If you’re one of the few email marketers who aren’t using Gmail ads, you’re really missing out! This is one area that marketers can’t afford to sleep on. So before you spend all of your marketing budgets on expensive campaigns on Google itself or social media platforms like Facebook, YouTube, Instagram. You should definitely consider incorporating Gmail ads into your overall marketing strategy.
What Are Gmail Ads?
Gmail ads are paid advertisements that show up in users’ email inboxes. Specifically, these advertisements show up at the top of an inbox within the social or promotions tab. Collapsed advertising formats blend seamlessly into the inbox and look like an actual email with a subject line and sender. When clicked on, the collapsed ad becomes expanded with additional media and information.
In addition to being clicked on, Gmail ads can also be saved to the user’s inbox, forwarded to another email address, or simply closed out. At the end of the day, Gmail ads provide you exclusive access to someone’s email account with eye-catching graphics and enticing subject lines.
Why Use Gmail Ads?
Although you have heard about Google search engine ads or even YouTube ads, you may have never heard of Gmail ads before. What makes this type of advertising worth utilizing? Here are some of the reasons why you should use Gmail ads:
Expansive reach
Gmail is the biggest email provider in the world, with more than one billion active monthly users. Within the United States, Gmail boasts over 130 million active monthly users — making up a total of 53% of the American email market. The following two providers, Yahoo and Outlook, hold a paltry 18% and 14%, respectively.
But people aren’t just using Gmail — they’re using it a lot. Studies show that the average person checks their email about 15 times a day. So using Gmail ads puts you in front of a huge number of people who spend a lot of time in this space.
Creative freedom
Gmail ads offer a variety of different formats to choose from so that you can get creative and find the option that best fits your needs. You can choose from displaying a standard image, promoting a single product, promoting a catalog of different products, or inserting your own custom HTML.
Detailed targeting
Since Gmail is integrated with Google, it comes with incredible targeting abilities. Google is able to collect tons of data about its users based on what they search for. Furthermore, Gmail scans users’ email inboxes to learn even more about them. You can use this data to your advantage through targeting capabilities.
For instance, you can target people based on demographic information, life events, interests, and more.
How to Use Gmail Ads?
There are many types of Gmail Ads, ranging from multi-retailer ads to single business ads to discovery ads. Here’s a quick overview of the Gmail Ad specs that you need to take to launch your own Gmail advertising campaign:
Step 1: Name Your New Campaign and Set Your Budget and Bidding Strategy
To create your Gmail ad campaign, you’ll first need to go to Google Ads. If you’re already familiar with this system thanks to advertising on other Google platforms, then the rest should be easy! If you don’t yet have a Google Ads account, then you will need to sign up for one — it’s free with your Google account.
Once you’re in, go to “campaigns” and “display network only.” From there, you name your campaign, choose your ad specifications, and select your geographic locations if you’re a local company.
After that, you create your bidding strategy. You’ll be able to choose between automatic and manual bidding. If you want more control over your bids, then you may want to go with manual bidding to start. You can then set a daily campaign budget as well as the start and end date for the campaign.
Step 2: Insert the Visual Components of Your Advertisement
Now, insert the visual components and required information for your advertisement. You can choose between a Gmail image, a single product, multiple products, or a custom HTML. For beginners, we recommend going with either a Gmail image or a single product marketing image.
You will need to insert your company name, headline (subject line), description (watch for character limits), display URL, landing page URL, and the actual image or logo you’d like recipients to see. Pay special attention to the subject line as this is going to be what draws in customers — especially in collapsed advertisement formats.
Before you move forward, you should verify that everything is displaying properly both in collapsed and expanded advertisement formats.
Step 3: Choose Your Targeting Options
In order for your Gmail advertising campaign to be effective, you need to fine-tune your targeting specifications to reach the right people. One of the biggest strengths of Google advertising relates to its targeting capabilities, but you need to be able to use them effectively, which is easier said than done.
Google allows you to target people based on demographic information, topics, and interests. However, if you’re looking for a laser-specific approach, then you may want to consider using Google Ads Customer Match. This feature allows you to upload a Gmail address list of over 1,000 accounts to target your marketing content specifically.
Step 4: Launch and Track Your Gmail Campaign Performance
The next step in the process involves actually launching your campaign once everything looks perfect. However, the work doesn’t end there. Instead, you need to track and monitor your campaign performance continuously. The odds are that your campaign won’t be perfect the first time around.
Being proactive ensures that you don’t end up wasting money on an ineffective campaign. Once you learn the ropes of what works versus what doesn’t, you can get a successful Gmail advertising campaign down to a formula.
Gmail Ads Best Practices to Follow
Even though Gmail advertising campaigns can achieve incredible returns, success is never guaranteed. Here are some best practices to follow to ensure that your campaigns are effective:
- Get creative by using emojis. It’s no secret that people love emojis. Using them in your Gmail ads often garners higher engagement rates.
- Raise your quality score for better bids. Like Google ads, Gmail ads also utilize quality scores for bids. By upping your quality score, you can win cheaper bids and get more bang for your buck.
- Embrace deep click analytics. Google’s strength is in its data — and this extended to Gmail as well. As a part of your campaign, you’ll be able to track metrics like Gmail saves, forwards, and clicks to the website.
- Diversify your ad formats. While it’s a good idea to start out with the simpler ad formats, you should diversify your approach once you’re more comfortable with the platform and the process.
- Use keywords to your advantage. Target people based on keywords associated with your own business to essentially “remarket.” You can also target people based on keywords associated with competitors to poach customers.
Wrap Up on Gmail Ads
At the end of the day, Gmail ads are definitely underrated, and you can use this fact to your advantage thanks to less competition and lower costs. If you want to get the best Gmail ads results, you may want to consult with a marketing expert like Greg Gillman.
Greg Gillman specializes in omnichannel growth strategies for direct-to-consumer brands. As a preferred digital marketer, he can help you build ad campaigns on Gmail and beyond to grow your business and achieve your goals.
Sources:
Create Gmail Ads – Google Ads Help | Google
Email Ranked: Look at What Provider Is Tops in America | Fox Business
