Running a
Google Ads campaign
Learn Google Ads in five steps
Step three - running a campaign
Campaigns can be created directly within the Google Ads interface or from within a tool called Google Ads Editor.
Usually, larger campaigns are created in Ads Editor with smaller changes (such as bid changes, new keywords etc) being updated within Google Ads directly.
Google offers two campaign set up types: manual and Smart Campaigns (previously AdWords Express). Smart campaigns let you create keyword themes (not individual keywords), and Google will manage all other optimisations and settings. This is not recommended as there is no control over optimising your account (e.g. removing keywords which have been attracting poor quality traffic, adjusting bids etc).
We will cover both approaches (Google Ad interface and Ads Editor) when creating an example campaign so you can decide which option is best for you.
In the Facebook Ads section, we used a fictional company, ABC Financial, to create a Facebook Ads campaign. In this section, we will also use the same company to create a Google Search ads campaign.
Running a Google Search Ads campaign
Imagine you are the Marketing Manager for ABC Financial and the business would like to use Google Ads to promote their range of financial advisory services. The business offers advice across budgeting, investing, tax planning etc. For their Google Ads campaign, ABC Financial would like to promote their investment advice services which cover property, share market, fixed income etc investment options.
Similar to Facebook Ads, the key to creating ads which will perform well is to highlight the value and benefit users will receive from clicking on the ad. However, unlike Facebook, Google Search ads are limited to text only (which is character limited) and cannot include videos or images. This means Search ads need to be concise, to-the-point and quickly grab users attention by highlighting value straight away.
The major advantage Search ads hold over Facebook, is their ability to target users who are actively interested in the services of ABC Financial. Through keyword research, we are able to target keywords which users enter into Google when they are looking for financial advice around investment related topics. This means Search ads can help save time as general prospecting campaigns (to assess if users are interested) and initial brand awareness ads can be skipped.
Deciding on your account and campaign structure
The first step in creating your campaign for ABC Financial is to decide how to structure your Google Ads account. As this will be the first time the business has used Google Ads, they would like to keep things simple so they can quickly glance at their account to assess initial performance of this channel without needing to look through dozens of campaigns or ad groups.
You decide the best approach is to create a campaign (based on the investment advisory service offering) which will hold three ad groups. The campaign will include general investment advice, property investment and share market investment as the three ad groups.
Planning your landing page
Once the campaign structure has been decided, you can focus on the landing pages of your ads.
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Remember, ads will bring people to your website but it is the role of the landing page to persuade them to convert.
Keeping ads as relevant as possible to the search queries of users is a key aspect when setting up campaigns. Rather than using the home page as the landing page for your ads, you create three individual pages which are specific to each ad group and ad being promoted.
One landing page will be for generalist investment advice (which outlines different asset classes), another just for property investment and another just for investing in the share market.
On each landing page there will be a link directing users to the contact page for ABC Financial which will act as the conversion event for Google Ads. Whenever someone visits the website from a Search ad and clicks ‘submit’ on the contact form, Google Ads will record that event as a conversion.
Whilst Google Ads may be able to target users when they are ready to buy, a problem arises – these users may have never visited your website and are unaware of your brand. The chance of a user visiting an unknown brand and converting straight away is sometimes quite low.
Part of the customer research process is to understand why users would hesitate from purchasing or signing up when they first visit a website. Maybe the price is too high, the site looks unprofessional (i.e. untrustworthy), the offering is unclear etc.
When creating the landing pages for your ads, consider all the reasons which would stop somebody from converting and ensure the page reduces this friction towards a conversion.
When a user visits ABC Financial, they may be hesitant as to whether the team is knowledgeable enough to provide specialist, rather than general, advice for their individual circumstances. Users may be worried about not understanding financial jargon when meeting with advisers or they could be fearful of excessive fees for planning advice.
When building your landing pages, you could use content marketing to demonstrate the expertise of your financial team, such as articles thoroughly discussing the advantages/disadvantages of choosing one asset class over another. This approach could provide peace of mind to clients by demonstrating that your team understands each investment in enough detail to provide such a comprehensive comparison.
When listing the features of your investment advice services, you could state ‘everything is discussed in plain English with no jargon or complex figures’. You could also list different advice packages available with a ‘base package’ as an affordable option for those just looking for basic advice to get started.
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By considering the customer first, you are not only able to create ads which perform well but you can create landing pages which may just convert users on their first visit.
Now you have an idea of the campaign structure you are going to use and the landing pages available for each ad, you can move on to creating your campaign, ad groups and ads. Before starting in the Ads Interface or Ads Editor, you can plan everything out in a simple spreadsheet which will allow you to simply copy and paste your ads during the set-up process.
Ads will be made up of different components including headlines and descriptions both with limits on how many characters can be used.
A template is provided below to start planning out campaigns, ad groups and ads for a responsive search ads campaign.
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Your spreadsheet will contain two tabs. The first tab (keywords) will contain columns for campaigns, ad groups, keywords and keyword match type. The second tab will contain your ad copy for individual ads (with the associated campaigns and ad groups attached).
When entering match types for your keywords, rather than directly stating ‘broad’, ‘phrase’ or ‘exact’, you need to use symbols to assign match types to each keyword.
Imagine your keyword is ‘financial adviser’.
- Broad match = financial adviser (i.e. no symbol required)
- Phrase match = “financial adviser”
- Exact match = [financial adviser]
When manually creating ads in the Google Ads interface, there are a few steps to follow. However, with Ads Editor you can copy/paste your spreadsheet directly and the application will automatically create a campaign, including ad groups and individual ads for each ad group.
Following a certain format when creating your spreadsheet will allow you to easily copy/paste your ads (if using the Ads interface) or upload the entire sheet directly (if using Ads Editor).
Note: as this is a demonstration campaign, rough ad copy has been quickly created. Real ads for real campaigns will require more thought and a greater focus on what value/outcome the customer can achieve by choosing your business. Remember to include keywords and calls-to-action within your ad copy.
Responsive Search ads can have up to 15 headlines and 4 descriptions, these demonstration ads will just have 3 headlines and 3 descriptions for simplicity.
Real campaigns will be based on thorough keyword research/planning and may have between 5 – 15 keywords (or different match types) within ad groups, this campaign will have three basic phrase match keywords as examples.
For ABC Financial, the investment advisory service campaign will contain three ad groups (general investing advice, property investing advice and sharemarket investing advice). Each ad group will contain three responsive Search ads.
A spreadsheet for the ABC Financial campaign will look like below. Individual keywords (including different match types for the same keyword) need to have their own row.
Creating ads directly within the Google Ads interface
You can browse various menus and settings across the top and side menus within the interface.
The top navigation menu provides access to reports (predefined or custom made) and tools and settings for your overall account.
The left-hand menu provides access to creating and editing individual campaigns, ad groups and ads.
Top menu options:
Billing
Billing set ups, payment profiles, invoices, promotions and identification verification.
Set up
Account map, access and security, linked accounts – where you link with Google Analytics, preferences, API centre and Google Merchant Centre.
Measurement
Conversions, Google Analytics and attribution.
Bulk actions
All bulk actions, rules, scripts and uploads.
Shared library
Audience manager, bid strategies, negative keyword lists and placement exclusions list.
Planning
Performance planner, keyword planner, reach planner and app advertising hub.
Left-hand menu options:
Accounts
Performance, budgets and notifications.
Campaigns
Individual campaigns and auction insights.
Ad groups
Individual ad groups and auction insights.
Ads & extensions
Individual ads within ad groups and relevant extensions.
Videos
Videos and analytics.
Landing pages
Individual pages and expanding landing pages.
Keywords
Search keywords, negative keywords, search terms and auction insights.
Placements
Placements, where ads showed, exclusions.
Settings
Campaign name, status, goals, networks, locations, languages, budget, bidding strategy, start and end dates, conversions, value rules, ad rotation, lead form settings, campaign URL options, DSA settings, IP exclusions.
The left-hand menu will be tailored to the specific campaign you are currently in. For example, if you are viewing Campaign A, the ad groups tab will show ad groups specifically for Campaign A and nothing else. The keywords tab will show keywords which are attached to each ad group within Campaign A.
Creating the campaign
To add campaigns, ad groups (including keywords) and ads within the interface, start by clicking on the large blue + icon.
If you haven’t used Google Ads before and have no account set up, you will be advised to set up a smart campaign when you first create your account. Skip setting up this campaign and scroll to the bottom of the page where you can select ‘switch to expert mode’ which will take you to the main Google Ads interface.
Select ‘create a campaign without goals guidance’ and select ‘Search’ as the campaign type.
Enter a campaign name and choose ‘search network’ only. Exclude ‘search engine partners’ as this will include websites outside of the main Google Search which generally perform poorly.
You can now change the additional settings for campaign duration and scheduling.
Next, change ‘location’ targeting to ‘people in or regularly in location’ and select Melbourne as this is where the office of ABC Financial is located.
The next section is to set up audience targeting. This can be skipped as ABC Financial will be showing their ads to all general Google users but affinity and in-market audiences can be set up here.
Setting up budgets and bidding will be the next step. ABC Financial will have $50 a day available for this campaign. As this is a brand new account and campaign (i.e. Google has no data for the account), Manual CPC will be used as the bidding method.
Click save and continue to move on to setting up the three ad groups for the campaign.
The first ad group will be for general investing advice and will have an ad group bid (which can be adjusted) of $1 per click. Three keywords have been selected (via the Keyword Planner) and will all be phrase match.
Set up the remaining two ad groups (property investing advice and sharemarket investing advice). Once done, click ‘save and continue’
Now you can move on to creating the three responsive search ads for each ad set.
You can copy and paste the headlines and descriptions for the first ad straight from the original spreadsheet. RSA’s will mix and match different headline and description combinations to find which performs best. You can pin headlines or descriptions to only show in positions one, two or three if you would prefer everything to be in a specific order.
You can also add a ‘display path’ which will show additional categories after the main URL to help users understand what your website/business offers.
Now you have created your first ad for the first ad group.
Next, move on to setting up the first ads for the property and sharemarket investment ad groups. The set up will be exactly the same as the first ad for the general advice ad group.
Once the first ads are created for each ad group, click ‘save and continue’
Within the Google Ads interface, you can now see your campaign and relevant ad groups.
Enter each ad group and set up the remaining two responsive search ads by clicking the large blue + icon.
Now each ad group will have three ads created.
General investing advice:
Property investing advice:
Sharemarket investing advice:
All ad groups and ads have now been created, you can move on to finalising the settings of the overall investing advisory services campaign and each ad group.
With the main campaign selected, navigate to the ‘settings’ tab in the left menu to change details such as campaign name, budgets, bidding, ad rotation etc. This is also where you can apply the conversion event (user clicks ‘submit’ on the contact form on the ABC Financial website) to the campaign.
With an individual ad group selected in the main interface, you can navigate to the settings tab and change any settings for that particular ad group.
Whilst in an individual ad group, you can navigate to the ‘extensions’ tab to set up sitelinks, callout, structured snippet etc extensions for the ad group. Extensions can also be set at the campaign level but ad set extensions generally have more relevance to what each ad is promoting.
Setting up conversion tracking:
Once the campaign has been finalised, you can set up conversion tracking to measure how many results the ads achieve for the ABC Financial website.
Whilst Google Ads can be set up to simply deliver clicks and users to a website, you want to ensure these users are taking actions on your website which are considered valuable to your business. These can include filling in a form (e.g. contacting the company), adding a product to cart, downloading a PDF price list etc).
Conversion tracking is created and managed through both the Google Ads interface and Google Tag Manager.
For our campaign, our goal was to have users enter their details (via the contact form on the ABC Financial contact page) to make an appointment for investment advice. This is known as a lead conversion but there are many other conversion events available depending on your business and website type.
The below video shows exactly how to set up conversion tracking for a conversion goal (i.e. when a user clicks submit after filling out a form).
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Once your campaign, ad groups, ads, extensions and conversion events have all been finalised, you can send the campaign live and begin monitoring results.
Creating ads with Google Ads Editor:
The Google Ads interface can be an easy way of adding a few ad groups or ads, but for larger campaigns (or where you need to make many changes to existing campaigns), it’s quicker to use Ads Editor.
If you are creating a campaign in Ads Editor, you first need to download the application and link it to your Google Ads account (by signing in with the same email you use for Google Ads).
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Once open, the most important thing to remember is to click ‘get recent changes (Basic)’ to update Ads Editor with latest additions to the Google Ads account.
This downloads all recent changes made within your Google Ads account (such as adding new keywords, changing bids, any new ads etc) – if you don’t select this, Ads Editor will upload new data which will overwrite (and remove) any recent changes made previously within the Google Ads interface.
There are multiple options available in the left-hand side menu of Ads Editor including:
When uploading new campaigns and ads, you start from the top and work your way down.
Under the ‘manage’ section in Ads Editor, select ‘keywords’ under the ‘keywords and targeting’ section then ‘make multiple changes’.
Copy and paste the keyword data from the first tab of the spreadsheet into the data field.
Under the ‘destination’ heading (left hand menu), check the first option ‘My data includes columns for campaigns and/or ad groups’. If you selected the second option, Ads Editor would add each keyword into every campaign and ad group that was selected, even if you have a column for campaigns and ad groups in the table to the right.
Make sure all columns are imported correctly and none are set to ‘not-importing’. Match Type is changed to Criterion Type. Click ‘Process’ and then ‘Finish and review changes’.
Ads Editor will now show the new campaign, ad groups and keywords for each ad group. You can still make changes or select ‘keep’ to save the new data.
There may be a red warning sign next to the newly imported campaigns due to campaign settings not being finalised. Select the ‘Campaign‘ tab under the ‘Manage‘ section and fill in the relevant details (i.e. budget, bid strategy, networks, language and locations).
If you want to change all the settings for all of your new campaigns at the same time, highlight all the new campaigns in the center dashboard. To change your Default max CPC bids for certain keywords in ad groups, go to either the Ad group or Keyword section under ‘Manage’.
Uploading ad copy
Under the ‘Manage’ section, select ‘Responsive text ads’ under the Ads heading.
Select ‘Make multiple changes’ and copy/paste the ad copy from your spreadsheet into the data field. Ads Editor will automatically classify the character count fields as ‘not importing’. Ensure the correct ‘Destination’ option (first) is selected. Select ‘Process and keep’.
Now our investment advice campaign has been imported with three ad groups and three RSA’s in each ad group.
Other settings and features which are available in the Ads interface (such as ad extensions, audience targeting, bid adjustments etc) are also available within Ads Editor.
Once final settings have been applied and everything has been checked and confirmed, select ‘Post’ (top right corner) to upload the new campaign.
Once back in the main Google Ads interface, you will be able to see and edit the new campaign.
Note: you can still upload a spreadsheet directly through the Ads interface but this needs to be done across four levels (campaign, ad groups, keywords and ads) so Ads Editor is still the faster option.
Resource
Surfside PPC has a good tutorial on how to create successful Search campaigns using both the Ads interface and Ads Editor.
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This concludes step three of learning Google Ads (running a campaign). In step four (measurement), we’ll cover how to use reporting tools within Google Ads, Analytics and Data Studio to report on the success of your ad campaigns.
Learn digital marketing in five steps
