Working with Google Ads: a guide from Banana Traff
Banana Traff
A team of specialists using Google Ads to attract traffic
Google Ads is one of the largest services of contextual ads and a powerful tool for attracting traffic. However, finding your niche and starting to earn there can prove difficult, especially if you lack experience. Banana Traff has been working in affiliate marketing for more than 3 years and is happy to share their expertise about launching, configuring, and running ad campaigns on Google Ads.
Table of contents
Preparing your accounts
Once you’ve purchased an account, log into it using an antidetect browser for multi-accounting, but don’t rush to start running ads. If an account was farmed outside Octo Browser, Google might notice a difference in the fingerprint.
Perform a series of simple actions: visit popular websites, spend some time in the email, follow several links from emails. The more time you spend preparing your account, the better; even the bare minimum will help. You can go to Google Ads; just don’t start your ad campaigns too soon.
If you’ve bought an already unblocked account, you don’t need to additionally prepare Google Ads, it’s ready to go — you can start by setting up your ad campaign.
Perform a series of simple actions: visit popular websites, spend some time in the email, follow several links from emails. The more time you spend preparing your account, the better; even the bare minimum will help. You can go to Google Ads; just don’t start your ad campaigns too soon.
If you’ve bought an already unblocked account, you don’t need to additionally prepare Google Ads, it’s ready to go — you can start by setting up your ad campaign.
You can use ad accounts in three ways:
Until the first billing
This allows you not to pay for ads due to the Google Ads credit limit.
Use your budget
You can buy accounts without payment data, but this way you risk bans when the advertiser is checked. We recommend purchasing accounts whose bans were lifted. The best way, in our opinion, is to buy an unblocked account with completed verification, work with our payment data for a short while, and then connect your own payment data.
Test your strategies
Spend a bit of your ad budget, and if the profit is good, connect your payment data to the account and run the full ad campaign.
Why is IBAN better?
We always use real bank accounts in IBAN format, which is normally used for international payments. We know from experience that most European banks do not process transactions fast, with transactions taking up to 3-5 business days on weekdays, and on weekends they might not be processed at all.
And why is this good for us?
It’s good for us because when Google bills you for ads, it can’t get an immediate response from the payment system; checking the transaction and balance takes time. This means that once you’ve reached the billing threshold, ads won’t be immediately suspended, and you might be able to use 100 Euros of traffic instead of 10 using the same ad account.
Your ideal scenario is hitting the billing limit on a Thursday or Friday, which will give you up to three extra days of running your ads.
Once you’ve hit the limit, two things can happen:
- If there’s enough money on the card, it will be automatically charged, and ads will continue running, or
- If there isn’t enough money, the ad account will be suspended.
When should I change my payment data?
Our clients often change the payment data immediately after purchasing an account, but we advise against this! Always take some time using the account before you change your data: this helps you avoid suspicious Google algorithms.
After you’ve sufficiently worked with your account, run a small amount of ads. After that you can use your own payment data. If you’re ready to work with appeals, wait until your account is suspended for non-payment, then change your payment data, pay the outstanding balance, and appeal the suspension: this will increase your account trust.
After you’ve sufficiently worked with your account, run a small amount of ads. After that you can use your own payment data. If you’re ready to work with appeals, wait until your account is suspended for non-payment, then change your payment data, pay the outstanding balance, and appeal the suspension: this will increase your account trust.
How often should I increase my ad budget?
Start with $5-10, and increase the amount by 25 to 35% every 12-24 hours. Alternatively, double your ad campaigns (up to 5 concurrently running campaigns).
What is account freezing?
Freezing means shadowbanning of your ad account. Unlike bans or suspensions, you won’t get a notification, but your ads also won’t be running. This means that either your account or a specific ad is being reviewed by a moderator. If you are using a cloak, set it to the white page. If you’re simply selling goods, just wait.
A freeze normally lasts 3 to 7 days. There aren’t many reliable ways of unfreezing your account; one of them is verification.
A freeze normally lasts 3 to 7 days. There aren’t many reliable ways of unfreezing your account; one of them is verification.
And what about my ads?
Today we will talk about adaptive ads only. There are two ways of writing your ads:
You can check how neutral your ad is using Google’s Cloud Vision. Life might be easier in certain niches (sweepstakes, crypto), because there are no well-defined stop words. If your ads are rejected due to legal reasons, you can add “18+” marking, which will help in some localities.
- Teasers. You’ll get more clicks and better conversion, but they don’t live long due to complaints.
- Light ads. Less conversion but longer life thanks to less attention. Go easy with your wording and avoid false promises and calls to action. Use neutral images.
You can check how neutral your ad is using Google’s Cloud Vision. Life might be easier in certain niches (sweepstakes, crypto), because there are no well-defined stop words. If your ads are rejected due to legal reasons, you can add “18+” marking, which will help in some localities.
Checking and approval of ads
Gray ads need a relevant white page to pass moderation. If you copied a website from search results onto your domain to create the white page, follow these steps:
If you decide to use a website builder, add a section or a page with target content after you’ve set up the account. This helps pass moderation and increase the relevance of your white page.
- Set up your ad account and top it up.
- Disable showing ads in search results.
- Change IPv6 to IPv4 in the white page traffic flow.
- Use сURL and choose a website that is relevant to your niche.
- Add a relevant ad.
If you decide to use a website builder, add a section or a page with target content after you’ve set up the account. This helps pass moderation and increase the relevance of your white page.
You can create a target page and change the code right on the website main page for moderation, but such ads won’t live long. However, it can be helpful in certain spheres, especially in adult content marketing.
For example, you start with a one-page website dedicated to “fitness online.” After you create and set up the ad account and before adding the ad itself, edit the website to suit your needs, and add the tracker link to the button.
If you use Wordpress to create your website, create a mini-portal on any topic. After setting up the account, create a post on the website and hide it in the bottom part of the website, or on the second or third page. Add a relevant text to the post and enable cloaking. Then add the link to the Google search results in the format domain.com/cloak post. This is the most secure method, and works great for nutrition traffic.
Don’t forget to add the Privacy Policy and User Agreement to the website footer.
For example, you start with a one-page website dedicated to “fitness online.” After you create and set up the ad account and before adding the ad itself, edit the website to suit your needs, and add the tracker link to the button.
If you use Wordpress to create your website, create a mini-portal on any topic. After setting up the account, create a post on the website and hide it in the bottom part of the website, or on the second or third page. Add a relevant text to the post and enable cloaking. Then add the link to the Google search results in the format domain.com/cloak post. This is the most secure method, and works great for nutrition traffic.
Don’t forget to add the Privacy Policy and User Agreement to the website footer.
How can I speed up the approval of adaptive ads?
To pass moderation successfully, your white page should contain images and keywords relevant to the future ad. After you add the link to the ad, Google will scan your page and offer an image that you’ll need to add. Stock images from the Google library also pass moderation easily.
How do I figure out the stop words?
You will need a burner account. Create a text ad containing words to be checked in the search campaign. Wait for up to 20 minutes: if the ad gets approved quickly, everything is in order. If your ad got rejected, there’s a stop word there. Long ad review times mean stop words are present, as after they triggered the algorithms your ad went to human moderation.
Alternatively, you can create an account with a trusted domain and add a gray add. If the account gets banned, the ad is at fault, otherwise it’s all clear.
Google updates and cleans up its stop words database approximately every 3 months, which means that some restrictions that are inactive now might become active later. However, this only applies to lighter stop words and does not affect strict policies regarding casinos, bets, illicit goods, or heavy adult content.
Alternatively, you can create an account with a trusted domain and add a gray add. If the account gets banned, the ad is at fault, otherwise it’s all clear.
Google updates and cleans up its stop words database approximately every 3 months, which means that some restrictions that are inactive now might become active later. However, this only applies to lighter stop words and does not affect strict policies regarding casinos, bets, illicit goods, or heavy adult content.
Ad relevance
Why do some affiliate teams love Google Ads and claim that it’s the best ad tool out there, while others are unhappy with it and complain about not getting leads? The reason is the principle of comprehensive relevance.
Relevance means correspondence between a user’s search request (their intent) and search results they get for that request. For instance, if a user searches for “mobile proxies,” relevant ads will look like this:
Relevance means correspondence between a user’s search request (their intent) and search results they get for that request. For instance, if a user searches for “mobile proxies,” relevant ads will look like this:
Irrelevant ads will look like this:
Irrelevant ads can severely undermine the whole ad campaign right from the start: users will simply ignore such ads.
You need to make sure that your ads are relevant by separating keywords into groups and making a separate ad for each group which will fully correspond to users’ interests and queries.
A common but ineffective approach to marketing is to write down each keyword that comes to mind, e.g.
And create one ad for all these keywords. No matter what a user searches for, they will always get the same ad:
You need to make sure that your ads are relevant by separating keywords into groups and making a separate ad for each group which will fully correspond to users’ interests and queries.
A common but ineffective approach to marketing is to write down each keyword that comes to mind, e.g.
- free proxies;
- residential proxies;
- buy mobile proxies;
- best proxies for affiliate marketing.
And create one ad for all these keywords. No matter what a user searches for, they will always get the same ad:
A better approach to ads is to separate keywords into ad groups, keeping correspondences in mind.
Create separate ads for each target group using relevant keywords. This way you can guarantee that your ads fully correspond to users’ requests and your ads’ efficiency and conversion will increase greatly.
Landing page relevance
To make your landing page relevant, you need to make sure that visitors clicking, e.g., on “residential proxies” ad find themselves on a relevant and informative landing page.
Alternatively, the website main page may be used. Many advertisers use their website address as the landing page, counting on their visitors to find the necessary information themselves.
If your landing page is irrelevant, your budget will be wasted on useless clicks. After visiting such a page, users will close it and go to other websites.
Often it looks like this:
Too much information only leads to users’ not wanting to read or analyze information. If the content they see does not correspond to their search query, it’s easier for them to find more understandable and relevant information somewhere else. If your landing page does not correspond to the query, visitors will leave your website quickly, and you will waste your budget on useless clicks.
Make sure that your landing page is relevant by grouping keywords and assigning each ad its own landing page that reinforces the ad message.
Make sure that your landing page is relevant by grouping keywords and assigning each ad its own landing page that reinforces the ad message.
Comprehensive relevance
Comprehensive relevance means that each step on the user’s way along Search Query — Ad — Landing page route fully corresponds to their needs.
When a client asks a proxy provider about residential proxies’ availability, it’s crucial to give a simple, to the point, and straightforward answer. Instead of talking about the company’s various strong suits and offers, it is much better to simply say “yes, we have residential proxies”: this reaffirmation is, in fact, your real ad.
When a user clicks on an offer, there’s no need to direct them to another section of your website and give them several offers to choose from. Simply direct them straight to the page they need: this is your real landing page, showing them a way to solve their problem straight away.
When a client asks a proxy provider about residential proxies’ availability, it’s crucial to give a simple, to the point, and straightforward answer. Instead of talking about the company’s various strong suits and offers, it is much better to simply say “yes, we have residential proxies”: this reaffirmation is, in fact, your real ad.
When a user clicks on an offer, there’s no need to direct them to another section of your website and give them several offers to choose from. Simply direct them straight to the page they need: this is your real landing page, showing them a way to solve their problem straight away.
Running Google Ads: A Checklist
- High conversion is ensured by comprehensive relevance (Search Query — Ad — Landing Page).
- A relevant ad contains information strictly relevant to the keyword used to display it.
- A relevant landing page should offer a specific and straightforward solution to a user’s problem on the same page without users having to search for additional information.
Basic Search Campaign Settings
- Always create a campaign without a goal’s guidance, as this offers you more settings.
- Use the Search type campaign.
- Make sure your ad campaign title is relevant.
- Disable Search Partners and Display Network.
- Select your geo targeting.
- Select your language targeting.
- Set up the daily budget for your campaign.
- Select your bid strategy. Use the best option considering your targeting and what is more important for you: clicks, impressions, or conversions.
- Give a title to a group of ads.
- Select the default bid.
- Set up the keywords.
- Write the ad text.
- Provide additional links, prices, clarifications for your ads.
- Provide your payment data.
- Analyze and optimize your running ad campaigns.
Conclusions
Ad traffic from search engines is highly valuable in affiliate marketing, but it can be initially challenging to find your niche and start earning with this traffic source. Google Ads is a highly effective tool, but you need to configure it correctly and make your ads as relevant as possible to achieve the results you want. Follow the Banana Traff channel to learn more about effective ads and successful traffic management.
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