within a specific geographic location and searches for a phrase or keyword that we pre-determine. Using the fishing gear example, we would set up a search network campaign that shows an ad to someone who is located near the fishing gear store, and is in Google searching for fishing supply store. A display network campaign allows us to show image ads to people wherever they go online, regardless of what they are actively searching for in Google. Back to the fishing gear example, we would set up a display network campaign that shows image ads of fishing gear (such as fishing rods or lures) to people who are in our target audience (men who have shown an interest in fishing.)
After the campaigns are set up and running, I’ll continue to monitor their performance and adjust them as needed. Adjustments include raising and lowering the daily budgets, updating the ads to make sure they are relevant and have the right messaging, updating keywords that we are targeting, and making sure that an ad’s landing page (the page you are taken to when you click an ad) is relevant. For example, if someone is searching for fishing rods, we want the ad to take them to a page on the website that features fishing rods rather than fishing lures.
A day in the life of a Google Ads Specialist constantly revolves around this process. You’ll work with clients to determine what their goals are, set up campaigns to help meet those goals, and then continuously monitor and optimize the campaign strategy to ensure that the goal is being met.
What’s The Average Income?
The average salary of a Google Ads Specialist is roughly $45,000 per year or $20 per hour.
What Education If Any Is Needed?
The typical path to a career as a Google Ads Specialist involves getting a degree in Marketing or Advertising. You can also get certified in Google Ads by taking tests provided by Google that test your knowledge and execution within the platform. I was fortunate to get hired by a company even though I didn’t have a relevant degree (mine was in Psychology,) but many agencies look to hire someone with a degree in the field. Beyond the degree, experience is huge! I feel like companies care more about your experience versus what your degree is. The fact that I had an internship selling advertising was very impactful during my interview, and I feel like I was hired not because of my degree, but because of my experience.
Something Important To Know
To be a successful Google Ads Specialist, you need to be VERY detail oriented and tech-savvy. You’ll also need to be ready to continuously learn and stay up to date on the latest changes within the digital marketing field. Technology changes so quickly, and you’ll need to be ready to pivot when a new feature or tool is released in Google Ads. Another huge aspect of this role is client interactions. There will be times you’ll have to navigate some crucial conversations with clients and who may have unrealistic expectations. It’ll be your responsibility to lay out the facts (in a respectful way) and re-set expectations. Google Ads is not a magic pill that will fix all problems, but when set up correctly, it is a super effective way to get a client’s message/product in front of the right audience.