Google Ads is the most powerful advertising platform in the world. In 2023, Google Ads generated 39% of worldwide digital advertising revenue, more than Facebook, Amazon Ads, and TikTok combined. And it’s no surprise – Google Ads enables digital marketers to run highly-targeted ad campaigns across a variety of channels including search, display, and video.
Google Ads has advanced significantly since first launching in October 2000. Initially offering a platform for small businesses to create search ads, Google Ads has now expanded to service businesses of all sizes, and to deliver ads across display, video, maps, and more.
Although Google Ads has certainly become more powerful since its introduction, it has also become more complex to navigate. There are now more capabilities for marketers to be aware of, and more potential mistakes to be made.
This Google Ads checklist outlines the steps you need to take to set up and operate your Google Ads account successfully.
The best way to make your Google Ads program successful is to get your campaign setup right from the start. Campaign organization is important as it impacts how your budget is allocated, how your reporting is structured, and how easy it is to optimize your account over time.
There are two main levels of campaign structure, campaigns and ad groups, with each campaign containing one or more ad groups. It’s helpful to organize your campaign structure in the same way you organize products and services across your business. An eCommerce clothing retailer, for example, would create a campaign for shirts, another for trousers, and another for shoes. Within the shirts campaign, they would create an ad group for t-shirts, and another button-down shirts. It’s best practice to define your ad groups as specifically as possible, as this reduces the chance of ads being served to too broad an audience. Google Ads currently allows up to 20,000 ad groups per campaign, so create as many as you need!
Google Ads targeting is based on search keywords. For each Ad Group, you can define keywords on which you’d like those Ads to display. Google currently allows up to 20,000 keywords per Ad Group, however most experts advise selecting 5-20.
As you’re thinking about which keywords to choose for each ad group, it’s important to keep two things in mind:
If you’re just getting started with keyword selection, you might consider leveraging Google Ads Keyword Planner, which offers a list of suggested keywords for each of your campaigns. Keyword Planner also provides information on how much you’ll likely need to bid to win a placement for a given keyword, which helps you determine whether suggested keywords are in your budget.
With your initial keywords defined, Google Ads offers several options for expanding your targeting. Keyword Match Types uses Google’s algorithm to identify additional keywords that are related to your selected keywords for your ads to be served on. Google currently offers three Match Types.
Google also allows you to define Negative keywords, which are specified keywords that you’d like your ads not to be shown on. A reading glasses retailer, for example, may define negative keywords related to drinking glasses, such as “wine glasses,” to ensure their ads aren’t served to users on the hunt for drinkware.
Once you know whom you’ll be targeting, you can write the ad copy to capture their interest! Google search ads have two structural components, a headline and a description.
The headline can be up to 30 characters in length, and is shown as a clickable blue link on the Search Engine Results Page (SERP). You can add up to three variations per ad, and this copy should grab the user’s attention. The description is placed below the headline in your ad, and can be up to 90 characters in length. Your description should add more detail to support the headline. You can also customize your ad’s display URL, which is the destination URL displayed above your ad’s headline.
As you’re writing ad copy, try to include some of the search keywords you are using in your targeting. This will make your ads more relevant to users’ searches and may increase your Quality Score.
It’s important to remember that writing Google Ad copy is rarely a one-time effort. Rather, the best paid marketers test and learn to optimize their ad copy over time. Once your ads are launched, we’d recommend leveraging Google’s A/B testing capabilities to understand how copy variations perform. See our complete guide to A/B testing with Google Ads here.
Capturing your target customers’ attention with effective search campaigns is a great start. But for most businesses, clicks do not equal revenue. Investing in improving the post-click experience is a great way to translate Google Ad traffic into conversions. Two key things that you can do to improve the post-click experience:
Google Ads provides insightful reporting on ad performance and post-click engagement. You’re able to track key metrics such as click through rate (CTR) and cost per click (CPC), and with Google Analytics connected, can also understand engagement of users who clicked on your Google Ads ads and then came through to your website, or installed and started using your mobile app.
To dive deeper into reporting, however, it’s helpful to explore Google Analytics or a similar marketing analytics platform directly. Analytics platforms will display information related to how users acquired through Google Ads are navigating your website, in more detail than possible with Google Ads reporting alone. You can also analyze Google Ads traffic with a more historical lens, comparing how Google Ads is performing over time. Furthermore, you can calculate your Google Ads return on ad spend (ROAS) assigning monetary values to conversion events such as purchases or subscription sign-ups.
Clear reporting on Google Ads performance will not only help you optimize your Google Ads program over time, but also help you share results across your organization and build trust.
John Joe Smith, founder and CEO of WasteNot, is hosted by Tom Triscari, founder of Quo Vadis, for a Q&A conversation on the future of audience suppression.
Many advertisers waste up to 40% of their ad budgets due to inefficient targeting, and they aren't even aware of it. In this article, we'll walk through how brands can use modern audience suppression strategies to improve advertising efficiency and performance.
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