Setting Up Your First Google Ads Campaign, Groups and Keywords

STUDENTS

***Updated 6/18/2020***

This article is part 3 of a 3 part series. If you would like to read the first two articles, please choose an article below:

1. How To Set Up The Full Version Of Google Ads
2. How To Come Up With An Initial Google Ads Campaign, Group and Keywords

Creating A Google Ads Campaign

Here, we are starting in the account we created earlier ( https://ads.google.com/home/ ).  The first thing we need to do is click on CAMPAIGNS and then the + as shown below:

You will then need to click NEW CAMPAIGN

Now, you need to select the goal of the campaign you want to set up.  We will set this up manually for this assignment so you can select “Create a campaign without a goal’s guidance.”

 

You will then get a screen that looks similar to this.  Since we want our ads to show when people are doing a search in Google, select the “Search” option for campaign type.

You will then be asked to pick which result you prefer from the campaign. Since we want website visits to our website, please choose WEBSITE VISITS and enter your URL. Then click continue.

We will be taken to the main campaign settings page. At the top give your campaign an appropriate name. Google Ads Accounts usually have several campaigns and up to hundreds of Ad Groups. It is important to give campaigns and ad groups good names.

Then deselect the two options as shown below.  I only want my ads to appear on Google, and I do not want my ads to show up on any display networks. In the example below I also choose to see more settings so that I can select an end date.  Since I only want this to run for 4 days I choose my date below.

The next option I am asked is where I want my ads to show. There are a lot of ways to pick where you do and do not want your ads to show. I am simply going to pick that I want my ads to show in Fort Collins, Colorado. Play around with the radius targeting and the EXCLUDE options. Then choose where you would want your ads to show.

 

There are some optional Location Options but leave those as is for now. Leave the languages and the Audience alone as well.

The next option you will have to select is how much you want to spend each day.  Since I only want to spend about $20 I am going to pick $7 a day.

Now, we have to decide how we want to bid on our keywords.  There are a lot of automatic bidding options but I want to be able to have control over how much I bid.  So, I select manual bidding for my bid strategy. To find the manual option you will have to click on “Or, select a bid strategy directly (not recommended)”.

After setting the bid strategy to manual we will set up some Ad Extensions.  You always want to take the time to set up the extensions in detail. I did not set up Sitelink extensions because I do not have other pages set up on my website. I did set up some callout extensions and the call extensions.  As noted in the example below, extensions increase clicks. So get your extension filled out!

On the next page we will give our first Ad Group a name. Use the Ad group name we came up with in the previous guide.

Then you set a default bid. This is going to be the default bid on all your keywords. You can change these one by one in the Google Ads dashboard later.  You might want to bid higher on more competitive keywords and less on keywords that may not be as important.

There is a section for keyword ideas. Be careful there. Just because Google recommends it doesn’t mean that you should use it. 99.5% of those keywords will be bad keywords.  Only use a keyword if it really makes sense for your Ad group.

There will be a section on the right that tells you the anticipated clicks based on your total budget and clicks.  Sometimes this section works great, and sometimes I get no data no matter how high I bid. You can see in the example below that I did not get any data. If this happens to you do not worry about it. Click Save and Continue after all your keywords are entered.

The last thing we will need to do is write an ad that will display in the Google SERP. I entered all my text in the form below to create my ad.  The preview is shown on the right. The Final URL is where the person who clicks your ad will be taken. Make sure you have a designated landing page for each group and that it is not just your home page. Follow all the best practices for writing the Ad that you saw in the Google Ads Fundamentals training. You can skip the URL options. 

Once you have finished your Ad you can click on SAVE AND CONTINUE. You will get a screen that looks like this:

Once you click CONTINUE TO CAMPAIGN you will be able to see your Google ADS dashboard. You can see in the image below that we would need to set up billing before this ad would run. I also made a couple notes. Please take a look at those for some basic Google Ads dashboard functionality.  If Google Ads is new for you then you should definitely be clicking around and playing with all the options to see what happens with each.

This is where you will be monitoring your keywords throughout the three days.  I will film a video that shows what to look at before starting Google Ads and what to look at while your campaign is running.