In this post I will show you with all my experience how to create a perfect Google Ads search campaign.
Create a perfect Google Ads Search Campaign
Launching a new Google Ads Campaign is a not easy process. First of all, Google Ads is a complex product with a lot of different settings and secondly difficult for a pioneer to handle at first sight. In this article I will show you the main basic features you need to set up when starting your first Google Ads Search Campaign.
1. What is a Google Search Ad ?
Google Search Ads are pay per click ads that will show within the Google Search Network above or below Google organic search results. Once a potential customers clicks on the ad, you get charged per click. Here you can read more about Cost per Click. A search ad looks different than an organic search result: Link of the website and “AD” symbol are highlighted in green.
Every Google Search Ad will be set up within Google Ads with specific limitation:
- Daily Budget
- Location Targeting
- Keywords
- Ad Schedule
- Start Date – End Date
Here you can see an example of a Search Ad.
2. Select a business goal for your Google Ads Search Campaign
In the following image you can see which business goal is compatible with a Google Ads Search Campaign. Select a goal depending on your business needs. Selecting a goal helps the Google Ads Algorithm to trigger your ad to the right user.
3. Select in which Google network your ad should trigger
In this section you can opt in that your search ad will trigger in both search and display ad. I strongly recommend to only enable the option “Search Network”, in order to target a closer target group with a higher dense of potential customer.
4. Enter your budget and select the bidding strategy
This section is a very important. I recommend for starting a campaign to set a budget (attention it is daily!) of 2.00 – 3.00€. For new campaigns I advise you to select the bidding strategy “maximise clicks“. This is an automated bidding strategy that sets your bids in order to help you gain auctions (clicks/impression) within your daily budget. It is very helpful for new campaigns in order to feed the algorithm with new auction data as soon as possible. Later on you can also change the budget and bidding strategy. Here you can see all Google Ads bidding strategies.
5. Customise your Google Search Ad Text
A Google Search Ad with a high Click through ratio does need the following parts. Read also here Google Ads Text Best Practices.
- Ad Title 1: describe in a few words your main business in this section you have space for 30 characters.
- Ad Title 2 & 3: describe your Unique Selling Proposition, again space for 30 characters
- Ad Description: Write within 90 characters about your company and products
- Ad Description: Insert a Call to Action like “Buy now”, “Discover today”, “Visit us now”, “Online available”.
- Never add exclamation marks inside the Ad Titles. Google Ads has a severe punctuation and symbols policy, see here.
6. Add specific keywords to your Google Ads Search campaign
After having saved the creation of the new Google Ads Search Campaign I will show you how to add the best keywords to your Ad. Inside the section “Keywords” in Google Ads you can see on the right hand side different keyword suggestions of the Google Ads Keyword Planner, which gives you great ideas.
Google Ads Keywords have three different matching types:
- Broad Match Keywords: By default for all keywords. For example: Bed Linen
- Ads may show on searches that include misspellings, synonyms, related searches, and other relevant variations
- Someone is searching for “pillow bed” might see the ad
- Phrase Match: For example: “Bed Linen”
- Ads may show on searches that match a phrase which may include words before and after.
- Someone is searching for “cheap bed linen store” or “high bed linen“
- Exact Match: For example: [Bed Linen]
- Ads may show on searches that match the exact keyword or close variations.
- Someone is searching for “Bed Linen” may see your ad
It is important to understand the pro and cons of these three Google Ads Keywords matching options in order to create your perfect Google Ads Search Campaign. A Broad Match Keyword of only one or two words is in competition with a lot of other Google Ads advertisers. Therefore, the bid to win an auction is relatively high. With an Exact Match keyword, the ad shows to user that are really searching for that and increases the Click through ratio and possibility of a lead, but the search volume is for sure much smaller, therefore less impressions and clicks.
7. Target your Google Ads Audience
To create the perfect Google Ads Search campaign you need to target your ideal target group in a specific geographical location. Google Ads allows you to choose between:
- Target Countries
- Target Regions
- Target Radius Areas
- Location Groups (Places of interest, business location or tiered demographics)
It is recommend to start your Google Ads Search Campaign in one country that matches your Ads language. Restricting your location targeting improves the Return on Investment. It is also possible to exclude locations, this prevents your ad from showing in specific countries or regions.
8. Create an Ad Schedule for your Google Ads Search Campaign
I recommend you to set up an Ad Schedule for your perfect Google Ads Search Campaign to only show ads to users when you want. For instance if you want to show your ads only on business days or business hours when you are there to handle customers inquiries.
Furthermore, you can also set up bid adjustments to increase or decrease automatically your bids for specific days or hours. Imagine you see that your ads run best between 11am and 1pm, it could be a good idea to increase your bid for 20% for these hours, in order to gain even more auctions.
I hope I could help you with important ideas to set up a great Google Ads Search Campaign. Recently, Google created the Google Academy for Ads with useful trainings to boost your Google Ads skills.
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