Create Google Ad PPC/Search Campaign
This SOP will walk you through, step—by—step, how to properly structure your Google Ads account.
WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT? Your Google Ads account structure lets you control how ads are triggered and where and when they appear. When this is set up properly, you optimize the traffic you’ll receive from ads, as well as the cost you’ll pay per click, increasing your ROI.
USAGE RECOMMENDATION: Have a marketer or an SEO specialist complete this workflow.
REQUIREMENTS: Google Ads account
Before You Get Start
The proper structure of your Google Ads account is important in order to:
- Direct customers to the right landing pages
- Ensure that the searches triggering your ads are relevant to your audience
- Improve your quality scores, which correlates to better results and lower prices
To obtain the greatest benefit of using this template in your business, we recommend that you customize it in whatever way you’d like.
If at any point any of the screenshots in this template no longer match the Google Ads interface, simply edit the template and update the images as required.
Create a Google Ads Account
If you don’t already have one, you need to first Create a Google Ads account. This is relatively easy.
Create New Campaign
From the left—hand menu, select Campaigns and then the blue + button.
Campaign Goal
If you are running ads for the first time and don’t yet have any historical data, we recommend you start with a website traffic campaign, however, if another goal is a better fit for your campaign, choose that. For instance, in the earlier example of a service offered only in San Francisco and New York City, the “Local store visits and promotions” would be the best campaign goal.
Campaign Type
Search is the most common campaign type, however, feel free to choose the appropriate option for your campaign. If you’d like to learn more about campaign types, see Google’s campaign type help page.
Select which way you’d like to reach your Goal.
We’re using Website visits but you may choose the other option that is appropriate for your campaign.
Campaign Name
We recommend you choose a campaign name that describes the details of the campaign. In the example below, you see the campaign name is: TOF – Search – USA – Branded – Broad
Here’s the explanation of the acronyms in the campaign name:
TOF = Top of Funnel.
Search = we are restricting the ads to be shown only on the search network.
USA = ads will only be shown in the USA.
Branded = we are bidding on our branded keywords only Broad = we are bidding on broad keywords only.
By taking this approach, as the number of campaigns you are running increases, you will have an easier time managing your campaigns.
Specify Networks
Google gives you the option to select where your ads are going to be displayed. If you are just starting out, we recommend you use only the Search Network.
By default, Display Network is also chosen. However, this will let your text ads show up on various sites across the web. So, it’s better to only choose Search Network to keep search and display separately.
Show More Settings
These settings can all be left as-is unless you want to specify otherwise. Two of the settings you may consider editing are the start and end dates (particularly if you are running a sale) as well as the ad schedule. You’ll likely want to get ad data before you mess with the ad schedule though to find out when your ads convert best.
Geo-Targeting
If you want the highest quality traffic, you are going to want to specify the 5 tier one countries. If you are selling products only in one country, you’ll want to specify just that country. This goes back to the goal of your campaign.
For most advertisers, you will also want to choose the other two options shown in the image below.
Audience
Unless you have already created a custom audience(s) from previous campaigns, you do not need to select an audience here.
If you do wish to select an audience here, you may do so using the search and browse functions.
Set the Budget
When it comes to selecting your Budget, simply select the appropriate number for you. There is no right or wrong answer here but having a higher budget at the beginning will help you to gather data to refine your campaigns and ad groups.
Bidding
When it comes to bidding, Google is going to recommend you focus on Conversions and will ask you to specify your Target CPA.
If you ore just starting out, we recommend you instead select Clicks. Your keyword research you did will help you define your desired CPC or you can simply start at $3.00 and adjust from there
If you want to have ultimate control over your budget, we recommend, especially if you are just starting out, thot you select Manual CPC and then uncheck the box.
Ad Rotation
If you want more control over your campaigns, and you want to manual compare the stats of one ad vs another ad that you have created, we recommend you choose the option shown below so that all your ads will get approximately the same number of impressions.
If you do not select this box, Google will give the most impressions to your ad with the
highest Click-Through Rate (CTR) and this means that your other ad(s) may not get a chance to show you their potential to perform.
Selecte Do not optimize the ads.
Ad Group Name
From the left—hand menu, select Ad groups and then the blue + button
As we suggested for naming your campaign, we recommend you give each of your Ad Groups an intuitive name that describes as much about the ad group as possible.
In the example below, you can see that this ad group is for the top of our funnel and it will contain keywords that have the word SOP included.
While you could lump many different keywords into one Ad Group, by breaking them out into different Ad Groups, you will have more control over your budget and how it is direct to various keywords that you are targeting.
Default Bid
Now it is time to specify your default bid.
We recommend that when you are first starting out, you start with a lower bid, combined with bidding on long-tail (3 words or more) keywords. If you find that you aren’t getting enough impressions, you can then simply keep increasing our bid until you do.
Add Keywords
From the left-hand menu, click Keywords, and then the blue + button
If you have already completed your keyword research (recommended), then all you need to do here is paste in the keywords you wish to target.
NOTE: Be sure to select the types of keyword(s) you wish to target {Broad, Phrase, and Exact Match}
Keyword Match Types help control which searches can trigger your ads.
• keyword = Brood match: ads may show on searches that include misspellings, synonyms, related searches, and other relevant variations.
• “keyword” = Phrase match: ads may show on searches that match a phrase, or close variations of that phrase, which may include additional words before or after.
• [keyword] = Exact match: ads may show on searches that match the exact term or are close variations of that exact term.
As you are specifying the type of keywords you are targeting, keep in mind the naming convention to choose for this campaign and include only that type of keyword.
If you haven’t specified the keyword type in the Campaign name and plan to include all keyword types in one Campaign, then we recommend you create separate Ad Groups for each of the different keywords and keyword types you plan to target.
Yes, creating more Ad Groups will require more work; however, you will have much greater control over how your budget is spent.
Create Ad
Write Your Headlines
From the Ads & extensions menu item on the left, click the blue + button.
When it comes to writing your headlines, here are some basic rules to follow.
In headline #1, we recommend including the keyword that you are targeting as doing so is going to make your ad as relevant to the search phrase as possible. There is a 30-character limit.
For headline #2, you should do your best to make the phrase you enter match the headline or CTA on the landing page that this ad will be sending traffic to. There is a 30-character limit.
Headline #3 is optional and it sometimes not displayed in your ad. There is a 30-character limit.
Write your Descriptions
Writing your descriptions is every bit as important as the headlines. We recommend you use the descriptions to convey the benefits as well as some social proof (if possible) of your offer.
As with the headlines, you may want to consider pinning each description to either the first or second position. Note that Description #2 is Optional and sometimes will not be shown on your ad. Descriptions have a 90-character limit.
Google Ads
SOP 01: Create a Google Ads Campaign
SOP 02: Google PPC Campaign Setup
SOP 03: Google Ads Conversion Tracking
SOP 04: Create a Google Display Ads
SOP 05: Google Keyword Planner for Free
SOP 06: Create a Google Ads Account
SOP 07: Google Ads SOP for PPC / Search Ads
SOP 08: Google Display Ads Creation
SOP 09: Google Performance Max Ads
SOP 10: How to Create a Google Shopping Ads Campaign
SOP 11: Google Ads Video Campaigns
SOP 12: Google Demand Gen Ads
SOP 13: Google Smart Ads Creation
SOP 14: Google Ads Remarketing Tag Setup