Creating Google Ad Campaigns

 

Creating Google Ad Campaigns

Google makes it easy to create campaigns. By following these steps, you’ll be ready to go:

• Create a Google account.
• Select your campaign goal. You have three options:
  • Get calls.
  • Get visits to your physical location.
  • Increase website sales or sign-ups.
• Complete some basic information about your business.
• Identify the geography of your target audience.
• List products or services using keyword descriptors.
• Write your ads.
• Set your ad budget (estimated maximum spending amount per day).
• Enter payment information.

• Choose a bid amount that works for you

  If you're just starting out in Google Ads, you’ll want to go with a budget and bid amount that you’re comfortable with.

  This article provides tips and best practices to help you choose your first bids.

  Before you begin

  If you’re new to Google Ads bidding, read About ad bidding basics. It helps to know what the goals of your campaign are and which networks work best to help you reach your goals.

  Choose your first bids

  First things first: there's no single recommended bid amount that works perfectly for everyone. The right bid for you will depend on:

  • Your campaign type
  • The cost of your keywords
  • The success of your keywords

  Most people starting out in Google Ads use cost-per-click (CPC) bidding to pay for each click on their ads. With this option, you set a maximum cost-per-click bid (max. CPC bid) that's the highest amount that you're willing to pay for a click on your ad.

  Set your bid by thinking about how much an ad click is worth to you. If you’re unsure what bid to start with, try setting a max. CPC bid of US$1.

  Example

  Let's say you own a skateboard shop and you make US$10 from every skateboard purchase. You've seen that on average, 1 in 10 visits to your website results in a purchase. If you set a max. CPC bid of US$1, you’ll break even (advertising costs = sales). To make a profit, you should spend less than US$1 to get a click on your ad, which means you’ll want to set your max. CPC bid below US$1.

  Tip: Automate your bidding

  If you’re new to Google Ads and you’d like to increase clicks to your website, you might consider using the automated Maximize Clicks bid strategy. This strategy automatically sets your bids to help get as many clicks as possible within your budget. Learn about all types of automated bid strategies.

  When you set a max. CPC bid in a new campaign, it's applied to the keywords you choose for your ad group. You can change this ad group default bid at any time. If certain keywords are more relevant to your business than others, you can choose to set different bids for them in order to increase your chances of having your ad appear when people search with those keywords. These are called keyword bids.

  To make changes to individual keywords, click the bid amount in the “Max. CPC” column for that keyword.

  Bidding on the Display Network

  Keep in mind that the clickthrough rates are often lower on the Display Network, because it can be harder to get a reader's attention. If you’re showing your ad on the Display Network, you can set a Display Network Max. CPC bid for clicks that happen just on the Display Network. 

  • Consider bidding on impressions: Instead of paying per click, you can pay by the number of times your ad is viewable. You’ll bid on the cost-per-thousand viewable impressions (vCPM) bidding, and pay for every 1,000 times your ad is measured as viewable. If you're mostly interested in getting your company's name or logo in front of lots of people, this is a smart option. Learn more about vCPM bidding
  • Bid on placements: Similar to how you would evaluate keywords, if your ads perform well on certain placements, you can consider raising the bid for those placements.

  Other ways to choose a bid

  You can also set bid adjustments to increase or decrease your bids based on whether someone is searching from a mobile device, at a certain time of day, or from specific locations. Learn more About bid adjustments.

  Example

  You run a store in San Francisco and you’ve set a max. CPC bid of US$1. You could use bid adjustments to increase your chances of showing your ad to customers in your neighborhood. For example, you could set a +20% adjustment for nearby areas, resulting in a final bid amount of US$1.20. Here's the math:

  Starting bid: $1
  Location adjustment: $1 x (+20%) = $1.2
  Resulting bid for nearby searches: $1.20

• Understanding bidding basics

  Google Ads gives you several ways to bid for your ads, depending on what matters most to you and your business. Most advertisers focus on clicks, impressions, conversions, or views (for video ads).

  Now that you're advertising on Google Ads, you probably have a clear goal in mind for your ads. If you sell coffee, maybe you want to get more people to visit your shop. If you run a hiking club, maybe you're aiming to get more people to sign up for your newsletter. And so on.

  Knowing what you want your ads to do will help you decide how to bid.

  Tip

  Google Ads runs an auction every single time it has an ad space available -- on a search result, or on a blog, news site, or some other page. Each auction decides which ads will show at that moment in that space. Your bid puts you in the auction.

  You can focus on different things when you bid: clicks, impressions, conversions, views, or engagements, depending on your campaign type. Which would you choose? Let's look at these more closely.

  Focus on clicks (for Search and Display ads)

  If your main goal is to have people visit your website, then clicks are a good place to start. Using cost-per-click (CPC) bidding, you'll pay only when someone actually clicks on your ad and comes to your site.

  Example

  If you run a hiking club in Vermont, you might want to bid a lot for direct-hit keywords like "Vermont hiking" and a different amount for broader keywords like "hiking maps."

  Focus on impressions

  If your campaign is targeting just the Search Network and your main goal is to increase your brand visibility, consider using Target Impression Share. With this bidding strategy, Google Ads will automatically set your bids to help achieve your Impression Share goal. For example, if you choose an Impression Share target of 65% on the absolute top of the page, Google Ads will automatically set your bids to help show your ads on the absolute top of the page 65% of the total possible amount of times they could show.

  If your campaign is targeting just the Display Network, instead of paying by the click, you can pay by the number of times your ad is viewably shown. That's called cost-per-thousand viewable impressions (vCPM) bidding, since you pay for every 1,000 times your ad appears and is viewable. If you're mostly interested in getting your name or logo in front of lots of people, this is a smart option. Learn how ads are measured as viewable.

  Viewable CPM bidding, like CPC manual bidding, lets you set bids at the ad group level, or for individual placements.

  Focus on conversions (for Search and Display ads)

  With this advanced bidding method, you tell Google Ads the amount you're willing to pay for a conversion, or cost per action (CPA). A conversion (sometimes called an acquisition) is a particular action you want to see on your website. Often that's a sale, but it could be an email sign-up or some other action. You pay for each click, but Google Ads will automatically set your bids for you to try to get you as many conversions as possible at the cost per action you specified.

  To use CPA bidding you must have conversion tracking turned on, among other things, so CPA bidding is suited for intermediate and advanced Google Ads users.

  Focus on views (for video ads only)

  If your main goal is to evaluate how engaged viewers are with your video content, where they choose to watch your videos, and when they drop off from watching your content, you'll use cost-per-view (CPV) bidding. With CPV bidding, you'll pay for video views and other video interactions, such as clicks on the calls-to-action overlay (CTAs), cards, and companion banners.

  To set a CPV bid, you enter the highest price you want to pay for a view while setting up your TrueView video campaign. Your bid is called your maximum CPV bid, or simply "max CPV." This bid applies at the campaign level, but you can also set a CPV bid per ad format.

• Maximum CPC bid: Definition

  A bid that you set to determine the highest amount that you're willing to pay for a click on your ad.

  

  • If someone clicks your ad, that click won't cost you more than the maximum cost-per-click bid (or "max. CPC") that you set. For example, if you set a $2 max. CPC bid, you'll never pay more than $2 for each click on your ad. The actual amount that you pay is called the actual CPC and is shown in your account's "Avg. CPC" column.
  • A higher bid generally helps your ad show in a higher ad position on the page.
  • You'll choose between manual bidding (you choose your bid amounts) and automatic bidding (you set a target average daily budget and the Google Ads system automatically adjusts your max. CPC bids on your behalf, with the goal of getting you the most clicks possible within that budget). With manual bidding, you'll set one maximum CPC bid for an entire ad group, but can also set different bids for individual keywords.

  When your Max. CPC may be exceeded:

  If you use the following features, your actual bid may be higher than the Max. CPC bid you have set:

  • Enhanced CPC Learn more about eCPC bidding
  • Search Partners Learn more about Search Partners
  • Bid adjustments Learn more about bid adjustments

  Determine a bid strategy based on your goals

  Google Ads offers several bid strategies that are tailored to different types of campaigns. Depending on which networks your campaign is targeting, and whether you want to focus on getting clicks, impressions, conversions, or views you can determine which strategy is best for you. In this article, we'll describe how to use your advertising goals to choose your bid strategy.

  Before you begin

  If you’re looking for instructions on how to change your bid strategy for an existing Search campaign, read Change how you bid.

  Google Ads essential
  The ad auction: how Google decides which ads to show and their order

  Consider your goals

  Each bid strategy is suited for different kinds of campaigns and advertising goals. For the purposes of bidding, you'll want to consider five basic types of goals, along with your current campaign settings.

  • If you want customers to take a direct action on your site, and you're using conversion tracking, then it may be best to focus on conversions. Smart Bidding lets you do that.
  • If you want to generate traffic to your website, focusing on clicks could be ideal for you. Cost-per-click (CPC) bidding may be right for your campaign.
  • If you want to increase brand awareness focusing on impressions may be your strategy. You can use cost-per-thousand viewable impressions (vCPM) bidding to put your message in front of customers.
  • If you run video ads and want to increase views or interactions with your ads, you can use cost-per-view (CPV) or cost-per-thousand impressions (CPM) bidding.
  • If you run video ads and your goal is to increase product or brand consideration you can use cost per view (CPV).

  Focus on conversions with Smart Bidding

  If you want to focus on conversions, consider using Smart Bidding to take much of the heavy lifting and guesswork out of setting bids. Smart Bidding is a set of automated bid strategies that uses machine learning to optimize for conversions or conversion value in each and every auction—a feature known as “auction-time bidding.” It also factors in a wide range of auction-time signals such as device, location, time of day, language, and operating system to capture the unique context of every search.

  Below are the five Smart Bidding strategies you can use.

  • Target cost per action (CPA): If you want to optimize for conversions, you can use Target CPA to help increase conversions while targeting a specific cost per action (CPA). Learn more About Target CPA bidding.
  • Target return on ad spend (ROAS): If you want to optimize for conversion value, you can use Target ROAS to help increase conversion value while targeting a specific return on ad spend (ROAS). Learn more About Target ROAS bidding.
  • Maximize Conversions: If you want to optimize for conversions, but just want to spend your entire budget instead of targeting a specific CPA, you can use Maximize Conversions. Learn more About Maximize Conversions bidding.
  • Maximize Conversion Value: If you want to optimize for conversion value, but just want to spend your entire budget instead of targeting a specific ROAS, you can use Maximize Conversion Value. Learn more About Maximize Conversion Value bidding.
  • Enhanced cost per click (ECPC): If you want to automatically adjust your manual bids to try to maximize conversions, you can use ECPC. It’s an optional feature you can use with Manual CPC bidding. Learn more About ECPC.

  Focus on clicks with CPC bidding

  If you're focusing on gaining clicks to generate traffic to your website, there are two cost-per-click bid strategies to consider:

  • Maximize Clicks: This is an automated bid strategy. It's the simplest way to bid for clicks. All you have to do is set an average daily budget, and the Google Ads system automatically manages your bids to bring you the most clicks possible within your budget. Learn more About Maximize Clicks bidding.

  • Manual CPC bidding: This lets you manage your maximum CPC bids yourself. You can set different bids for each ad group in your campaign, or for individual keywords or placements. If you've found that certain keywords or placements are more profitable, you can use manual bidding to allocate more of your advertising budget to those keywords or placements. Learn more About Manual CPC bidding.

  More about Maximize Clicks

  More about Manual CPC bidding

  Focus on visibility

  If you want to focus on visibility, you can try one of the following bid strategies to help maximize visibility.

  • Target Impression Share: automatically sets bids with the goal of showing your ad on the absolute top of the page, on the top of the page, or anywhere on the page of Google search results. Learn more About Target Impression Share.
  • CPM: With this bid strategy, you’ll pay based on the number of impressions (times your ads are shown) that you receive on YouTube or the Google Display Network.
  • tCPM: A bidding strategy where you set an average for how much you’re willing to pay for every thousand impressions. It optimizes bids to maximize your campaign’s unique reach. With tCPM, you can keep your campaign’s average CPM lower or equal to the target you set (although the cost of impressions may vary).
  • vCPM: This is a manual bidding strategy you can use if your ads are designed to increase awareness, but not necessarily generate clicks or traffic. It lets you set the highest amount you want to pay for each 1,000 viewable ad impressions on the Google Display Network. Learn more About vCPM bidding.

  More about vCPM bidding

  Focus on views or interactions (for video ads only)

  
  If you run video ads, you can use CPV bidding. With CPV bidding, you'll pay for video views and other video interactions, such as clicks on the calls-to-action (CTA) overlay, cards, and companion banners. You just enter the highest price you want to pay for a view while setting up your TrueView video campaign. Learn more About CPV bidding.

• Edit your bids

  You can edit your bid for an entire ad group or for individual keywords. Editing your bids based on how your campaigns perform may influence the amount of traffic your ads receive, as well as the return-on-investment (ROI) you generate.

  This article explains how to edit your cost-per-click (CPC) bids and your cost-per-thousand viewable impressions (viewable CPM) bids.

  Instructions

  Edit the ad group default bid for a single ad group

  1. Sign in to your Google Ads account.
  2. Click Campaigns.
  3. Select the campaign you want to edit.
  4. Click Ad groups.
  5. Select the appropriate ad group from the list.
  6. Click the pencil button  in the “Default max. CPC” bid column.
  7. Enter a new amount.
  8. Click Save. 

  Tip

  If you're using an automated bidding strategy other than Enhanced CPC you won't be able to edit your ad group default bid.

  Edit your bid for multiple ad groups

  1. Sign in to your Google Ads account.
  2. Click Campaigns.
  3. Click Ad groups.
  4. Select the ad groups you wish to edit.
  5. Click Edit. You can choose to change your bid strategy, tracking templates, or custom parameters.

  How to edit your bid for individual keywords or other targeting methods

  If your campaigns are using manual bidding, you can set your own max. CPC bid amount. It will be used instead of the ad group default bid whenever a certain keyword, placement, or other targeting method triggers your ad.

  Keep in mind that to set a max. CPC for a specific targeting method, you must have set your custom bid on that same targeting method. For example, if you want to set a specific bid for the website example.com, you need to set your custom bids on placements. Learn how to enable Display Network bidding features.

  Edit individual keyword bids

  1. Sign in to your Google Ads account.
  2. Click Campaigns.
  3. Click Ad groups. Select the ad group with the keyword whose bid you want to change.
  4. Click Keywords. Select the keyword whose bid you want to change.
  5. Click Edit. Select Change max. CPC bids.
  6. In the page that opens, you may set a new bid, increase your bid, or decrease your bid. If you would like to use the default ad group bid, leave the amount blank.
  7. Click APPLY.

  Tip

  To change the bid for an individual keyword, placement, or other targeting method back to the ad group default bid, click the individual targeting method bid and delete the text, leaving the field blank.

  Edit bids for managed placements, topics, interests & remarketing, gender, or age

  1. Sign in to your Google Ads account.
  2. On the navigation panel on the left, select a Display campaigns.
  3. Select a campaign from the list beneath "Enabled, Paused, and Removed," then select an ad group.
  4. Select Settings.
  5. Click Additional settings.
  6. Select Custom bid & URL method.
  7. Selecting a targeting method in the dropdown. 
  8. Click Save.
  9. Select Bidding.
  10. Enter your new bid and click Save.
       

  Tip

  Here are some other bidding options you might not know about:

  • You can set bid adjustments for better control over when and where your ad appears. They can be used to bid more competitively for mobile devices, locations, days, and times. Learn more about bid adjustments.
  • Google Ads also offers automated bid strategies that can set CPC bids on your behalf. Learn more about automated bidding.

  Evaluate and optimize your bids

  Once your ads have been running for a while, it’s time to see how they're doing. If your goal is to drive sales and website traffic, ask yourself these questions:

  • What keywords lead to the most clicks on your ads?
  • What locations and devices are your customers searching from?
  • What are the peak days and times for business sales?

  To answer these questions, look at the reports in your account. Learn more About account, campaign, and ad group performance.

  Evaluate your costs and revenue

  To help gauge a campaign’s performance, you may want to see how often people who see your ad actually click it. To do this, try sorting your keywords by clickthrough rate (CTR) to see which keywords got you a lot of impressions, but few clicks. If your goal is to generate sales, you might want to Edit your bids on these keywords.

  Tips

  • To understand whether clicks are leading to actual sales, we recommend setting up conversion tracking for your account. This free tool shows you what happens after people click your ad, whether they purchased your product or signed up for your newsletter. With this information, you can calculate your actual return on investment (ROI).

  • Don't have the time to evaluate your bids? Let Google do the work for you. With Maximize Clicks, you set an average daily budget, and we'll help adjust your cost-per-click bids to receive the most possible clicks within your budget. Or if you have specific goals in mind, try automated bid strategy to have adjust bids based on your goals.

  Adjust your bids to increase your return on investment

  Once you’ve identified which keywords, locations, times, and devices are getting good results, you can adjust your bids accordingly.

  Here are a few situations where you might change your bids:

  • Low average cost-per-click (CPC) with high conversion rate: For instance, if a keyword has a low average CPC but each click converts well, you may try increasing its max. CPC bid.
  • High average CPC with low conversion rate: If a keyword has a high average CPC but clicks seldom result in conversions, you may try reducing its max. CPC bid. This strategy could improve your ROI on low-performing keywords and free up part of your budget to invest in more valuable keywords.
  • Low traffic during certain hours: Consider increasing your bids in locations where your performance is stronger. Or if you tend to see less foot traffic to your store during certain hours, you could increase bids for that time period and run ads with promotional offers to drive more people to your business.

  A couple things to keep in mind when thinking about bidding changes:

  • Change your bids in small increments: Then look for changes to the clicks and conversions of your keywords before editing again. Internet traffic is always changing, so it's important to re-evaluate your bids regularly.
  • Improve your Quality score: It's possible to improve your ad's position without increasing costs. The higher the Quality Score for your keyword, the less you pay for a given ad position.

  Tools to help optimize your bids

  Besides automated bidding strategies, Google offers several other tools to help guide you in choosing a bid that will work for your goals.

  After your campaigns run for a few weeks, our tools will have enough information to give you more personalized recommendations:

  • Bid Simulator: Get answers to "what-if" scenarios, such as "How many more impressions would I get if I raised my bid by $0.10?". This tool can help you tweak your bids to just the right level for you. Learn more about the Bid Simulator.
  • First-page bid estimates: See how much you'd likely need to bid to get your ads at the top, or within the first page of Google search results.
  • Recommendations page: Visit this area of your account to see recommendations to improve your CPC bids, which can help you get more traffic, improve your Ad Rank, or improve your performance.