PPC
76 Diversity & Inclusion in Marketing Statistics for 2023
American filmmaker Ava Duvanay once said, “When we’re talking about diversity, it’s not a box to check. It is a reality that should be deeply felt and held and valued by all of us.”
I agree wholeheartedly with this statement, but at the same time, I also realize that from a business and marketing standpoint, there is a need to put some structure, and maybe even checklists, into place in order to build a true culture, brand voice, and community around these concepts of diversity equity, and inclusion.
And each year, these efforts have become more and more important, not just for society but for any given business’s health. That’s why we have plenty of resources on improving diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) for your business, and why we’re adding another one: this list of DEI stats and findings from studies—plus key takeaways—to help you
- Broaden your perspectives.
- Inform your strategy around diversity and marketing.
- Build stronger connections with all groups within your target audience.
Table of contents
Jump to statistics about:
Statistics about the growing power of the minority consumer population
These statistics are helpful in getting a feel for the growing power of minority groups among consumers, including Hispanic, Black, and Asian American groups.
- In the past decade, the white population declined for the first time in history (2.6%), while people who identify as Black, multiracial, Hispanic, and Asian drove population growth (NY Times).
- The Census Bureau projects that in the next 25 years, non-Hispanic whites will account for less than half of the U.S. population (Forbes).
- The buying power of minority groups in the U.S. is exploding. It was $4.2 trillion in 2020 and is projected to reach $7 trillion by 2025 (Insider Intelligence).
- The median age among multicultural consumers is younger than non-Hispanic whites: For Hispanics it is 30, for Blacks 35, for Asian-American 38 and for non-Hispanic whites it is 44 (Forbes).
The takeaway: While it’s important from a diversity perspective to adjust your marketing content to resonate with the different people groups within your target audience, these stats show that it’s also becoming more and more practical.
Statistics about the impact of inclusive marketing on consumers
These stats on inclusive advertising come from a range studies conducted by Google, Deloitte, Microsoft, Facebook (Meta), and more.
- 64% of consumers said they took some sort of action after seeing an ad that they considered to be diverse or inclusive (Think With Google, 2019). This percentage is higher among specific consumer groups including Latinx+ (85%), LGBTQ (85%), Black (79%), Asian/Pacific Islander (79%), Millennial (77%), and teens (76%).
- According to a June 2020 survey, 42% of responding Americans wanted to see more racial diversity in advertising (Statista).
- In that same study, 55% of 18-34-year-olds wanted to see more racial diversity in advertisements, compared to 32% of 65+ year-olds (Statista).
- A study by Microsoft) showed that an inclusive ad drove a 23 pt. lift in purchase intent whether the person experiencing the ad was personally represented in the ad or not. The highest lift was in Caucasians (+38 pt) compared to women (+26), men (+18), and ethnic minorities (+11 pt).
- Facebook found that online campaigns with more diverse representation had higher ad recall in 90% of the simulations they ran.
- The majority (54%) of consumers surveyed in the Facebook study said they do not feel fully culturally represented in online advertising and most (71%) expect brands to promote diversity and inclusion in their online advertising (Facebook).
- Some 59% of consumers polled said they are more loyal to brands that stand for diversity and inclusion in online advertising, and 59% also said they prefer to buy from brands that stand for diversity and inclusion in online advertising (Facebook).
- Two out of three Americans say their social values now shape their shopping choices (McKinsey, 2021)
- 45% of consumers believe retailers should actively support Black-owned businesses and brands. (McKinsey, 2021)
The takeaway: While consumers may not look down upon a brand if it doesn’t demonstrate inclusion in its marketing collateral, they are more likely to appreciate, trust, engage with, and purchase from a brand that does. Moreover, the Inclusive Consumer, proactively seeking out ways to support minority businesses and causes they care about, can be a valuable resource for building a genuine community of diversity, equity, and inclusion around your brand.
Statistics about business involvement in societal issues
The stats below reveal how consumers think businesses should approach and address issues in society like sustainability and economic inequality.
- 68% of consumers believe CEOs should step in when the government does not fix societal problems (Edelman Trust Barometer, 2021).
- Consumers think businesses aren’t doing enough to address societal issues like climate change (52%), economic inequality (49%), workforce reskilling (46%) and trustworthy information (42%) (Edelman, 2022).
- In one study, 94% of Gen Z respondents expect companies to take a stand on important social issues, and 90% say they are more willing to purchase products that they deem beneficial to society (Deloitte, 20222).
- Consumers aged 18-25 years old take greater notice of inclusive advertising when making purchase decisions than consumers 46+. (Deloitte, 20222).
- 57% of consumers are more loyal to brands that commit to addressing social inequities in their actions (Deloitte, 2022).
Takeaway: It may be worth it to conduct a poll or survey to get a feel for which societal issues are most important to your target audience and what they expect of your brand in relation to them. This could help you avoid marketing blunders and reputation mishaps and maybe even inspire a new and creative marketing campaign.
Statistics about perspectives among minority consumer groups
Here are some statistics to help you broaden your understanding on how specific minority groups among consumers experience and perceive diversity efforts in marketing.
The Black community
- One in three Black consumers doubts the intentions of social media-run businesses that launch Black History Month campaigns and promotions (Insider Intelligence, 2022).
- Black correspondents said they were more likely to purchase from (69%), proactively seek out (69%), interact with (67%) return to (66%), and recommend (65%) brands whose advertising positively reflects their race/ethnicity (Think With Google, 2019).
- On average, only 38% of Black consumers feel brands understand them (My Code Media).
- 58% of Black consumers say it is important that culturally relevant advertising makes them feel like brands understand them (My Code Media)
- 78% of Black adults feel online racial hate is a serious problem.
The Hispanic community
- Despite making up 18.7% of the total US population, Hispanic consumers make up a disproportionately small percentage (only 6%) of overall advertising spend (Insider Intelligence, 2021).
- 54% of Hispanics feel they can better influence social issues through the brands they buy than with who they vote for—more so than other demographics. (Edelman Trust Barometer, 2021)
- Since January 2020, the Latinx community has been disproportionately affected by economic downturns, yet 56% feel optimistic about the next five years—more than any other ethnic community. (Edelman Trust Barometer, 2021)
- Only four in 10 Hispanic adults feel brands and companies understand them very well, on average. From an industry perspective, they feel brands in the consumer electronics industry have the best “above-average understanding” while those in the auto industry understand them the lowest “above-average understanding” (My Code Media).
- Seven in ten Hispanic adults say they trust brands or companies more, and are more motivated to buy from those brands, when they feel understood by them (My Code Media).
- In their own words, Hispanic adults are 2.6 times more likely than non-multicultural adults to say they want to identify with the people in the ‘mainstream’ creatives more, and 3.2 times more likely to say the ‘mainstream creatives’ need more diversity (My Code Media).
The LGBTQ community
- 76% of LGBTQ community members think more positively about companies that sponsor LGBTQ community organizations and events (CMI).
- 71% of LGBTQ community members are more likely to purchase from a company that does outreach and advertises to the LGBTQ community (CMI).
- 69% of LGBTQ community members think more positively about companies that advertise in the LGBTQ media (CMI).
- 67% of LGBTQ-supportive companies have made a positive difference for their LGBTQ employees (CMI).
- Openly supporting LGBTQ legislation is the top indicator that a company supports the LGBTQ community, followed by speaking out against discrimination of transgender/nonbinary community members., supporting programs for LGBTQ youth, donating money to LGBTQ non-profits, creating advertisements featuring LGBTQ imagery, and sponsoring local Pride celebrations (CMI).
- Only 53% of LGBTQ community members think that corporate presence at LGBTQ Pride events is positive for the community. When you break it out by age, only 27% of people aged 18-34 agreed with this while 74% of people 55 or over agreed (CMI).
- Non-LGBTQ consumers look favorably upon companies that include LGBTQ people in their advertisements (GLAAD).
- 77% of non-LGBTQ people feel more positively ward brands that include LGBTQ people in their advertisements (GLAAD). They agree with the following statements about those companies:
- Support LGBTQ rights (86%)
- Offer products to all types of customers (85%)
- Value all kinds of diversity (82%)
- Treat all their employees with respect (82%)
- Understand that LGBTQ and other minority groups deserve recognition (77%)
- Socially responsible (76%)
- Leaders in business(69%)
- Feel better about buying products from them (68%)
- On average, non-LGBTQ people who were exposed to LGBTQ people in the media were 38% more likely to become more accepting and supportive of LGBTQ people (GLAAD).
- LGBTQ respondents said they were more likely to purchase from (68%) and trust (71%) brands with advertising that positively reflects a variety of sexual orientations (Think With Google, 2019).
- 71% of LGBTQ respondents said they are more likely to interact with an online ad that authentically represents their sexual orientation (Think With Google, 2019).
- 67% of LGBTQ respondents said they are more likely to feel positively toward brands with advertising that demonstrates that men and women have the same capabilities and roles (Think With Google, 2019).
Asian American and Pacific Islander community
- The Asian American and Pacific Islander community (AAPI) makes up one-tenth of the U.S. population, but it almost doubled from 2000 to 2019 and is projected to become the largest population cohort by 2060 (My Code Media).
- AAPI consumers’ economic power is growing faster than the country s a whole (My Code Media).
- Only three in 10 AAPI adults feel brands and companies understand them very well, on average. For this study, they rated consumer electronics as having the highest “above-average understanding” and financial services as having the lowest (My Code Media).
- Seven in 10 AAPI adults say they trust brands or companies more, and are more motivated to buy from those brands, when they feel understood by them (My Code Media).
- Only three in 10 AAPI adults say they can identify with culturally relevant creatives (My Code Media).
- In their own words, Hispanic adults are 2.8 times more likely than non-multicultural adults to say they want to identify with the people in the “mainstream” creatives more, and 2.9 times more likely to say the “mainstream” creatives need more diversity (My Code Media).
The multicultural female community
- One in five women in the U.S. are multicultura women, and this share of the population is growing while the non-multicultural women’s share is declining (My Code Media).
- Multicultural women are pursuing higher education more than a decade ago, and their incomes are rising (My Code Media).
- Women, overall, make up more than half of the U.S. population and control or influence 85% of consumer spending (My Code Media).
- Only four in 10 multicultural women feel brands and companies understand them very well, on average. The industry they indicate with the highest “above-average understanding” is consumer electronics, and the one with the lowest is auto (My Code Media).
- Seven in 10 multicultural female adults say they trust brands or companies more, and are more motivated to buy from those brands, when they feel understood by them (My Code Media).
- Only four in 10 AAPI adults say they can identify with culturally relevant creatives (My Code Media).
- Multicultural women are three times more likely than multicultural men to mention identifying with a person’s gender when describing culturally relevant ads (My Code Media).
- Over five in 10 multicultural women feel it’s important that advertising illustrates a clear stance on issues htey care about (My Code Media).
- Culturally relevant creatives are 21% – 76% more compelling for AAPI, Black, and Hispanic women.
- In their own words, Hispanic adults are 2.8 times more likely than non-multicultural adults to say they want to identify with the people in the “mainstream” creatives more, and 2.9 times more likely to say the “mainstream” creatives need more diversity (My Code Media).
Takeaway: Reaching the specific minority groups within your target audience is only the first step. It takes a holistic, consistent, and structured approach to ensure you are connecting with these groups on a meaningful level, demonstrating true understanding of them, representing them accurately and appropriately, and meeting their needs.
Accessibility in marketing stats
- The World Health Organization reports that globally, 15% of the population lives with a disability.
- 26% of U.S. adults live with some type of physical or mental disability (CDC). Functional disabilty types include mobility, cognition, independent living, hearing, vision, and self-care.
- Deloitte found that high-growth brands (annual revenue growth of 10% or more) are more frequently establishing key performance metrics for DEI objectives than their lower-growth competitors.
- 69% of marketers believe that providing accessibility features is important to executing successful marketing campaigns (Capterra).
- 83% of marketers say their company is doing more to provide accessibility in digital marketing than in the past (Capterra).
- Only 35% of marketers say their company accounts for physical ability when marketing to consumers (Capterra).
- Almost half (49%) of marketers say that social media is the most difficult platform for accessibility (Capterra).
Follow our tips on how to make your social media more accessible here.
- 18% of marketers rate their company’s visual, hearing, cognitive, and mobility features as ineffective (Capterra).
- Half of all marketers (50%) don’t realize there is a U.S. law requiring federal government websites to be safe and accessible for people with disabilities (Section 508) (Capterra).
- Marketers report that their company is more likely to provide visual (66%) and hearing (56%) accessibility features than cognitive ones. They also believe that hearing and visual disabilities are most prevalent, but the truth is that cognitive disabilities are (10.8% compared to hearing (5.9%) and vision (4.6%)) (Capterra).
- 45% of marketers say that education or accessibility training would motivate their company to be more proactive in improving its accessibility. But one in four marketers say that lack of technology and/or staff to implement accessibility training and features is a top challenge in achieving this (Capterra).
Here are some more stats from Monsido on website accessibility:
- 90% of websites are inaccessible to people with disabilities who rely on assistive technology (AbilityNet).
- 98% of home pages have detectable WCAG 2 failures with low contrast being the most common (86.3%) (WebAIM)
- People with disabilities spend a half-trillion dollars annually (UsableNet).
- 82% say they would often return and spend more with a company that provides an accessible online experience (Click-Away Pound).
- Two out of three e-commerce transactions are abandoned by people who are blind because of lack of accessibility (US Department of Commerce).
- Companies without accessible sites are losing $6.9 billion a year to competitors whose sites are accessible (US Department of Commerce).
Takeaway: Creating an ADA-compliant website should be a top priority for your business, but not the only effort you put into place to meet the needs of those with disabilities in your target audience. Be sure to educate yourself on the specific types of disabilities that are prevalent among your customers and incorporate your efforts into your social media, email, and events as well.
PPC
Standard Performance Max vs Performance Max for Retail
Google has recently changed the name of standard Performance Max to Performance Max for online sales or lead generation and Performance Max Retail to Performance Max for online sales with a product feed.
A rose by any other name might still smell as sweet. But even as they’ve stayed the same species how do these two roses within Google Ads’ garden differ?
Performance Max for retail is an ad campaign type that builds on your Google shopping campaign, while bringing in the most valuable features of Performance Max. This enables you to leverage the account inventory from within your Merchant Center accounts with all the clever automatic weapons at Performance Max’s disposal.
Before we go into more detail, how about a brief recap of what Performance Max campaigns actually are?
What is Performance Max?
Performance Max is an all-encompassing campaign format that puts your conversion goals above all else.
This should not be mistaken for one-size fits all. Rather it offers a structure that allows you to set the CPA or ROAS aims of the campaign, provide the assets, audience signals and data feeds, and basically let Google play mix and match. That means that bidding, budget optimisation, audiences, creatives, attribution and – most significantly – on which of Google’s properties you appear, are all decided by AI. As well as search (naturally) you could find yourself showing ads on YouTube, Display, Discover, Gmail and Google Maps. All within the single campaign.
If that sounds a bit black box-y, it needn’t be. It’s true that you are obliged, to a reasonable extent, to trust in the tool. Also to be more flexible with what it comes up with than you might initially feel comfortable. A campaign manager wants to be campaign managing, after all.
Performance Max campaigns will, however, tell you everything about what within your campaigns is and isn’t working. You are then free you to eliminate those that aren’t effective, while identifying new conversion streams that you might not previously have conceived.
What are the benefits of Performance Max Retail over standard smart shopping campaigns?
You will have spotted that among the Google properties listed in the introduction to Performance Max, Google Shopping was not among them (except indirectly, linked to search.) That’s because in order to run them, you will need a Merchant Centre Account (which many advertisers either simply don’t, or isn’t applicable to them) linked to your Pmax campaign.
But Google shopping ads are as much part of the advertising landscape as their text brethren. They will benefit just as much from a Pmax boost. If you’re a retailer using Google Shopping campaigns, you’re going to want to at least try Performance Max Retail.
The advantages of Pmax Retail over shopping include:
- Language targeting based on Merchant Center feed or campaign criteria
- Final URL expansion – allowing you to replace your Final URL with a more relevant landing page based on the user’s search query and intent, and to customize a dynamic ad headline that matches your landing page content
- All stores are targeted when the Store Visit goal is selected
- The ability to set conversion goals on a per-customer or per-campaign basis
For want of a better way of putting it, Performance Max Retail is Google Shopping on steroids.
Just as with Performance Max the conversion is the thing. Unlike in a standard Pmax campaign, you’re providing an even more valuable asset source, by way of real time inventory and product data, to inform the ad creation and targeting. Compared to your normal Shopping campaign, you’re going searching for customers and converting them, rather than waiting around for them to come to you.
If you already have a Merchant center account it’s very simple to add it to your Pmax campaign and make it Pmax retail. All you have to do is change the settings within Performance max to tell it to be retail, apply your Merchant center ID and finally provide a Feed Label. The Feed Label can be either a product feed, which means the campaign will only target the products in that feed, or a two-letter country code, which will allow you to target all products from that country.
Google Ads will then go to work, using everything you’ve given it by way of assets to automatically create and serve a wide range of ad formats to all sorts of audiences, in all kinds of spaces.
Just as with standard shopping ads, if a product is no longer available and drops out of your feed, it will not not be used to create an ad.
The amount of latitude you give Performance Max Retail will be up to you – just as with Performance Max (and in a similar way with standard Shopping) you have control over the limits – but if you’ve ever seen anything resembling Google Shopping ads popping up in surprising places, chances are they’ve been created using Performance Max Retail.
Go wild in the aisles and see what Performance Max Retail can do for you.
PPC
Marketing Funnel: Stages, Strategies, & How It Works
While everyone has different marketing strategies, there is one thing that every marketing plan should have: the marketing funnel.
Understanding your marketing funnel is the key to identifying the best content and strategies for moving customers along in their journey.
In this post, I will break down everything you need to know about the marketing funnel, including what it represents for your business, why you need one, and how to use it to maximize your success.
Contents
What is the marketing funnel?
The marketing funnel represents a consumer’s journey from being unaware that you exist to becoming a customer. It’s often broken up into four different stages, but the number of stages and names of those stages vary depending on who you talk to. One of the most widely accepted sets of stages is as follows:
- Awareness
- Interest
- Desire
- Action
We’ll talk more about each of these phases later in this post.
The marketing funnel is shaped like a funnel because you naturally get drop-off along the way. Not everyone who becomes aware of your business, product, or service will complete the journey to becoming a customer. The idea is to maximize that number, of course.
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Why is the marketing funnel important?
You need a marketing funnel because most people are not ready to buy right away. This has always been the case to varying degrees for different industries. But it’s more true than ever because consumers have so many options now and even more tools for researching and vetting.
Let’s go over why the marketing funnel helps to account for this buying behavior.
Guides your content strategy
Because customers have different intents at each of the stages in the buying journey, the content that will be most effective at influencing them at each of those stages will be different. With a marketing funnel, you can then create a content marketing funnel so that you’re equipped to move your leads through the journey.
Increases conversions
A marketing funnel increases conversions because, without one, you’re asking people to make a massive leap from being aware of your brand to becoming paying customers without guidance. This rarely happens, so your conversion rates with this approach will be super low.
With a marketing funnel, you start with low-friction education. Each subsequent offer requires a little more commitment and buy-in than the last. Now, you’re increasing conversion rates at each stage, bringing more leads to the finish line.
Identifies problem areas
As we just covered, a marketing funnel takes your one conversion action (becoming a customer) and breaks it into a series of smaller conversion steps. This way, you can establish benchmark conversion rates at each stage, which will allow you to monitor and adjust accordingly. For example, if you’re generating many good-quality leads but your demo conversion rate is lacking, you may want to revisit your bottom-funnel and sales enablement content.
What are the stages of the marketing funnel?
Now that you understand the marketing funnel and why it’s important, let’s review the different stages of the funnel and the best types of marketing strategies for each stage. Note that you can produce the same content formats at any stage of the funnel: blog posts, downloadable PDFs, website pages, ads, emails, and videos—what differs is the content topic.
Awareness stage
In the awareness stage of the marketing funnel (also called “top of funnel” or “TOF”), the consumer is aware of their pain points but not aware of your business. They may not even be aware of the product or service you offer. Your goal is to get them to understand the problem behind their symptoms, to learn that there are solutions, and to become aware that you exist.
What the consumer is doing: Searching online for information about their pain points. Their keyword intent is informational, so they’re searching things like “how to increase/decrease/improve X” and “why is X happening.”
Best strategies: Offer advice, be helpful, and educate people on the root problem in this content. Use blog posts, ebooks, PR, events, newsletters, guest blogging, social ads for guides, display ads, and more.
Example: My company, Hatch, is a text automation platform for contractors. But contractors in the awareness stage aren’t looking for or interested in this. They’re interested in their symptoms: leads not responding to their calls and sales representatives burning out. So, we have a blog post on reasons your leads aren’t responding.
💡 Master the awareness stage with the free Definitive Guide to Brand Awareness: Top Strategies, Examples, & How to Measure Success.
Interest stage
In the interest stage of the marketing funnel, the customer is aware of the root problem behind their symptoms and that there are solutions to this problem—yours being one of them. Your goal is to get them interested in the solution you offer. This doesn’t necessarily mean your brand, just the type of solution.
What the consumer is doing: Searching for the best solutions to their problem. Their keyword intent is still informational, but the keywords are less about symptoms and more about solutions.
Best strategies: Provide education on the different solutions and offer content illustrating why yours is the best. Try free trials, product guides, explainer videos, buying guides, and search ads.
Example: Continuing with the Hatch example, the customer in this stage of the funnel is now aware that the problem behind the symptom of leads not responding is that they’re not reaching out fast enough. So, one of our middle-of-the-funnel pieces of content is this Speed to Lead Playbook. It’s got strategies for reaching out to leads faster, with automated texting (the solution Hatch provides) being one of those strategies.
Desire stage
At the desire stage of the marketing funnel, the customer is aware of the problem and interested in your particular solution. Your goal is to convince them that your brand is the best provider of that solution.
What the consumer is doing: Evaluating your business, comparing it to competitors, asking friends about you, and reading reviews. Their keyword intent is commercial, which means they’re searching with terms like “reviews,” “compare,” “vs.,” “alternatives,” and “best.”
Best strategies: Show what makes you different from competitors. You can do this with one-pagers, comparison pages, case studies, testimonial pages, internal battle cards, and reviews. Also, focus on telling a compelling brand story that helps you to stand out.
Example: Still using our Hatch example, this post on Hatch vs. Podium examines how these two texting platforms differ and the types of businesses each one is best suited for.
Action stage
In the action stage of the marketing funnel, the customer is now confident that you are the best solution for their problem. Your goal is to get them confident enough to buy now.
What the consumer is doing: Evaluating the specific offerings you provide, comparing packages, calculating prices, and doing final vetting. Their keyword intent is navigational (they’re returning to your site and review platforms) and transactional (they want to know how/where to buy from you).
Best strategies: Show why you are worth the price, why they should act now, and appeal to their emotions. Offer promotions, use compelling calls to action, and write persuasive copy that sells.
Example: The Hatch demo page or pricing page would be action-stage pieces of content.
Maximize conversions with your marketing funnel
No matter what kind of business you have, it’s imperative that you understand what your marketing funnel looks like. Take the time to map yours out so you can increase conversion rates, create a better customer experience, and ultimately gain more customers. And if you identify problem areas, let us show you how we can help move prospects through each stage of your marketing funnel.
PPC
5 Ways To Use Google Gemini For PPC Inspiration
AI is changing digital marketing. For most companies that means embracing tools like Google Gemini to simplify day to day tasks and improve efficiencies.
If you aren’t using AI in the PPC space, then you could be missing out on the opportunity to drive efficiencies, get a whole bunch of keyword, campaign and copy inspiration, and claim some valuable time back from your day.
If you’re looking to get started here are five ways that you can integrate Google Gemini into your Google Ads campaigns in order to maximise efficiency and drive growth:
1. Ad Copy Inspiration
Ad copy is probably the most common reason PPC execs use Google Gemini. This is for its ability to generate significant variations on ad copy quickly, making it a valuable tool for A/B ad testing and taking that ad copy to the next level.
Re-writing, updating and coming up with inspiration for new ad copy used to be quite a laborious task – but not with Gemini. With the right guidance and input it can provide you with ad copy variations in next to no time.
There are a number of different ways you can use Gemini to support your ad copy creation – from the AI-integrated options within the Google Ads interface, through to asking it directly from the main Gemini platform. Both of these are effective and can save substantial time and also provide you with ad copy ideas.
To get the most out of it, make sure that you clearly input any restrictions (e.g. the 30 character headline limit) and target the focus keywords that you want to generate ideas around. In this example we are researching for our own Google Ads campaigns:
You can even specify the “type” and “approach” of ad copy you are looking for to ensure that you’re meeting your audience’s needs effectively. In the next example, we were doing research for our own Google Ads campaigns, where we are focusing on an emotion-driven “curiosity-inducing” approach, designed to improve CTR:
We know humans thrive on emotional triggers and Google Gemini can be great at approaching ad copy from this angle, which can encourage users to take action. While I wouldn’t directly probably use any of the above, what it does is give me inspiration for my own ad copy – invaluable if you’re looking to try something new for a client you’ve worked on for a while.
As a Large Language Model (LLM), Gemini can also help to strengthen existing ad copy and perform clarity checks – ensuring that content is clear and concise, or identifying areas where we can make our ads more compelling, or strengthen them for better impact. Even if you have existing ad copy it’s always worth asking Gemini for advice on how this could be strengthened or clarified.
2. Keyword research
Keyword research is one of the main areas you can use Google Gemini to save time, but the main benefit is its ability to create new paths of thinking, rather than just deploying the standard keyword build.
If I am looking to expand my targeting on the “seo agency” campaign I’m not just looking for a few words either side, I’m looking for new cluster topic ideas. Gemini is great for this as it can break the research down into keyword clusters.
From the outset, we can use Gemini to identify cluster-based themes for our keyword research, in the first instance focusing on high-intent keywords:
We can break these out further by looking at different clusters, including keywords which are industry-specific, location-based or service-based:
We can build these out further still by honing in on a specific vertical, which is great if you focus on a specific industry and can allow for further expansion of targeting within this area. In this instance we asked Gemini to focus on industry specificity:
Gemini can be invaluable for building keyword lists out, but more than that it can be used as a tool for inspiration to get into very granular targeting of areas you might not otherwise have identified. This helps to build depth and increases focus on high-intent, low competition keywords.
3. Audience Personas
One thing Gemini does really well is bring data together in a quick and effective manner. If you are looking to undertake research this is one area it can really save you time.
Often at the start of a campaign you will be looking to build out audience personas. While in some instances you’ll be fortunate enough to work with brands who have this data to hand, if you aren’t in that boat then being able to dig out different persona data can be a time-consuming task.
With a few of the right prompts, Google Gemini can do that for us. In this instance, we asked Gemini to create some user personas for the watch brand, Watches2U. What came back was in-depth insights that got us thinking about the potential audience:
These are only two, of the six different personas Gemini offered, and which helped to define our audiences. When combined with our own internal data they gave us a thorough picture of what the watch marketplace looked like, helping to focus our ads.
It’s not just audience personas that Gemini can help with when it comes to audience research data. You can also use the data to understand some of the challenges your audience is facing, so that you solve their problems and answer their questions accordingly.
In this example, we asked Gemini to list the struggles of an audience who might be looking for an SEO agency:
By understanding this data we can start to tailor our approach to ad copy, targeting and the landing page experience, ensuring we’re answering queries and addressing pain points from the outset.
You can also have Gemini evaluate your landing pages to identify potential opportunities for improvement, identifying areas that might resonate well with an audience, and also those which could take some improvement. In this instance, we asked Gemini to analyse our SEO landing page to see if it was appropriate for the audience we were targeting:
4. Negative Keywords
In addition to helping us to find keywords to target, Gemini can also help us to pre-emptively build negative keyword lists which can save us money from the outset.
Using a similar structure to the keyword research we can ask Gemini to group these into themes:
By understanding the intents we can build out targeted negative keyword lists to ensure we aren’t showing our ads to irrelevant close variants or phrase matches, which could burn through our budget.
As with the keyword lists we can expand on these individual intents to get more comprehensive keyword lists. In this instance by building out the “educational” list we can identify even more negative keywords and build out comprehensive lists in next to no time.
Many agencies have to start running campaigns with limited negative keyword lists due to time and budget constraints, leaving brands spending budget to simply find out what those keywords are before removing them from the campaign. By using Gemini in this way it enables you to build out a much bigger negative keyword list from the start, saving budget and time.
5. Troubleshooting Google Ads Scripts
If you’re a Google Ads Script user then chances are you understand the value of using scripts both to drive efficiency and save time.
There are a number of ways that you can use Gemini to help with scripts. While it can’t actually write the script itself it can help to troubleshoot potential issues and explain the different functionalities within Google Ads to support with script creation.
In the following example, we asked it to evaluate a script we use frequently called the “Exact Match Variant” script, designed to implement negative keywords across any search query that doesn’t exactly match the term.
By querying the script, we can ensure that it does exactly what we would expect it to. If we find an issue we can adjust the script accordingly.
We can then ask Gemini to identify what the best practice use of the script would be and see that in accordance with our current usage it’s doing exactly what it should be:
This can be invaluable if you want to try out a new script on a client’s account but want to ensure it’s working correctly before launching, if you simply want to better understand the functionality or make improvements to your existing scripts.
The above is not an exhaustive list, but provides a couple of ideas around how you can employ Google Gemini to improve efficiencies and depth across your Google Ads campaign. As AI continues to develop and expand, so will the opportunities to use it as an effective support tool across our marketing activities.
Amanda Walls is the Director of Cedarwood Digital – a performance marketing agency based in Manchester.
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