Google AdWords Interview Questions and Answers
Google AdWords Interview Questions & Answers
1. What is AdWords?
This is almost always the first Google AdWords interview question you will face. Google AdWords is a Google advertising service which allows businesses get featured in Google search engine and Google Display Network. Google’s search engine and it’s partner sites display online advertisements based on multiple factors such as keywords, interests, topics, demographics, etc.
adwords interview questions and answers 1
It allows the advertiser to set a monthly budget and pay when people click on their advertisements. Google has created a platform to help businesses reach their customers instantly.
In the Google AdWords platform, Google utilizes bidding process to decide the ad position. Users create the type of campaigns depends upon the requirement of the business.
2. What is PPC Marketing?
PPC stands for Pay Per Click, a widely popular model in which advertisers pay when each time any of their ads is clicked. PPC is so popular because it helps businesses to bring users instantly unlike organic where you need weeks if not months to set up and drive visitors to your website.
3. Explain how AdWords work?
Google AdWords uses the bidding system to rank the listings. The system determines the ad position based on the Maximum bid & Quality Score of the ad. Higher the maximum bid and Quality score, better are the chances of being on top of the page. The best-combined maximum bid and the quality score get the top position.
The actual CPC will be finalized by the ad rank of your next highest ad divided by Quality score. Once a query is requested, Google processes the request and execute the action which determines the ad positions. Advertisers need to pay only when user click their ad. So, optimizing the Quality score is vital to improve your ad rank without increasing the maximum bid.
4. Why use Google AdWords?
One of the advantages of Google AdWords over social media marketing platforms is the intent of users. As it’s a part of inbound marketing, users who are in need of a product or service click the ads and visit the website thus the conversion rate should be much higher than the social media marketing visitors. Read more about social media marketing interview questions.
The advantage of Google AdWords over organic marketing is, the number of visitors it brings in a short span of time. If a business need to quickly advertise their products/services, Google AdWords can be the best marketing platform to increase conversion. It helps you target the right customers at the right time.
Apart from the above reasons, Google AdWords is measurable, scalable, and they are taking over the SERPs and it can assist other marketing channels in conversion.
5. What is Ad Rank?
One of the important questions suggested by most of Google AdWords questions and answer guides. Ad Rank is the position of an ad on Google page and determined by the bid amount, ad quality, ad thresholds, the competition, the context of the user’s search and the expected impact of extensions and other ad formats.
A good ad rank makes sure the ad gets more visibility than the others. Ad rank is recalculated every time the ad is eligible to appear, so the ad position can fluctuate every time depending on the above factors.
6. Explain what is Google Quality Score?
One of the most common Google AdWords interview question, Google AdWords’s Quality Score is a rating given based on multiple factors like relevancy of keywords used, Click through rate, landing page quality and relevance, ad text relevants and the historical performance of the ads account performance.
Google AdWords gives Quality score to each keyword on a scale of 1 to 10 and includes expected CTR, ad relevance and landing page experience. Basically, it’s a measurement of how relevant your ad to the user’s intent. Better the quality score, ad rank will get improved without spending more.
With the help of 1-10 score, Google conveys advertisers how well they have chosen their keywords, writing ads, and designed lading pages.
7. What is the formula to find CTR (Click Through Rate)? Does CTR help in improving the quality score?
CTR also know as click-through rate is a unit to measure the click rate of your ad. It is calculated by the simple formula: clicks/impressions*100. It is one of the important factor in determining the Quality Score of the ad. So, making an effort to increase the CTR decreases the overall spend. It also indicates the success of your ad descriptions and headings in terms of relevancy and eye-catchy. Each of the keywords and ad have their own CTRs.
adwords interview questions - ctr calculationImage Source
A high average CTR, when combined with other KPIs can lead to the success of the campaign. It also has the ability to affect the future campaign performance. The average CTR in Google AdWords is 2% so anything more than 2% is considered above average.
8. What is the difference between CPM, CPC and CPV bidding?
One of the most popular in Google AdWords questions and answers list.
CPM : Cost Per Thousand is the amount you pay per thousand impressions that you receive, regardless of the number of clicks you receive.
CPC : Cost Per Click is the amount you pay for each click.
CPV: is when advertisers pay for each unique user view of an advertisement or website.
It is used more on video marketing such as YouTube campaigns.
9. What is the character limit of a destination URL?
1024 characters are the destination URL’s character limit.
10. What is ad rotation?
Ad rotation is a campaign setting in Google AdWords that automatically rotates your Google adwords ad within the ad group. You have the option to request Google how it would rotate the ad, such as, based on the best performing ads or rotating evenly.
How to do?
Set ad rotation for your campaign
Sign in to your Google Ads account.
Click All Campaigns in the navigation panel.
Click the campaign you’d like to change.
Click Settings in the page menu.
Click Additional settings.
Chose Ad rotation.
Choose an ad rotation method: Optimize or Rotate indefinitely.
Click Save.
11. What is the difference between clicks and impression?
One of the very common Google AdWords interview question you should be prepared for. Impression is the number of times targeted users view your Google AdWords ad, whether it is a banner, text link or button. This shows what is the reach of your ad.
Click is the number of times your targeted users clicked on your ad and taken to your website. This shows how many users actually used your ad to visit your website.
12. How many characters are allowed in AdWords ads?
Headline 1: 30 characters
Headline 2: 30 characters
Headline 3: 30 characters
Description 1: 90 characters
Description 2: 90 characters
Path (2): 15 characters each
adwords interview question answers - character limit
Google AdWords recently made the following changes:
Added a third headline
90 characters for each description instead of 80
Added a second description
13. What is automated bidding strategy?
One of the most common question in any Google AdWords interview question and answers guide. Automated bidding is a Google AdWords big strategy that sets bids for your Google AdWords ads automatically based on how likely the impression will turn into a fruitful click or even conversion.
It helps businesses to maximize the profit for their campaigns. Google AdWords automated bidding takes multiple factors into counting like user’s device, time of the day, location, demographics and more.
With automated bids, advertisers don’t need to worry about updating the bids of keywords or ad groups. Google AdWords set a bid for each and every auction based on the above factors and decide if the ad should be visible or not.
14. What is Phrase Match?
Phrase match is one of four keyword matching options in Google AdWords which allows your ad to be visible to your targeted audience when they type your exact keywords and close variations of your keyword with additional words before or after your keyword.
For example: if your keyword is “buy shoes”, your ad will be visible to people who types “buy shoes”, “buy shoes online”, “need to buy shoes”.
Phrase match is very essential because at times, Broad match or expanded broad match shows your ad to a very wide range of audiences you wouldn’t want to show them to. On the other side, the exact match narrows the impression to people who types the exact keywords without any variations or prefixes or suffixes.
15. What are all the basic practices every new adwords advertiser should always remember?
Every landing page we make should have proper CTA such as lead form, purchase option, or whatever the business want to achieve with the campaign.
Make different ad groups based on keywords and set themes for each adgroups.
Don’t put a huge amount of budget for a short period of time in the beginning.
Continuously work on improving the Quality score thus decreasing the spend of overall budget.
Choose your keywords and negative keywords carefully and regularly monitor the performances with search terms report.
Write search ad with crisp CTA text and clear headline.
16. What is frequency capping in AdWords?
Frequency capping allows the advertiser to limit how many times an ad is visible to an individual.
We can set this frequency cap at the ad, ad group and campaign level. Advertiser can also segment them by month, week or day.
17. Explain Google Click-to-Call.
It helps primarily the local businesses who doesn’t have/need a website. By setting up Google click to call campaign, they can leave a phone number to which users can call by simply clicking their advertisement on Google SERP.
adwords questions and answers call to click
18. What is IP Address exclusion in Google AdWords
Again, one of the important Google AdWords interview question. The simple answer is: There are multiple reasons you would like to exclude IP addresses. For example, you can exclude IP addresses of your own office so your impressions won’t be wasted.
With this feature, you can exclude up to 500 IP addresses per campaign.
How to do:
In the page menu on the left, click settings
Find the campaign
Click to expand the IP exclusions section
Type the IP addresses you would like to exclude from.
19. What is the use of search term report in Google AdWords?
Search term report shows the list of queries that are getting visitors to your website. With the help of search term reports, you can find new negative keywords and find which keywords are more effective than the others. It helps advertisers to find potential keywords for the campaigns. Keyword list and search term lists are totally different.
20. How can you automatically include the user’s query into the ad copy?
With the help of Dynamic keyword insertion, we can user’s query into ad copy automatically included.
21. Difference between automatic and managed placements?
Manual placements give the option the choose the specific websites, location, video, apps in which you can show your Google AdWords ad.
Automatic placements is another placement method which automatically shows your ads and you won’t have the option to choose.
22. What are the first steps you should take if your ads get disapproved for any reason?
If your ad gets disapproved, Google will send you a notification mail mentioning that your ad has been disapproved. Then, based on the input Google AdWords gave, you can find out the reason for the disapproval. Then, based on your finding, you can work on fixing the issue. At the time, you may need to make the changes in your text copy and other times, you may need to make changes in both ad copy as well as the website.
23. What are keywords in Google AdWords?
Any Google AdWords Interview Question and Answers guide won’t complete without this question. Keywords are the phrases or words that advertisers use to drive visits to their websites by bid on them on Google AdWords. With the help of Google Keyword Planner, we can find the relevant and high-quality keywords for our campaigns.
Keywords are phrases or words advertisers use to show your ads to the targeted audience. Keywords should be united based on themes and categorize under various ad groups. Keywords are the foundation of the Google AdWords campaigns. All of your efforts will go waste if you don’t select the right keywords.
24. How can you use negative keywords?
With the help of negative keywords, we can avoid being shown on certain words or phrases. For example, by adding words like “free”, you are conveying Google that your ads should not be visible on searches including the word free. We can use search terms report to find new negative keywords for your campaigns.
25. What is ad groups in Google AdWords?
Ad Group in Google AdWords is like a big container where you keep all your keywords, text copies and landing pages. Google recommends advertisers to make adgroups with tightly themed keywords. So, it is better to create multiple adgroups based on your keywords.
Google check out your ad group organization to find multiple things like what kind of message your ad will convey when it gets triggered, list of keywords your ads will show, etc.
26. How to track conversion in Google AdWords?
Following are the methods we can use to track conversions in Google AdWords?
Google AdWords provide tracking code for you to implement on the website and you can modify it with additional code that’s specific to your platform.
The view-through conversion window option monitors when a user sees the ad but doesn’t go for the click.
Under tools and analysis option, you can find search funnels which helps you understand when users click on your ad for the first time and how many he/she was shown the ad before clicking it.
If you want to track the phone calls, with the help of call extension, call reporting enabled settings, it is very much possible.
To track the number of people who installs the app, we can use the Firebase.
27. How to improve ad position?
Following are the methods we can implement to improve ad position:
Increase the quality score
Increase the bid
Focus on relevant ad extensions
Better landing pages
Make sure the relevance level of keywords, landing pages and ad copies are good
Different landing pages for different ads
28. Maximum number of campaigns and ad groups you can make in Google AdWords?
Number of campaigns you can have: 10,000
Number of ad groups per campaign: 20,000
29. What is a converted click?
Google AdWords stopped tracking converted clicks. Converted clicks are clicks that bring conversions.
30. Why did you choose to be Google AdWords/PPC specialist?
PPC is a relatively new and growing profession with a huge scope. The work will have measurable results. The work is so flexible that I can work from anywhere anytime. In the future, I will work along with Artificial Intelligence and not going to be replaced by one thus making it safe. My future value will only increase from here.
Intermediate Level Google AdWords Interview Questions & Answers
31. What are Google Ad Extensions?
Ad Extension is the additional information you find with the AdWords ads, like phone number, site links, address, reviews, etc. It improves the CTR of the ad by several percentage points and the visibility. It provides advertisers to give more information apart from the ad headings and descriptions.
Google doesn’t charge extra to show ad extensions but we can’t be sure our ad extension will be visible all the time. Google decides which extensions to show in response to each search on Google. Extension will be shown when the extension is predicted to increase the CTR and if your ad position is high enough.
It is recommended to use all Ad Extensions so the possibility of an extension showing up on SERP will get increased. Also, they give users different ways to engage with your ads. There are two types of extensions such as automatic and manual extensions.
32. Different types of Ad Extensions?
Some of the common ad extensions are:
Sitelinks
Call Extensions
Location Extensions
Social Annotations
Seller ratings
Mobile app extensions
Offer ads
Communication Ad
Review extension
Image and drop down navigation Ad extension
Callout Extension
Click to Message Extension
Price Extension
33. What options cannot be changed after creating an account?
After the creation of the account, currency and time zone cannot be changed. It is recommended to fill in the details very carefully.
34. How to calculate ROAS (Return on Ad Spent)?
Revenue / Cost = ROAS
adwords interview questions answers roas
We need to divide the revenue of the campaign by the amount that is spent.
ROAS shows how effective our marketing campaign is.
35. What are the targeting options in Google AdWords?
We can divide the overall targeting methods by Audience targeting and content targeting.
In content targeting, we have the following methods:
Keywords: Keyword method is based on keywords. We select the keywords user will type to find your product or services. We can set keywords manually to reach targeted audiences.
Placement: With placement method, we just need to specify a website or part of a website. We can target websites our potential users visits and target.
Topics: Target allows advertisers to select set of pages based on the theme on the display network.
Display expansion for search: With the help of smart targeting and automated bidding, Google AdWords’s display expansion of search method helps advertiser find quality results.
In audience targeting we have the following methods:
Affinity: This is for advertisers who use traditional marketing like TV campaigns can expand a campaign online and reach users with Google network.
Demographics: This target is based on age and gender of your targeted users.
In-market: Your ads will be visible to users who have shown interest in similar products or services.
Remarketing: Remarketing is one of the successful targeting methods widely used by businesses to target users who have visited the website. These users can be in any stage of conversion.
Similar audiences: This method helps you find users who are similar to the users in the remarketing list.
36. Mention the different types of keyword matches
There are 5 categories:
Broad match: It allows your ad to reach as much viewers as possible. Your ads will appear whenever a user searches your keyword in however way possible. Example: for broad keyword “buy shoes”, your ad will be visible for searches such as “shoes online”, “buy sneakers”
Broad match modifier: What if you get the advantage of broad match but a backup finance advisor who restricts around particular queries that triggers your ad. That’s the function in broad match modifier. It works by appending a + sign to the specific keyword that you want to fix in specific place.
Phrase Match: This match lets your ad shows for queries for your keywords in its exact order but allows the query to have words at the beginning or at the end of the query.
Exact Match: So narrow. So targeted. Your ad will show to users who exactly search for your keyword.
Negative Match: Choose when your ad should not be shown with the help of negative match. For example, if you are showing ads about selling houses and don’t want visitors who looks for rent, use “rent” as your negative keyword.
37. What is Google AdWords Double Serving Policy?
To make the auction process fair, Google doesn’t encourage advertisers to run ads for similar businesses through different accounts triggered by same keywords. Google calls this as double serving policy. Google has banned multiple ads from the same firm from appearing on SERP.
38. What is conversion optimizer in Google ?
Conversion optimizer is an important tool from Google AdWords which helps you to manipulate bid to help you get more ROI to your campaign. It decides which click will be most valuable for the business to attain a higher return on investment. It gets the help of conversion tracking data to process the bidding process at the basic keyword level to help you get as much quality clicks as possible thus returns more conversions at specified cost per conversion.
adwords interview questions answers - conversion optimizer
There are two types of CPA targeting in conversion optimizer.
Max CPA: Maximum amount an advertiser is willing to pay.
Target CPA: Flexible CPA targeting in which the optimizer targets expensive and non-expensive auctions at reaches at an average CPA target. It is the average amount you would like to pay for the conversion.
Requirement:
We need to have a minimum of 15 conversions happened in the last 30 days to have this feature.
39. Is PPC only suitable for big brands?
No. With the flexibility in Google AdWords, any businesses can start and run campaigns. There is no minimum budget and you don’t even need to own a website to run certain campaigns.
40. What are Invalid Clicks, and how does Google determine them?
Invalid clicks are illegitimate, unintentional or caused by some malicious software such as robots or some automated clicking tools use to increase your expense or to increase the value of the website that is hosting the ad.
Google uses algorithms to find such invalid clicks and automatically filter them from the reports. And if they still escape and Google finds them later, they will give you credit for the expense.
41. Can we let our ad be used to link to a PDF?
No. It’s not possible.
42. Why some agencies use broad matches with negative keywords instead of using phrase match or exact match keywords?
In this way, the ads will get more clicks and keyword list can be created quickly.
43. What are all the challenges you face in this career?
One of the important Google AdWords interview questions.
You have to be updated all the time. The industry is fast pacing and can’t afford to get outdated which is very easy state to get into if you are not alert.
In order to stand out, we need to experience all the new features, tools and find ways to utilize those for the campaigns. It can be overwhelming at times. But, it makes the job more active and put us in high alert.
Top Google Analytics Interview Quesions and Answers
44. What is the actual cost per click?
We can’t see the actual cost per click only the average CPC but mostly it is lesser than your maximum CPC bid. Every time, when an auction takes place, Google fixes your actual CPC which is required to outrank the ad rank of the next competitor. You don’t normally find this question in any Google AdWords interview questions and answers guide but you should be prepared anyway.
45. In your experience, what is the best Quality Score?
Be honest with the interviewer and share some examples of your best Quality score and how did you achieve those numbers.
46. What are all the different types of automated bidding stategies?
There are seven types of automated bidding strategies.
Maximize clicks
Maximize clicks strategy purely created to improve the number of visitors to your website. If you want quick visitors to your newly launched product, you can utilize maximize clicks strategy.
Target Search Per Location
Target search per location set bids to let your ads appear on the first page of Google SERP or in one of the top positions. You can utilize if you want nothing but the top positions in SERP.
Target outranking share
If you want to outrank your competitor’s domain, you can get the help of target outranking share. You can define how frequently you would like to outrank your comepetitor’s ads.
Target CPA
Target cost per acquisition gives you more control to the advertisers. Google AdWords helps you to get as many conversions as possible in this strategy. You can use this strategy if you are well aware of the CPA that you can spend.
Enhanced CPC
Enhanced cost per click is available as an optional service when you use manual CPC bidding. It helps Google AdWords to adjust your manual bidding with maintains the same cost per conversion and increasing your conversion numbers.
Target Return on Ad Spend (ROAS)
After you set your ROAS, Google AdWords set bids to help you achieve more conversion as possible.
Maximize Conversions
This strategy helps you set bids automatically to help you get as much as conversions as possible.
47. What is Adwords Express?
It’s one of Google’s attempts to simplify the Google AdWords for users with a small budget. It is targeted towards small or local businesses who can’t afford high budget or so much of their time and effort into running campaigns. So, the businesses just need to tell Google what they want to do with Google AdWords and what is their goal is and the rest of the things will be taken care of by Google.
adwords interview questions answers express
In AdWords express, you need to share only the following details:
Business category
Ad copy
Landing page (either your website or Google My Business page)
Monthly budget
Expert Level Google AdWords Interview Questions and Answers
48. How can we improve the landing page quality?
Landing page quality can be improved by following ways:
The page should be relevant to the ad text as well as the keywords in the adgroup
A strong headline and supportive tagline
Original and quality content
Page load time
User-friendliness and user experience
Following Google guidelines
Transparant content information and privacy policy
Easy to navigate and understand
Clear call of action message
Visual imagery
Not having too many links
Should connect with Brand and proposition
Simplified lead capture form
Trust symbols.
49. What are the different types of access levels in AdWords?
The different types of access levels are: email access, read-only access, standard access and admin access.
adwords interview questions answers access level
Google AdWords has four levels of account access:
Email only
Read Only
Standard
Administrative
Email only:
The invitee won’t be able to login to Google AdWords but can receive important mails and schedule emails with reports
Read-only:
The invitee can be able to login into AdWords and can access the reports but making changes is impossible to do.
Standard:
The invitee can able to make changes to the account and can do anything except the ability to provide access to other users. He can’t edit or remove other users as well.
Administrative:
The invitee can able to make any changes necessary, add, remove or edit users and their access.
50. What is understood by API?
Google Ad API is an advanced feature designed for big corporates, ad agencies to allow their developers to build applications that will engage directly with the Google AdWords server, which helps them utilize ads efficiently. It allows advertisers to modify ads based on their need easily.
adwords interview questions answers api
51. How do you think our competitors are doing and how can we face them?
Sometimes one of the most unexpected Google AdWords question. For that, you need to do your thorough research before attending the interview. Every company, big or small have competitors who can make the company’s life difficult. Find out the list of their competitors, their marketing strategy and the overall market status.
Find about the competitors’ ad strategies, their content gap, how you can fill the gap, etc. Figure out the strategies you can implement which help the business to face and outrank their competitors.
52. How do you measure Google AdWords campaign success?
It depends on the aim of the campaign. If you are attending a Google AdWords Interview of an e-commerce website, success is based on the amount spent when compared to the value of purchases made.
If a B2B campaign, it’s mostly about the number of quality leads you achieve while maintaining good ROI. So, the success of the campaign is based on the purpose of the campaign.
53. If I search my keyword but I can’t see my search result. Why would that happen?
There are multiple reasons that can let it happen. Some of them are:
Your IP is excluded
You are not in the targeted location
Your ad got disapproved
Your campaign has exceeded your daily budget
54. What should be the ideal quality score for Google AdWords?
Good quality score in Google AdWords depends on what kind of keyword you are working on.
Branded keywords’ good Quality score is between 8 to 10
Low intended commercial keywords’ good Quality score is 7
High intended commercial keywords’ good Quality score is between 7 to 9
55. When do you say when a test is completed?
It depends on what we wanted to achieve at the beginning of the test. Some companies do a test for a couple of days and come to a conclusion based on those results. But, it is recommended to give the system some time to understand the pattern, let it go through different times of the day, different days of the week to have enough amount of data in hand to come to a strong conclusion.
56. How to increase conversion rates?
Again, a common Google AdWords question. To answer follows:
Conversion rate can be increased by following methods:
Creating ads that match perfectly with the keywords you use
Tightly themed ad groups
Improve Quality Score
Optimizing landing page
Adjusting your keyword type
AB your landing page
Align ad copies with landing pages
Improving CTR of ad
Use negative keywords
57. How better quality ads help your campaign?
Benefits of better quality ads are:
It decreases the money you need to spend for a click
Better ad means better ad rank thus increases the chances for ad extensions
58. Why quality of landing page is important for the success of the campaign?
Landing page is your playground where you make the user take the final call.
If the landing page is not relevant or trustworthy, each and every action you take for the campaign will go in vain. Better ads, high-quality keywords and money you spend on will not help if the landing page is not good enough to get the conversion.
It should be aligned with the keyword and ad copies. An inefficient landing page can promise traffic but not conversions.
59. How to improve CTA in Google AdWords?
Make your CTA visible and stand out and not blend in.
Give the clear benefit of clicking the CTA
Add urgency to your CTA
Make it sound like a human
Experiment with different CTAs
Use power words
Match it with the type of audience
60. How do you measure the success of a Google AdWords campaign?
It is one of the general questions from Google AdWords interview questions and answers guide. I consider Key Performance Indicators are the perfect way to find about the success of the campaign.
The first indicator of a successful campaign is the number of clicks your campaign gets. The second indicator I check is CTR which shows how effective my ads are. Then the conversion says if they are fruitful to the business. I also check other indicators such as time spent, returning customers, etc.
61. If you feel your campaign is not producing enough good results, what should you do to fix it?
First of all, check everything is in place. ie., is your conversion tracking code is proper? Have you added negative keywords? Is your important keywords or ads are paused? Or limited by budget?
Check where is the issue. Do you have issue in getting traffic or getting conversions?
Is landing page your issue, then you need to experiment with multiple landing pages to check which is working.
If you feel your visitors are not intended, try to add more negative keywords. Find ideas for negative keywords in search trends.
If you need to increase keyword bids, and not having enough budget for it, try to increase your quality score.
If you don’t get enough traffic, remove low or no search volume keywords and add relevant and high-quality keywords. Try phrase or broad modifier if you feel your exact matching type doesn’t allow potential visitors to find your site.
62. Our highest performing keywords’ CPC is growing up continuously. What can be the reason for this and how to tackle this?
Sometimes a tricky Google AdWords Interview question. It is one of the advanced Google AdWords Interview questions and answers. Increase in CPC can be the result of increase in competition and possibly because of your quality score is going downwards. We can figure out the root cause.
We can compare auction insights to find when the CPC was normal and if there are new players out there in the market.
We can check out the historical Quality score in our reports and figure out if downgrading Quality score is the culprit here.
63. What is Remarketing?
Remarketing is a target method in which advertisers can show their ads to users who have visited their website but didn’t convert. The user can be at any stage of the purchasing cycle. In Google AdWords, remarketing campaigns are available for both search and display. The click rate for remarketing is relatively high because they are customized and thus connects with the users more than other targeting method advertisements.
