How to Create a Google Ad

Launching a Google Ad campaign can feel daunting, but it's one of the most direct ways to put your business in front of customers who are actively searching for what you offer. If you want to drive traffic, generate leads, or make sales, knowing your way around the Google Ads platform is a must. This guide will walk you through setting up your first campaign step-by-step, from initial setup to writing ad copy that gets clicks.

Before You Begin: What You'll Need

Diving straight into the Google Ads platform without a clear plan is a recipe for wasted ad spend. Before you create your first ad, make sure you have a few things sorted out first.

Most importantly, you need a high-quality destination for your ad clicks. This is usually a dedicated landing page on your website that's specifically designed to convert visitors from your ads. Sending paid traffic to your homepage is a common mistake, a targeted landing page that aligns with your ad's message will always perform better.

You’ll also need:

• A Google account (a Gmail account works perfectly).
• A clear business goal (e.g., generate 20 new leads per week, achieve a 3:1 return on ad spend).
• An idea of your target audience (who they are and where they are located).
• A starting budget you're comfortable with.

Once you have these pieces in place, you’re ready to build your campaign.

Step-by-Step Guide to Creating Your First Google Ads Campaign

Google Ads is structured in a hierarchy: Your Account contains Campaigns, which contain Ad Groups, which contain your Ads and Keywords. Think of it like a filing cabinet - get the structure right from the beginning, and everything stays organized.

Step 1: Get Started with a Google Ads Account

First, head over to the Google Ads homepage and click "Start now." You'll sign in with your Google account. Initially, Google might try to place you in "Smart Mode," a simplified version of the platform. For more control and access to all features, you should immediately switch to "Expert Mode." Look for a small link text at the bottom of the page that says something like, “Switch to Expert Mode.” You’ll have more options, which is exactly what we want.

Step 2: Choose Your Campaign Objective

Once you're in Expert Mode and click "New campaign," Google will ask you to select a campaign objective. This choice helps Google tailor settings and recommend features that will align with your goal.

The main objectives are:

• Sales: Focused on driving purchases on your website, in your app, or in your store.
• Leads: Aims to collect contact information from potential customers through sign-up forms.
• Website traffic: The goal is to get relevant people to visit your website.
• Product and brand consideration: Encourages people to explore your products or services, often used for video ads.
• Brand awareness and reach: Shows your ads to as broad an audience as possible.
• App promotion: Geared toward driving app installs and engagement.

If you aren't sure, or if your goal isn't listed, you can start a campaign without a goal's guidance. For most new advertisers, Sales, Leads, or Website traffic are the most common starting points.

Step 3: Select Your Campaign Type

Next, you’ll choose the type of campaign you want to run. This determines where your ads will appear on Google's network. The most popular options for beginners are:

• Search: Your ads will be text-based and appear on the Google search results page when people search for keywords related to your business. This is the best place to start, as it captures users with high intent.
• Performance Max: An all-in-one campaign type that runs your ads across all of Google's channels (Search, Display, YouTube, Gmail, etc.) in a single campaign, optimized by Google's AI.
• Display: These are visual, image-based ads that appear on websites and apps across the Google Display Network. Great for brand awareness and retargeting past website visitors.
• Video: Your ads will appear on YouTube. Best suited for brand awareness and consideration.
• Shopping: If you're an e-commerce store, this campaign type shows your products directly in the search results with images and prices.

For this guide, we'll focus on creating a Search campaign, as it’s the most fundamental and effective type for new advertisers.

Step 4: Configure Your Campaign Settings

Now you'll get into the details of setting up your campaign.

Naming and Networks

Give your campaign a clear, descriptive name that will help you identify it later (e.g., "Search - Plumbing Services - USA"). Under the "Networks" section, you’ll see "Search Network" and "Display Network" are pre-selected. We recommend deselecting the Display Network when running a search campaign. Mixing these two often dilutes your budget and complicates performance tracking. You want your text ads showing to people actively searching, not passively browsing websites.

Targeting and Audience

This is where you tell Google who you want to see your ads.

• Location: Be specific. Don't target the entire country if you only serve a specific city or region. You can target countries, states, cities, ZIP codes, or even a radius around a specific address.
• Language: Select the languages your target customers speak.
• Audience segments: This is a more advanced option, but here you can add layers of audience targeting, like targeting people interested in "home renovation" (Affinity) or people actively researching "local plumbing services" (In-Market). You can also retarget people who have visited your website before. For a first campaign, it’s fine to start with location and language alone.

Budget and Bidding

Enter the average amount you're comfortable spending per day. Google can spend up to twice your daily budget on any given day, but it won't exceed your average daily budget multiplied by the total days in a month. So a $10/day budget means you won't spend more than about $304 in a month.

For bidding, Google will ask what you want to focus on. Common options include:

• Conversions: Google's AI will try to get you the most conversions for your budget. You’ll need conversion tracking set up for this to work.
• Clicks: Aims to get you the most clicks possible within your budget. A good starting point if you don't have conversion data yet. Select "Maximize Clicks" as your bidding strategy. You can set a maximum cost-per-click (CPC) bid limit to avoid overspending on a single click.

Start with Maximize Clicks if it's your first campaign.

Step 5: Ad Groups and Keywords

An ad group is a container for a small, tightly-themed set of keywords and the ads that are triggered by them. Strong organization here is the foundation of a successful campaign. Don't dump hundreds of keywords into one ad group. Instead, break them down logically. For example, if you sell footwear, you might have one ad group for "men's running shoes," another for "women's hiking boots," and another for "kid's sandals."

Keyword Research

Use Google's Keyword Planner (found under "Tools & Settings") to find keywords your customers are searching for. For your "men's running shoes" ad group, your keywords could include:

• best running shoes for men
• men's trail running shoes
• men's athletic sneakers

Keyword Match Types

Match types tell Google how closely a user's search query needs to match your keyword. There are three main types:

• Broad Match: men's sneakers - Your ad could show for searches like "boys footwear" or "men's running apparel." Use this sparingly, as it can lead to irrelevant clicks.
• Phrase Match: "men's sneakers" - Your ad could show for "best men's sneakers for sale" or "waterproof men's sneakers." The search must include the meaning of your keyword. This is a great, balanced choice.
• Exact Match: [men's sneakers] - Your ad will only show for "men's sneakers" or very close variations like "sneakers for men." This gives you the most control but the least traffic.

A good starting strategy is to use a mix of Phrase and Exact match keywords.

Step 6: Create Your Ads

This is where you write the ad copy that people will actually see. A responsive search ad allows you to create multiple headlines and descriptions, and Google will automatically test different combinations to find what performs best.

You’ll fill out the following fields:

• Final URL: The specific landing page people go to after clicking your ad. Make sure it's relevant to the keywords and ad copy!
• Headlines: You can write up to 15 headlines (30 characters each). Google will show up to three at a time. Be sure to include your main keywords, highlight benefits, and add a call to action (e.g., "Shop Now," "Get a Free Quote").
• Descriptions: You can write up to 4 descriptions (90 characters each). Google shows up to two. Use this space to provide more detail, showcase your unique selling proposition, and build trust.
• Display Path: You can customize the URL that is shown in your ad (e.g., www.yourstore.com/Mens/Running-Shoes) to make it look clean and relevant.

Pro Tip: Create at least two or three completely different ads in each ad group so you can test which messaging resonates best with your audience.

Step 7: Add Ad Extensions

Ad extensions are extra snippets of information that can appear with your ad, making it bigger and more prominent on the search results page. They don’t cost anything extra (you just pay when someone clicks your ad) and almost always improve performance. Don’t skip this step!

Key extensions to add include:

• Sitelink Extensions: Add extra links to specific pages on your site, like "About Us" or "Contact."
• Callout Extensions: Short, specific snippets of text to highlight benefits like "Free Shipping" or "24/7 Customer Support."
• Structured Snippets: Highlight specific aspects of your products or services, like "Styles: Running, Walking, Hiking."
• Call Extensions: Add your phone number so people on mobile can call you directly from the ad.

Step 8: Review and Launch

Lastly, Google will show you a summary of your campaign settings. Double-check everything - your budget, locations, keywords, and ad copy. If it all looks good, click "Publish Campaign." Your ads will go into a short review and should start running shortly after.

Final Thoughts

Creating your first Google Ad campaign becomes much simpler when you break it down into these manageable steps. The key is in the preparation - defining your goals, understanding your customer, making your landing page relevant, and structuring your campaign thoughtfully from the start. Once your campaigns are live, the job shifts to monitoring performance and making optimizations to improve your results over time.

After you launch, gathering and interpreting data from Google Ads, Google Analytics, and your sales platform can quickly become a manual, time-consuming process. At Graphed, we make this simple by connecting all your data sources and allowing you to ask questions in plain English - like "Which Google Ad campaign is driving the most valuable Shopify sales?" or "Create a dashboard showing my cost per lead from Facebook versus Google." Instead of spending hours in spreadsheets, you get instant, real-time reports to make smarter decisions and optimize your ads faster. Go ahead and start your first campaign, and when you’re ready to see the full picture, try creating a dashboard with Graphed.