A Beginner's Guide to Creating a Google Ads Campaign

Attracting natural targeted traffic is no easy task for a small and medium business, and it’s even harder when you’re doing it for a competitive product/service.

But there is a way out. Let’s look at the Google Ads platform, which is the world's most popular paid search advertising engine.

Why Google Ads?

1. Small businesses can get started with a relatively low investment budget. The advantages of advertising with Google Ads are plenty.
2. Great audience reach: Ads are not only served to search requests but also on Google mail platforms (for example, Gmail) and huge directory of Display Networks. In general terms, Google Ads covers about 90% of Internet users.
3. Targeting variation: Advertisers can indicate specific key queries, demographic and age criteria according to interests and needs or upload contact lists for remarketing
4. Pay only for visits: This determines the effectiveness of the ads; site owners only pay for people clicking on ads and moving to the platform.
5. Get results faster: It’s the most of effective marketing strategy on the Internet. SEO and content marketing have a strong ROI but they require huge investment and are long term strategies than Google Ads.
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Google Ads can be used for all stages of the lead lifecycle. Display campaigns target new visitors to create awareness and demand while search and retargeting ads can attract ready buyers.

They are easy to create and manage for less time and effort.

Step 1: Setting the Goal

First, log into your Google account. If there is none, create a new one. Then register your Ads account by clicking on the direct link or by selecting a service in the list of Google products. Next, find the "Campaigns" section on the left side of the page and click "Plus" in the blue circle, or on "New Campaign".

At the very beginning, the service will offer to choose one of the goals of the campaign, the achievement of which will be devoted to further actions.

Google Ads Campaign Goals

1. Sales
2. Leads
3. Website Traffic
4. Products and Brand Consideration
5. Brand Awareness and Reach
6. App Promotion
7. Local Store and Promotion
8. Create a campaign without a goal’s guidance

When choosing, rely on the tasks that the campaign aims to solve. Any goal includes flexible settings. If necessary, they can be changed at any time.

Most campaigns will come under the first 7 options. You can pick "Create a campaign without specifying a goal" if you are not sure. Google will analyze the effectiveness of the campaign and provide the necessary analytical reports.

Step 2: Choose a Campaign Type and Achievement Method

Before creating ads on Google Ads, you need to decide on the type of ads. Next, we select ways to achieve the goal from the list. These are the actions that we expect from potential customers according to the results of the campaign. They may vary by campaign type. For example, for "Leads" the following conversion goals are highlighted:

• Phone call leads
• Submit lead forms
• Other

Step 3: Choose Campaign Type Select from Search, Performance Max, Display Shopping, Video, Discovery. Performance Max is an advanced campaign and Shopping requires your products to be on Google Merchant Center. To start Search and Display is best. Step 4: Optimize Settings

To get the most out of Ad dollars, you’ll need to set up your target market in Google Ads correctly.

Language and Geography

Configure geographic and language targeting. In the menu item "Location" in the "Specify a different location" section, select the regions that the campaign will focus on. Here you can also exclude individual regions from the list so that advertising is not displayed there.

Google Ads has another important feature – the Advanced Search. Here you can enter a pre-compiled list of regions, or set targeting within a radius of a specified point. This point is created when the company name and its exact address are indicated. After a recent update, you can target not only the people who are in this place, but also those who are often here.

If the business focuses on the whole country, it is recommended to create campaigns for individual regions. Analyzing your ad’s performance, controlling bids, and optimizing will be a lot easier.

Budget and Bids

This block is responsible for the main financial parameter of the advertising campaign - its cost. Here we indicate how much and how we plan to spend.

In the "Budget" section, you can specify the average amount of expenses per day, as well as choose a display method - standard with uniform spending throughout the day or accelerated. It is logical that when choosing the accelerated method, advertising will be shown more often, but money will run out faster.

Additional sections

Google Ads ad extensions allow you to fill in prices, provide additional information about the company, an extended description of products, phone numbers, promotions, links to accounts and applications. Here you can connect the ability for users to leave messages to the advertiser. After completing the settings, click on "Save and continue."

Step 4: Create Ads

To create an ad in Google Ads, click on blue circle with a plus sign to create an "Ad Group". Within the Ad Group you can create Ads. You have the option to create a Standard or a Responsive Ad. Create one in each. Responsive Ads offer more flexibility and features to optimize your Ad.

Step 5: Add Search Queries

You can do key collection in Google Ads. The system itself offers options for keywords. To do this, just specify a link to your site. The system will suggest popular keywords based on your site’s content and current trends.

An important nuance is the negative keywords. These are the key queries - words or whole phrases for which ads will not be displayed. And they should also be customized. Otherwise, you can get into a situation where the budget is melting before our eyes, and the conversion still remains low.

Now, you are all set!. But do not stop there. Regularly monitor your ads, view the statistics provided by the service. This will help improve your contextual advertising and get more clicks.

If everything was done without errors, then over time all investments will pay off, and the site will generate high targeted traffic and leads.

Omesa Creative Studio Based in Oakville, Greater Toronto Area (Gta) we specialize in helping small and medium businesses find customers faster through inbound and digital marketing strategies