Setting up and launching a Google Ads campaign may seem daunting to many small business owners due to the overwhelming amount of information out there. While the Google Ads platform may seem complex, once you spend some time understanding and learning the basics, you might be off to a good start.

Here we lay out some important setup methods to consider to launch a successful Google Ads campaign:

Choose The Right Campaign Type

Within Google Ads you can create many different types of campaigns suited to your marketing goals:

Search Network Campaign: The Search Network campaign includes the standard text ads, responsive, dynamic and call ads that appear on the Google Search Network and partner platform.

Display Network Campaign: The Display Network campaign aims to show ads to the right audience at the right time when these audiences are browsing websites, Youtube and even Gmail. These Google Ads display campaigns are generally well suited to increase brand awareness and reach new customers.

Shopping Campaign: The Google Shopping campaign is especially designed for retail where the products can be displayed to help customers make purchases. This campaign works well for eCommerce or brick and mortar stores that have an online presence.

Video Campaign: Video campaigns are embedded within the Google Display Network where you can either display video ads within the Youtube platform or standalone video ads through the display network.

Determine Your Bidding Strategy

The campaign bidding strategy is important to consider beforehand along with your marketing goals as the right bidding strategy can either save or spend more money for your selected campaign. It is important to understand the difference between the various bidding strategies such as “Manual Cost Per Click”, “Maximise Clicks”, “Maximise Conversions”, “Target ROAS” and so on.

There are two types of bidding strategies, automatic and manual. Automated bidding is generally more automated through the Google algorithm system which aims to get you the best results for the best cost per click while manual bidding requires manual adjustment of the bidding. They both have pros and cons so it’s important to assess your expertise before deciding on the type of bidding strategy.

Connect To Google Analytics

Google Analytics is essentially a data warehouse that collects all types of data from your website. When running Google As, Google Analytics and Google Ads go hand in hand to help you understand the performance of your campaign. Through the setting tab in Google Ads, you can connect your Google Ads account to Google Analytics to have better insights.

Understand The Learning Phase

The learning phase is simply a 1-2 week period where all-new Google Ads campaigns go through an automated learning process to be better able to serve ads to the right audience through data accumulation. This is a critical phase and it’s important to sit tight and be patient for the first two weeks when the campaign is launched. Once this phase is over, the necessary optimisation of the Google Ads campaign can be done.

Set Up & Track Conversions

Conversions are any actions performed on the website. Conversion tracking is especially the most important as it allows you to see how customers are engaging with your ad or website. With Google Ads tracking you can track purchases, sign-ups, downloads, page views, phone calls, clicks and other types of conversion actions that are beneficial to your business. By having the conversion tracking set up properly, you can understand how these conversions bring value to your business.

Summary

Knowing how to set up and launch an effective Google Ads campaign for your business can take time and effort. Here at Lethal Digital, we specialise in writing and running campaigns from scratch to finish. If you’re looking to get started today, feel free to give us a call to discuss your business needs.