Every time I want to find an answer to something over the internet, 9 out of 10 times, I end up ‘Googling’ it. The term is not a jargon for anyone who is either connected or even knows about the internet. But what is Google? For the uninitiated, Google is a search engine, just like Yahoo, Bing, and several others, however, it is one of the most commonly used search engines today.
A recent study by Statista found that Google ranked first in the most-visited web properties in the United States, whereas, statcounter measured that Google grabbed a total of 92% worldwide in the search engine market share. Owing to this popularity of Google, investing in a Google Ads campaign is a sure-shot way to drive more sales and increase the ROI on your products.
In this tutorial, we will walk you through what Google Ads is and how to set up your first Google Ads campaign. Let’s get going!
Google Ads – A Little History
Google Ads, formerly known as AdWords, is a platform by Google that helps grow your business by offering paid advertisements which appear in the search engine results when a user searches for a particular keyword. These advertisements appear on websites/search engines by way of the Google AdSense and Google Display Network.
The Ads are displayed on SERP (Search Engine Results Page) when a particular keyword matches with an advertisement that already exists in the network database. Furthermore, along with the advertisement content, your search results also display other website links. These other links are also known as ‘organic results’.
Here is an example of a SERP result for the keyword ‘online marketing’ on Google. The green box highlights the ads/sponsored results and the blue box displays the organic results.
Note: Every sponsored link/ad displays the word ‘Ad’ so that the user knows this is an Ad campaign.
Types of Ad Campaigns You Can Run on Google
There are 5 types of ad campaigns that you can run on Google, depending on your business.
- Search campaign – easy to set up and allows you to run your ads on the vast Google search network
- Display campaign – campaigns advertised using the Google Display Network (GDN)
- Shopping campaign – especially for the retailers/e-commerce store owners to help promote their local and online inventory
- Video campaign – these campaigns allow you to display video ads on their own or within an already streaming video on YouTube network and GDN
- App campaign – if you are an app advertiser then this campaign allows you to promote your app on Search, Google Play, YouTube Network, Discover on Google Search, and GDN
Setting Up Your Google Ads Campaign in 8 Easy Steps
Step 1: Go to Google Ads website
The first step to setting up a Google Ads campaign is to set up your Google Ads account.
- Go to the Google Ads website: https://ads.google.com/intl/en_in/home/
- Click on ‘Get started’
- Sign up using either your professional email address or your @gmail.com/yahoo.com/outlook.com or any other email address
- Create a ‘New Campaign’ by answering the question and click on ‘Next’
Step 2: Choose a campaign name and website
Now, enter the name of your business, and the website URL or the landing page URL where you want your customers to land post clicking on the Ad.
Step 3: Create an Ad Copy
This step is the most significant part of your Ad campaign – writing the Ad copy. You will be required to enter the following information:
- Headline
- Description
- Phone number (optional)
Make sure that you use the most searched keywords for your brand while creating this content. Using words that appear in keyword searches is more likely to display your Ads.
Note: The website URL is taken from the previous step.
Step 4: Add relevant keywords
Add all the relevant keywords for your brand. You can also choose keywords from the one suggested.
Step 5: Select the display location of the Ad
This is another crucial step, as you have to select the location where you want your Ad to be displayed, that is, only users from the locations mentioned in your campaign will be able to see your Ad.
You can either select a specific location, city, zip codes, country or the latitude-longitude coordinates. The locations you enter should be that of your target customers’.
Our example website, www.travelbug.com, is a local travel agency based out of the USA, so we have selected California and New York as our ad target location.
If you are a business who caters to customers internationally, then you may select the ‘Countries’ your target customers live in.
Step 6: Set your daily budget
As this is your first Google Ad campaign, we recommend you start with a low daily budget. The ‘low’ can vary for all businesses. If you aren’t sure how low is low, the best way is to figure out what you can spend in a month. From here, you can calculate the rest.
Starting low allows you to explore and understand what your campaign needs, and how you can improvise without splurging a lot in the first go.
Suppose you can spend ₹ 10k monthly, then on a daily average, it would be as low as ₹ 330. Enter that amount by clicking on the ‘Enter your own budget’ radio button.
Also, Google recommends you three options based on what it thinks fits your business model. If you think you can spend the amount it recommends, then you can go with one of the three it recommends and set it as your daily budget. Again, we suggest going with the ‘lowest’.
Remember to review your budget every week so that you don’t exceed your maximum monthly budget.
Step 7: Review your ad and make the payment
After you’ve set your daily budget, it is time to review the Ad you’ve created and make the payment.
Make sure that you review your ad thoroughly before making the payment so that there are no errors.
After reviewing the add, click on ‘Next’.
Google now asks you to ‘Confirm payment info’. Here, there are two methods of payment:
- Manual Payments – Pay in advance before your ad shows up in the SERP
- Automatic Payments – Link your account to your card or bank account and the money is charged automatically, usually every month
Click on the ‘Submit’ button to make the payment.
Your Ad is now published.
Step 8: Optimizing your Ad
You may think publishing your ad campaign is the end of your ad journey. However, it is just the beginning. Now that your campaign is live and performing, it is time to start optimizing it to the best of your ability.
Few things that can help you optimize your ad are:
- Set up tracking and conversion to see how your ad is performing – you can use Google Analytics for the same
- Refine your keyword list – measure which keywords are performing well and which aren’t, and segregate them accordingly
- Adjust your ad budget – invest more in ad campaigns that are performing well and cut down on the ones that aren’t performing as expected. Adjustment is the key to optimizing as initially you never know which campaign will lead to customer conversions
And It’s a Wrap
People are always looking for something specific on the search engine. Your ad can be the solution to that search, and in between, lies the connection. When their search matches your keyword – it is a match! But creating the perfect ad that converts requires time and effort. Nevertheless, once you figure out the type of ad that makes customers click, you can create other similar ads for higher cost-per-click keywords, eventually improving your ROI.
So, what are you waiting for? Go, get started on setting up a Google Ads campaign for your business to advertise it better and making a profit!
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