What are Google Ads

A Google ad is a sponsored display advert that appears in response to a user query on search results pages and other Google sites, such as Maps or Shopping. The top block contains up to four ads. These are the spaces advertisers usually struggle for. There is also a bottom ad unit located at the end of the search result page.

 

Next, you will see how to prepare to launch ads and set up your campaigns.

 

What has to be done before you launch the ad campaign

Install a Google Analytics tracking on the website and integrate it with Google Ads. You will not be able to measure the results and improve your advertising campaign's effectiveness without GA.

Correctly set up the goals and events that will provide you data on user actions on the site. The goals should track the conversions that are important to you, such as submitting the application form, registration, etc.

Determine Key Performance Indicators (KPI). In the best-case scenario, you should understand how much you are willing to pay and for what kind of conversion.

Prepare landing pages and assess their relevance and validity to the user.

 

Create the ad campaign

To get started, sign in to the Google Ads account.

Now go to the settings. Click Campaigns on the left-side menu and then add a new campaign. 

 

 

Choose a goal for your campaign. If you do not specify it, you will be able to choose the settings that fit you best.

The goal should align with the main goal of the campaign. Whichever goal is chosen, you can adjust all settings available for the selected campaign type and change them as needed. If you do not want to use this feature, uncheck the corresponding box.

 

 

Select the campaign type. There are eight types of campaigns available in Google Ads:

 

Search campaigns: Ads are placed in Google search results and across Google's search partners' network.

 

Display campaigns: Ads are placed on sites and apps that are part of the Google Display Network.

 

Shopping campaigns: Ads can appear in Google Shopping, in Google search (along with search results, but separate from text ads), and across the network of Google's search partners.

 

Video campaigns: Ads are shown on YouTube and video partners of Google.

 

App campaigns: Promote apps in Google search results, Google Play, YouTube, and across the Display Network.

 

Smart campaigns: Combines standard Shopping campaigns and dynamic remarketing across the Display Network. It allows you to automate bidding, targeting, audience, and devices selection.

 

Discovery campaigns: These high-reach campaigns run ads on YouTube, in the Promotions and Social tabs in Gmail, and Google recommendations.

 

Local campaigns: Promotes stores on Google search results, maps, and other websites.

 

 

In our case, we select "Search" and go to the campaign settings.

 

Enter your campaign's name. You are the only person who can see it, but keep it simple to recognize. It will help you easily navigate when you have many campaigns. You can specify what and where you advertise and add a campaign type. For example: auto/miami/search.

Select a search network. By default, the "Google Search Partners" checkbox is enabled – these are various websites featuring built-in Google search. This checkbox can be left enabled. To show ads only in response to search queries, uncheck the "Enable Display Network" checkbox.

 

 

The start and end dates of the campaign will be helpful in case you are planning a promotion. If you do not select the end date, ads will run continuously.

The campaign URLs may contain UTM codes – additional parameters in the link that transmit specific data about clicks to Google Analytics reports.

 

 

 

Set up geotargeting. To do this, go to the "Locations" section, click "another location," and select the target regions. If you are targeting Miami, then it is better to select two options at once: the city of Miami and Miami-Dade County or even the entire state of Florida.

You can also exclude areas where you don't need to show ads. It can be done by clicking the "Exclude" button next to a certain location.

 

 

 

Recommendation for search campaigns: if you work throughout the whole country, create separate campaigns for your home region (if there are special conditions for your region), the largest cities (e.g., New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago), and for the rest of the United States, while excluding those regions that you have already chosen. It will make it easier to analyze ad performance, manage bids, and optimize campaigns since big cities tend to have more traffic and conversions, while the cost per click is usually higher.

There is also an additional option for choosing a geographic location – an advanced search. It allows you to add a list of locations collected in advance or set targeting within a selected radius around a certain location. You can enter a place by entering the company's name, region, city, street, address, or coordinates.

You can also exclude specific locations within a selected radius. This setting might be especially useful when the advertiser cannot find the required settlement in the list.

 

 

Then select the target value – the users you want to target. By default, your ads will be displayed to users who often visit the specified location or are interested in it. You can also limit ad displaying to one of these two location types.

 

 

After choosing a location, select the language to run your ads based on the user's language settings in Google services.

Then go to audience settings.

 

 

If this is your first time launching search campaigns, we advise you not to narrow your audiences using targeting. You should nail-down the audience after you have collected sufficient statistics. Some audience segments will perform better than others. You can use the "Observation" setting for these selected audience segments to monitor how many people within the scope of your existing targeting are interested in your product, service, etc.

Enter your daily campaign budget. We recommend that you do not set it too low. It is best when the ads run without interruptions and gain the most consistent statistics.

 

 

Then choose a bidding strategy.

It is possible to operate the bids in the following ways:

        Manual bidding - the advertiser sets the bids for keywords based on their effectiveness or forecast. In the initial stage, it is better to set one bid for all keywords. As soon as you collect statistics and find out which phrases are more effective, you can set different bids for some keywords.

 

        Automated bidding – auto strategies are most efficient when you have accumulated many data, especially conversions. It helps the algorithms learn faster and optimize your ads.

 

 

Set up additional campaign settings:

 

        сonversions – the system will optimize campaigns based on your choice;

 

        ad rotation.

 

Turning on data in "Conversions" at the campaign level means detecting all conversions. Some of them may not be important to you. For example, when users are visiting certain pages of your site. Therefore, it is better to choose the second setting – conversions specifically for this campaign. Ideally, you should choose just one conversion that will become a foundation for the algorithms to optimize your campaigns. But if there is insufficient data, specify another goal with a larger number of conversions or several goals.

We recommend using the "Optimize" setting in ad rotation to have two or more ads in a group. This feature helps the system select suitable ads for display based on analysis of keywords, search queries, devices, and user locations.

If you enable the "Rotate ads indefinitely" option, your ads will be delivered more evenly into the ad auction. In this case, you can look at the statistics on your own and determine which ad performs better. But if you enable the "Optimize" setting, the system will test your ads in an automatic mode.

 

 

Next, you can set up extensions to show additional information in ads, e.g., phone numbers, messages, reviews, links to your app, and others. These are optional elements, but such minor details often make the ad more noticeable.

 

 

Use price extensions to provide the potential customers with more details about the range of available items and transfer them directly to the products and services that interest them on your website.

After making the changes, click the "Save and Continue" button. Then move on to setting up ad groups.

 

Setting up ad groups

 

An ad group includes several ads and a set of keywords that are similar to each other and link to the same landing page.

It is necessary to enter the ad group's name, set the bid, and add keywords. As soon as you enter your website, advertised product, or service, you get keyword suggestions. But we recommend that you complete a thorough keyword search in advance because the keyword suggestion tool can provide irrelevant keywords.

 

 

Create an ad

At the initial stage, Google Ads recommends adding three ads to the group, including two text ads and one responsive ad.

 

 

Text ad

 

Click on the "New ad" button to create a text ad. Then enter the site address, displayed link, ad titles, and description.

There is no need to add UTM tags here – they are assigned either at the ad account level or at the campaign level.

Text ad elements:

        Title 1. It should correspond with the keywords to the maximum extent.

 

        Title 2. It is better to devote it to a value proposition or advantage that will be important to the customers. For example, you can emphasize a warranty policy.

 

        Description 1. The most important things you want your audience to be aware of, e.g., cost, warranty, delivery speed, your experience, number of customers, etc.

       

        The third title and the second description are not always displayed. But it is recommended not to leave them blank. Your goal is to keep your ads as informative as possible.

 

Responsive ad

 

These ads change automatically. The advertiser adds up to 15 titles and four descriptions, and Google rearranges them for each auction. As soon as sufficient statistics are accumulated, the users will only see the most effective ads.

Click "Finish" and then "Save and continue." The first group of your search ads in Google Ads is ready! 

 

What is next?

After you have launched an ad, statistics at the ad campaigns level start to accumulate. It will soon show what exactly users are looking for in the search, which keywords are the most efficient for your purposes, and which ones are an unnecessary drain on the budget.

Therefore, you will be able to monitor changes in campaigns and set up conditions for automated rules that will help you not waste your budget.