Google is one of the most used search engines around the world. According to GS Statcounter, 2022, the market share of Google is 91.9% with 8.5 billion searches per day (Internet Live Stats 2022).
This is a clear indication that most people use Google to find answers to their pressing questions. And this includes people who are searching for products and services in their region. Hence, it becomes pertinent for businesses of all sizes to have a striking presence on the Internet.
And Google can help you create a positively marketed image on the Internet. Google provides the service of creating a Google Ads campaign setup to help you promote your business and prompt the users to reach your business website. The service is available via your business Gmail account.
However, to get the most out of your Google ads campaign, you need to be strategic and include all the important information to boost the performance of your ad and bring you more customers.
In this blog, we will shed light on how to plan your Google Ads campaign. Moreover, we will also give you a quick overview of how to set up your own Google Ads campaign.
So, let’s get started.
Planning Your Google Ads Campaign
Before you set up your Google Ads campaign, you need to gather crucial information to enter into the campaign setup. Here’s what you must have.
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Campaign Goals
Your Google Ads campaign must have set goals to achieve success. And it’s pretty simple to determine.
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- Do you want to generate more leads for your business?
- Do you want to increase your business sales?
- Are you undertaking market research for product development and improvement?
Determining your goal will help you further in planning your ads campaign effectively. Your business may also have multiple goals. If such is the case, it is advisable to run a different ad campaign for each goal.
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Keyword Research
After setting your goal for your ads campaign, you can now start searching for the right keywords. The right keywords will give your ad campaign the much-needed boost and bring it tothe top of the search results.
You can search for the right keywords using the “Keyword Planner” tool provided by Google Ads. However, to use this tool, you need to be registered with an Ads account.
To use the keyword planner tool, you need to provide the most relevant “seed keyword”. For example, “nappies” is the seed keyword for a business that manufactures or imports and sells baby nappies. Similarly, based on your business, you need to provide a seed keyword.
The seed keyword will help you generate a list of keywords. Google will also suggest the way these keywords can be grouped for your campaign. However, you can change the grouping as you like.
Apart from grouping, you must consider the keyword intent, whether they are informational or may prompt buying actions. To understand the keyword intent, you must do a quick search on the keyword usage.This will provide you with the final list of keywords you can use for your Google ads campaign.
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Campaign Planning
Now that you have set your ad campaign goal and found the list of keywords, it is time to plan your ad campaign. Campaign planning will include:
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- Determining your target market based on factors like age, gender, location, income, and any other important characteristics.
- Grouping your keywords as per your ad campaign goals is the next step in your campaign planning. If you have a different ad campaign for different goals, you must group your keywords accordingly.
- With the right keyword groups, you must develop the right target message. Each ad campaign will have a different target message. You can test the efficacy of your ad campaign by performing A/B or split testing. This will help you refine your ad campaign over time and improve its performance.
- Lastly, you need to determine the landing page to be used in your ad campaign. When a potential lead clicks on your ads, you want them to land on a page that gives them relevant information. The landing page must also help them contact your business for procuring services and products. So, find the right landing page or create a new one.
How to Set Up Your Google Ads Campaign?
Once you have gathered all the relevant information to setup Google ads campaign, here are the next steps you should follow.
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Switch to Expert Mode
When you start setting up your ad campaign, the first thing is to choose the goal. Google will provide you with some common business goals to achieve. You can either choose from that or click on “Switch to expert mode”.
Now, don’t worry, you don’t really need to be an expert to use this mode. Instead, keep following the next steps to carefully setup a smart ad campaign for your business.
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Choose Campaign Type
Google Ads provides you with different campaign types based on the different campaign goals you want to achieve. You can find the following campaign types:
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- Display
- Search
- Video
- App
- Shopping
- Local
- Discovery
- Performance Max
You can choose the campaign type after you have chosen your objective. For example, if your objective is to increase your website traffic, you can choose the “search” campaign type.
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Choose Campaign Settings
- Start by choosing your campaign name. It can be anything you want. This doesn’t affect your ad campaign performance.
- Choose where you want Google to display your ads. If you choose “search network”, your ads will be displayed in Google search results along with all the Google-partner sites. You can do this at much lesser costs and get great results.
- Next is to set your ad schedule. You can click “show more settings” to set the start and end dates of your ad campaign. Also, consider the time zones while setting up an ad campaign. The default time zone is set according to the current location. If you want to display your ad in other time zones, do some math to find the right local time for displaying the ads.
- Choose the location and the language to display your ad campaign. You get the option to set up different permutations and combinations of locations and choose your target market.
- You need to set up your daily ad budget. For this, you need to understand that setting a low daily ad budget won’t give you any results. However, setting a higher daily ad budget will burn a hole in your pocket. To achieve the balance, you need to do some research. Based on your keywords, try to search for the industry-specific ad budget. Divide it by 30.4 days and find your daily ad budget value.
- Determine and choose your bid strategy. You can either choose manual bidding or automatic bidding. Manual bidding gives you more control as you can set the max CPC value. Whereas automatic bidding lets Google make all the CPC decisions on your behalf.
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Set Up Ad Groups
As mentioned above, you can use the Keyword Planner tool to find the right keywords for your ad campaign. You can either use the suggested keyword groups provided by Google or you can create your groups based on the keyword intent. Setting up these ad groups is critical for the success of your ad campaign.
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Create Your Ad
Now, you have set up everything. It is time to create your final ad. One of the most important things is to set up responsive ads that can be run on all types of devices. You also need to provide the final URL and the landing page. You can also add any Google ad extensions to increase the reach of your ad.
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Publish Your Ad and Track Performance
Once you have created your ad and provided the billing information, it is time to publish your ad and let it go live. Once it is live, you must start tracking its performance. Performance tracking will help you understand how your ad is performing and what its reach is. You can make subsequent changesto the ad to improve its performance.
Wrap it Up
Google Ads are a great way to boost your marketing campaign. Planning and setting up a Google PPC ad campaigncan feel daunting but with the right strategy,it can do wonders!
If you need more help and insight into planning and setting up your Google Ads campaign, you can get in touch with us at Keystone Executive Coaching. With our training programs and guidance, you can plan and set up an excellent ad campaign.
Along with marketing efforts, our business coach will also help you in other business functions such as finances, sales, human resources, and more.
Contact us now to know more.
