Google Ads provides robust advertising solutions for businesses in every industry, and different campaign types allow you to deliver ads that match the way people consume content in your market. Advanced targeting lets you reach people who are interested in what your business has to offer.
This article draws on advice from top advertisers who use Google Ads to appeal to customers in their industries. It’s not a comprehensive guide, but a good place to start thinking about an advertising strategy for your unique business.
Retail
Campaign types for retailers
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Shopping: Market your products with interactive product listing ads on Search results and Google’s Shopping tab.
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Optimize campaigns and drive on average two times higher conversion rates1 by ensuring that your current web campaigns, including your Search and Performance Max campaigns, direct traffic to your app with Web to App Connect, if a user has it installed. And then, with a holistic view into your data, you can do more to improve business strategy and serve your customers, including improve profitability, reduce customer service costs, increase average order value (AOV), and maintain highest possible customer sentiment. |
Before you can create a shopping campaign, you’ll need to create a Merchant Account and upload your product data using a product feed.
How to set up a Merchant Center product feed
Merchant Center product feeds allow you to upload your product information and convert them into ads for your Shopping campaigns. Your product information also informs targeting, so your ads appear for people with those specific product interests, at exactly the time that they’re looking for that information.
Finance, real estate, and other professional services
Campaign types for finance, real estate, and professional services
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Search campaigns provide a very high degree of targeting, as you can reach people actively searching for your services on search engines and related websites. This approach is well suited to the specificity of offerings among professional services. |
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Display campaigns show ads on the Google Display Network, so that you can reach people while they’re browsing their favorite website, checking their Gmail account, using their mobile devices and apps, or viewing and sharing YouTube videos. |
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Local Services ads are a great option if you offer location-based services, including financial planning, legal consultation, home repair and related maintenance, real estate, and event services. These ads appear at the top of Google Search and provide direct leads in the form of phone calls or messages. (This ad type is available in the U.S. only) |
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Performance Max campaigns let you easily access all Google Ads inventory from a single campaign across YouTube, Display, Search, Discover, Gmail, and Maps. With the help of Google AI and Smart Bidding, it helps you maximize performance and deliver results against the goals that matter most to you across Google’s full range of channels, inventory, and formats. |
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Optimize campaigns and drive on average two times higher conversion rates1 by ensuring that your current web campaigns, including your Search and Performance Max campaigns, direct traffic to your app with Web to App Connect, if a user has it installed. And then, with a holistic view into your data, you can do more to improve business strategy and serve your customers, including improve profitability, reduce customer service costs, increase average order value (AOV), and maintain highest possible customer sentiment. |
Targeting
| Audience targeting makes your ads visible to specific segments, for example, those who fit in the “Banking & Finance,” “Investors,” “Home & Garden,” “Beauty & Wellness,” “Lifestyles & Hobbies” categories. | |
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Use business data feeds with Display campaigns to create dynamic remarketing ads— which include products or services that people have viewed on your website or app—customized for highest relevance. For example, if you’re in real estate, you can create a feed using the Real Estate business data template to show ads with real estate photos and prices. |
Media & Entertainment
Campaigns types for media and entertainment
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Video campaigns let you show video ads on their own or within other streaming video content on YouTube and across the Google Display Network. They’re an excellent option for media and entertainment companies because they’re built using engagement-driven video ads that appear across YouTube and Google Video partner websites and apps. |
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App campaigns make it easy to promote your apps across Google Search, Google Play, YouTube, Discover on Google Search, and the Google Display Network. You don’t need to design individual ads. By providing a few lines of text, a bid, and some assets, AI-designed ads appear across several networks in various formats. App campaigns are great for gaming companies and other types of businesses that want to promote their video game and other apps, with the goal to drive installs, in-app activity, or pre-registration. |
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Performance Max campaigns let you easily access all Google Ads inventory from a single campaign across YouTube, Display, Search, Discover, Gmail, and Maps. With the help of Google AI and Smart Bidding, it helps you maximize performance and deliver results against the goals that matter most to you across Google’s full range of channels, inventory, and formats. |
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Optimize campaigns and drive on average two times higher conversion rates1 by ensuring that your current web campaigns, including your Search and Performance Max campaigns, also direct traffic to your app, if a user has it installed. And then, with a holistic view into your data, you can do more to improve business strategy and serve your customers, including improve profitability, reduce customer service costs, increase average order value (AOV), and maintain highest possible customer sentiment. |
Targeting
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Use audience targeting to make your ads visible to specific audiences, for example, those who fit in the “Action Games Fans,” “Media & Entertainment,” “Gamers,” “News & Politics,” “Cat Lovers,” and “Dog Lovers” categories. With video ads, you might want to use broad targeting, for instance Cost-per-thousand impression (CPM) bidding and TrueView for Reach campaigns and YouTube Masthead ads to get as many views as possible and build awareness around an upcoming show, feature film etc. To attract more niche audiences, use audience targeting as mentioned in the paragraph above or content targeting. |
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Use business data feeds with Display campaigns to create dynamic remarketing ads—which include products or services that people have viewed on your website or app—customized for highest relevance. For example, if you’re a media company, you can create a Custom feed that shows tailored ads to people who may be most likely to be interested in your programming. |
Education
Ad types that may be useful
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Video sequencing: With video ad sequencing ads within Video campaigns, you can show a series of videos to tell stories about your educational institution or service. You may also want to consider creating a YouTube Channel with some educational content. This can pair nicely with ad content that drives potential customers and existing customers to this channel for further engagement with your brand. |
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Dynamic Search ads: With Dynamic Search ads, you can show a number of your courses within a simple, easy-to-consume ad to people searching on Google and using search phrases related to titles and frequently used phrases on your website. |
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Performance Max campaigns let you easily access all Google Ads inventory from a single campaign across YouTube, Display, Search, Discover, Gmail, and Maps. With the help of Google AI and Smart Bidding, it helps you maximize performance and deliver results against the goals that matter most to you across Google’s full range of channels, inventory, and formats. |
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Optimize campaigns and drive on average two times higher conversion rates1 by ensuring that your current web campaigns, including your Search and Performance Max campaigns, also direct traffic to your app, if a user has it installed. And then, with a holistic view into your data, you can do more to improve business strategy and serve your customers, including improve profitability, reduce customer service costs, increase average order value (AOV), and maintain highest possible customer sentiment. |
Targeting
| Use audience targeting to make your ads visible to specific audiences, for example, those who fit in the“Education,” “Technology & Education,” “Primary & Secondary Schools,” “Business Education,” “Post Secondary Education,” “Early Childhood Education,” “Arts & Design Education” and “Cosmetology Education & Training” categories. | |
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Use business data feeds with Display campaigns to create dynamic remarketing ads—which include products or services that people have viewed on your website or app—customized for highest relevance. For example, if you’re in education, you can use the Education business data template to create a feed that helps you show tailored ads to people who are likely to be interested in your courses. |
Healthcare & Life Sciences
Campaigns types for healthcare & life sciences
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Local campaigns are designed to bring business to your brick and mortar location—whether a medical or dental specialty office, a health insurance office or another type of healthcare business. |
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Performance Max campaigns let you easily access all Google Ads inventory from a single campaign across YouTube, Display, Search, Discover, Gmail, and Maps. With the help of Google AI and Smart Bidding, it helps you maximize performance and deliver results against the goals that matter most to you across Google’s full range of channels, inventory, and formats. |
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Optimize campaigns and drive on average two times higher conversion rates1 by ensuring that your current web campaigns, including your Search and Performance Max campaigns, also direct traffic to your app, if a user has it installed. And then, with a holistic view into your data, you can do more to improve business strategy and serve your customers, including improve profitability, reduce customer service costs, increase average order value (AOV), and maintain highest possible customer sentiment. |
Targeting
| Use audience targeting to make your ads visible to specific audiences, for example, those who fit in the “Health Insurance” and “Health Insurance Plans” categories. | |
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Use business data feeds with Display campaigns to create dynamic remarketing ads—which include products or services that people have viewed on your website or app—customized for highest relevance. For example, if you’re in healthcare or life sciences, you can use the Custom business data template to create a feed that helps you show tailored ads to people who may be interested in your services or products. |
Travel, Lodging & Dining
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Hotel campaigns create dynamic ads that appear when a traveler searches for a hotel on Google Search, Google Maps, or the Google Assistant. These ads appear in a hotel booking module, which can include photos and details, such as pricing, amenities, and links for hotel booking. |
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Display campaigns show ads on the Google Display Network, so that you can reach people while they’re browsing their favorite website, checking their Gmail account, using their mobile devices and apps, or viewing and sharing YouTube videos. To avoid stiff competition when promoting travel related services or products, use the Display Network to publish banners on millions of websites worldwide with specific targeting for those interested in specific cities or areas. |
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Demand Gen campaigns use Google’s audience and customer signals to show personalized, highly visual ads to people who are ready to interact with your brand. Ad formats rely on Google AI to build and showcase your assets beautifully across devices, while people browse their favorite content and feed-based experiences. |
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Video campaigns let you show video ads on their own or within other streaming video content on YouTube and across the Google Display Network. Video ads are an excellent option for travel and lodging advertising aimed at showcasing scenic sites and attractions, perks and amenities with greater detail and visual appeal. |
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Performance Max campaigns let you easily access all Google Ads inventory from a single campaign across YouTube, Display, Search, Discover, Gmail, and Maps. With the help of Google AI and Smart Bidding, it helps you maximize performance and deliver results against the goals that matter most to you across Google’s full range of channels, inventory, and formats. |
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Optimize campaigns and drive on average two times higher conversion rates1 by ensuring that your current web campaigns, including your Search and Performance Max campaigns, also direct traffic to your app if a user has it installed. And then, with a holistic view into your data, you can do more to improve business strategy and serve your customers, including improve profitability, reduce customer service costs, increase average order value (AOV), and maintain highest possible customer sentiment. |
Targeting
| Use audience targeting to make your ads visible to specific audiences, for example, those who fit in the “Travel,” “Family Vacationers,” “Water Sports Enthusiasts,” “Air Travel,” and “Hotels & Accommodations” categories. | |
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Use business data feeds with Display campaigns to create dynamic remarketing ads—which include products or services that people have viewed on your website or app—customized for highest relevance. For example, if you’re advertising Flights, Hotels and Rentals, or Travel, you can use any of those business data templates to create a feed that helps you show tailored ads to people most likely to be interested in your services or products. |
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Optimize campaigns and drive on average two times higher conversion rates1 by ensuring that your current web campaigns, including your Search and Performance Max campaigns, also direct traffic to your app, if a user has it installed. And then, with a holistic view into your data, you can do more to improve business strategy and serve your customers, including improve profitability, reduce customer service costs, increase average order value (AOV), and maintain highest possible customer sentiment. |
1. Google Internal Data Global Feb-March Experiment 2022.