Google Advertising Marketing – Seven Major Advertising Types?

1.2024 Google Ad Types

1) Search Ads: Traditional text ads that appear in Google search results when users search for relevant keywords. These ads are great for capturing user intent and driving conversions.
2) Display Ads: These visually oriented ads appear on millions of websites, apps, and Google platforms in the Google Display Network, and are great for increasing brand awareness and retargeting potential customers.
3) Shopping Ads: They are mainly targeted at e-commerce companies, displaying product images, prices, and other information to help potential customers understand the product more directly. Shopping Ads can be displayed in Google Search, Images, and Maps, etc.
4) Video Ads: They are mainly displayed on YouTube, and the types include skippable interstitial ads, non-skippable interstitial ads, Bumper Ads, etc. They are great for conveying complex brand messages through videos.
5) App Campaigns: They are designed to promote app downloads and user engagement, and ads are displayed on platforms such as Google Play, Search, and YouTube.
6) Performance Max, a new automated ad type, integrates all advertising resources, including search, display, YouTube, etc., and uses AI to optimize advertising delivery to help advertisers achieve wider coverage and higher conversion rates on Google’s major platforms.
7) Demand Gen replaces Discovery Ads in the past. This type of ad is suitable for promoting products on platforms such as YouTube, Gmail and Discover, helping brands to be discovered more widely.
Smart Campaigns have been phased out and integrated into Performance Max campaigns, so they no longer exist as a separate ad type. Performance Max achieves higher returns on investment and advertising effectiveness through AI-driven ad optimization. In addition, starting in the second quarter of 2025, Google Ads is merging its video action campaigns (VAC) into more general demand generation campaigns (Demand Gen). This shift is designed to enhance advertisers’ ability to capture emerging needs and drive growth through a multi-display approach.

2.Choose the right ad type

Suppose there is a very comprehensive tool room. In addition to daily tools such as hammers and wrenches, there are also farming tools, painting tools, and high-tech experimental equipment. It is dazzling and varied. If you are asked to make a choice, what would you choose? (What choice would an adult make? Of course, they would take everything! Bushi) A person’s energy is limited, and a company’s resources are also limited. Time and money should be spent on the cutting edge. If you want to do everything, you may not be able to do anything. If you want everything, you may end up with nothing. So the purpose of choice is “choose according to needs” – what is your goal and what are your needs?

1) Startup stage: Display ads + Search ads At this stage, DTC companies need to increase brand awareness and attract the first batch of users. The budget is usually limited, and the main goal is to let potential customers know about the brand and attract them to visit the website. Display ads (Display Ads): Display ads have a wide coverage and can increase brand exposure when users browse the web. Show the brand image through visual effects, which is suitable for startups to build awareness. Search ads (Search Ads): Search ads can accurately capture users with purchase intentions and help brands occupy a favorable position when potential customers search for related products. High conversion rate, pay per click, help startups obtain high-quality traffic with limited budgets.
2) Growth stage: Shopping ads + Search ads DTC brands need to increase sales and user numbers at this stage. They have already gained a certain degree of popularity. The goal is to expand market share and increase conversion rates. Shopping ads (Shopping Ads): Shopping ads are very suitable for directly displaying product information, such as price, pictures and descriptions, to help users make quick purchase decisions. The effect is particularly significant for e-commerce products. The product display is intuitive, with high click-through and conversion rates, which is suitable for driving sales growth. Search Ads: Continue to capture high-intent potential customers and ensure that they appear in the first place when users actively search for related products. Search Ads have a high conversion rate and can directly drive sales.

3) Mature stage: Maximize performance ads + video ads DTC companies have established a stable customer base at this stage and have a high brand awareness. The goal is to further optimize advertising performance and maximize return on investment through multi-channel promotion. Maximize performance ads (Performance Max): Performance Max ads are automatically optimized across multiple platforms (such as search, display, YouTube, etc.), suitable for brands that already have a large customer base and want to optimize advertising through AI. Automatic optimization of delivery strategies through AI and coverage of all platforms will help further improve ROI. Video ads: Video ads can convey brand value through visuals and storytelling. They are suitable for mature brands to tell deep brand stories, place KOL videos, enhance brand loyalty and expand influence.

In addition to different business types, we also need to choose the most suitable advertising type according to the different stages of the company, so that we can use advertising budgets more effectively and achieve sustained growth. In addition, after the advertising volume stabilizes, you can also make other attempts and make adjustments through comparative tests. There is no absolutely correct solution. The differences in company type, product type, target customers, and even marketing time determine that there is no fixed “standard answer” in advertising marketing.

3.choose

Google’s advertising formats have evolved with technological progress, and each era has its dominant advertising strategy: 1) PPC era: search advertising dominates In the PPC era, search advertising is the core of advertising. Advertisers focus on attracting target users through “keyword” advertising, which is intuitive and has a high conversion rate. During this period, the success of advertising depends mainly on the selection of keywords and bidding strategies, which is the best way to drive conversion by accurately capturing user needs.
2) RTB era: the rise of display advertising With the rise of real-time bidding (RTB) technology, display advertising has become mainstream. This type of advertising is displayed on a large scale through rich media such as images and videos, and is particularly suitable for products that cannot be accurately described in words (such as clothing). During this period, the visual appeal of display advertising allowed many brands, especially e-commerce brands like Shein, to achieve explosive growth with the help of large-scale display.
3) Breakthrough in shopping advertising With the rapid development of e-commerce, the emergence of shopping advertising has given cross-border e-commerce and independent station brands the best way to display. Shopping ads display product images, prices, descriptions and other information, allowing consumers to directly obtain complete product information when searching, greatly improving click-through and conversion rates. For e-commerce brands, the intuitiveness and conversion effect of shopping ads make them the preferred advertising form.
4) AI era: Challenges and opportunities of Performance Max Nowadays, with the popularization of artificial intelligence, Performance Max (PMax) campaigns have become the mainstream of Google ads. This form of advertising is automatically optimized through AI and machine learning, and can deliver ads across platforms, including search, display, YouTube and other channels. However, the difficulty of optimization caused by automation makes it difficult for many advertisers to accurately control the delivery effect, resulting in challenges in improving ROI.