Creating Your First Campaign
The first time you create an ad campaign, AdWords guides you through several steps where you’ll choose your ad campaign’s settings, write your first ad, and select keywords that you think your customers would use when they’re searching for information related to your products or services. Thinking about your customers’ preferences, habits, and traits can help you choose the right settings for your campaign – settings that can influence whether your ads reach the right people.
Picturing your customer
Create a mental profile of your audience or your customers. Here are some important areas to consider about your customers’ preferences and behavior:
- Words and phrases they use to search online
- Favorite websites
- Geographical location
- Whether they tend to email you or call your business phone number
Tip
Before you dive into your first campaign, think about who your customers are, how much you want to spend to reach them with your ads, and what results you’re expecting for your campaign to be a success.
Creating a campaign
Choose campaign settings based on your audience or customer profile. You’ll also select the budget you want to spend each day to show your ads:
- Sign in to your AdWords account.
- Click Create your first campaign.
- You’ll be taken to the “Select campaign settings” page. Choose your campaign settings.
- Click Save and continue. You can edit your campaign settings at any time.
Creating your ad and choosing keywords
After you’ve saved your campaign settings, you’ll be taken to the “Create ad and keywords” page.
Tip
While you can choose from multiple ad formats, newer advertisers may want to begin their AdWords journey with text ads. Writer’s block? Discover tips for creating successful ads.
- In the “Create an ad” section, select “Text ad” and type in your headline, description, display URL, and destination URL. Both URLs should come from the same website.
- In the “Keywords” section, enter a list of 10-20 keywords. You can add more keywords later. Learn how to choose keywords when you create a campaign.
- Click Save and continue to billing. You’ve just created your first text ad campaign!
Choosing the Right Campaign Type
As you get started with your campaign setup, you’ll be asked to pick a campaign type. This determines which settings and options you see as you customize your campaign – for example, which types of ads you can design and where customers can see them.
Choosing the right campaign type can save you time, by tailoring the campaign setup to just what’s appropriate for your goals, and eliminating unrelated features. The campaign type you pick determines which settings you’ll be shown as you create or edit your campaign – settings such as budget and targeting. Keep in mind that once you’ve saved your campaign type, switching types can mean that some features you used may be hidden or deactivated.
As you create a campaign, you must first pick which networks you want to target your ads to – the Search Network only, Display Network only, or both Search & Display Network.
Search Network with Display Select: Your ad will show on the Google Search Network, which includes Google Search, Shopping, Maps, and search sites that partner with Google, like AOL, and the Google Display Network, which includes sites and apps that partner with Google as well as Google sites like Gmail, YouTube, Blogger, and Google Finance. This is a good choice if you want your ads to reach the widest set of possible customers – but the hardest choice if you want to track, manage, and create a profitable a campaign. This approach is too broad in scope and it would be easier to create an effective campaign if you separate the two ad networks.
Search Network only: Your ad will show on Google search sites, including Google Search, Shopping, Maps, Images, and Groups, as well as on search results on sites that partner with Google, like AOL.
Display Network only: Your ad will show on Google’s network of partner websites, as well as on Google sites like Gmail, YouTube, Blogger, and Google Finance.
Shopping: The best way to create product listing ads (PLA’s).
Video: Video advertising on YouTube and across the web.
Universal App Campaign: Promote your mobile application across Search, Display and YouTube networks.
Next, you’ll choose which specific sub-types to create. If you’re a new advertiser the Standard campaign type will be less complicated, however it is recommended to select all features when creating a camping to give you the widest possible choices.
Campaign Type Sub-groups
Within each network are sub-groups to fine tune your campaign settings:
Search Sub-groups
Standard – Keyword-targeted text ads showing on Google search results.
All features – All the features and options available for the Search Network.
Mobile app installs – Ads encouraging people to download your app.
Mobile app engagement – Ads that encourage actions within your app.
Dynamic Search Ads – Ads targeted based on your website content.
Call-only – Ads that encourage people to call your business.
Display Only Sub-groups
Marketing objectives – Just the features and options relevant to what you want to accomplish.
No marketing objective – All available features and options.
Remarketing – Ads targeting people who have previously visited your website.
Engagement – Rich media interactive ads optimized for user engagement.
Ads in mobile apps – Ads for your website that show exclusively on mobile app.
Google Search Partners
Sites in the Search Network that partner with Google to show ads.
- Search partners extend the reach of Search ads to hundreds of non-Google websites (like AOL), as well as Google Maps, YouTube, and other Google sites.
- On our search partners, your ads can appear on search results pages, on site directory pages, or on other pages related to a person’s search.
- With Shopping campaigns, your Product Listing Ads can appear on search partner sites that display and link to products for sale.
- Search partners are included within Search Network campaigns by default, but you can choose not to show your ads on search partners by deselecting the “Include search partners” checkbox as you create a campaign.
- When you deselect “Include search partners,” your ads are eligible to show on Google Search and Shopping only.
- The clickthrough rate (CTR) for ads on search partner sites doesn’t impact yourQuality Score on Google.com.
Tip
For typical campaigns, it is recommended to not include Google Search Partners within your campaign as the additional clicks can skew your metrics and provide lower quality traffic resulting in a lower ROI.
Choosing Location and Language Settings
You can help ensure that your ads reach the customers you want. Use location and language settings to have your ads appear to customers in your targeted geographic locations, or to customers who have selected your targeted language as their interface language.
With your location settings, you can target the geographic areas where your ads can appear. For example, if you own an e-commerce store in the United States and you want to target the state of California, you can use your location settings to do just that.
Your language settings allow you to put your ads on Google products and third-party websites in the languages that your customers speak.
Example
Let’s say that you own a business in Norway and you’ve targeted your ads to the country of Norway, and set your target language to Norwegian. This means that your ads can appear on Google for customers in Norway who have set Norwegian as their interface language.
You will need to adjust your location setting using the following sub-sets of control:
Target
- People in, or who show interest in my targeted location.
- People in my targeted location.
- People who show interest in my targeted location.
Exclude
- People in, or who show interest in my excluded location.
- People in my excluded location.
Choosing Your Bidding Budget
To run your ads on Google, you’ll need to decide on the right campaign budget and ad group bids. Your budget establishes a charging limit for an individual campaign, so it should be an amount you’d be comfortable spending per day (or seeing on your monthly credit card bill if you multiplied your budget by 30.4, the average number of days in a month). Your actual costs may be lower, depending on how you manage your bids.
Your bid is the most you’re willing to spend per click. By managing your bids, you may influence the amount of traffic your ads receive, as well as the ROI they generate. With higher bids, your campaign is likely to receive more traffic while spending more money. With lower bids, your campaign is likely to improve its ROI, but receive fewer clicks and conversions.
About your campaign bidding options
When many people think of an auction, they often think of a prize being sold for the highest bid. But Google’s ad auction uses both quality and bid to determine your ad’s position. So even if your competition bids higher than you, you can still win a higher position – at a lower price – with highly relevant keywords and ads. You’ll often pay less than your maximum bid, because with the ad auction you pay no more than what’s needed to rank higher than the advertiser immediately below you. The amount you pay is called your actual CPC.
The ad auction
Your ad rank is based on an ad auction. Your maximum cost-per-click Max CPC is the highest price you’re willing to pay when someone clicks on your ad. With higher bids, your campaign is likely to receive more traffic while spending more money. With lower bids, your campaign is likely to improve its return on investment (ROI), but receive fewer clicks and conversions.
There are several bidding options (for advanced details, see Determining a bid option based on your goals)
Bid Strategy Options
- Focus on clicks – use maximum CPC bids.
- Manually set bids for clicks (recommended).
- AdWords will set my bids to help maximize clicks within my target budget. NOTE: If you select automatic bidding, ad scheduling will be turned off and your ads will show all of the time.
- OPTIONAL: Enable Enhanced CPC – use my conversion tracking data and bids to optimize for my current conversion bid metric setting: Conversions.
- Focus on impressions – use maximum CPM bids (only available within Display Network).
- Focus on conversions (Conversion Optimizer) – use CPA bids. NOTE: You’ll need to have at least 30 conversions logged by Adwords to have this option enabled.
- Select a flexible bid strategy.
With manual bidding, your ad group’s default bid amount will be applied to all keywords in your new campaign’s ad group. You may change your bid amount at any time. You also may change this value for individual keywords via the Max CPC column on the Keywords tab. Learn how to Choose a bid for your keywords.
Tip
Try the Google Keyword Tool to get an idea of the potential click traffic, average CPC, and cost per day for your keywords.
Tip
Use manual bidding to start a campaign or use a bid strategy like “First Page Result +30%”.
Setting bid adjustments
You can set bid adjustments that increase or decrease your bids when your ad is competing to appear on mobile devices, in specific locations, and at particular days and times. Bid adjustments can give you more control over when and where your ad appears, and are applied on top of your existing bids. You can also customize your bidding strategy by setting multiple adjustments that work together, such as location and time of day, or time of day and mobile devices.
Tip
By default, campaigns are set to target all devices. Many campaign managers segment their campaign by device in order to optimize ROI. Desktop and table are typically grouped together and mobile is broken into a separate campaign because each platform has a substantially different conversion rate.
About your campaign budget
Keep in mind that your budget amount is for a single campaign, as opposed to a total amount for all your campaigns overall. Your campaign’s budget should be the highest amount that you’re willing to spend on average per day over a month. If you’re working with a monthly advertising budget, you can estimate your average daily budget by dividing that amount by 30.4 (the average number of days per month). Note that this estimate may vary slightly, due to some months being longer or shorter.
Tip
Start small! If you’re a beginner, try a daily budget of $10 to $50. Check your account soon after applying a new budget to see how your campaigns have performed.
Because customer traffic fluctuates from day to day, Google may allow up to 20% more clicks (or other ad activity for campaigns on another bidding option) in one day than your daily budget specifies. This is called overdelivery.
However, the AdWords system makes sure that in a given billing period, you’re never charged more than 30.4 multiplied by your daily budget amount. For example, if you budget $10 per day, the maximum you would pay is $304.
If Google over delivers your ads too much, and your accrued costs in a billing period exceed the charging limit for your budget, a credit will automatically be applied to your account. For instance, if your monthly charging limit is $304, and you’ve accrued $310 in costs in a given billing period, you’ll receive a credit for $6 and only be charged $304.
Tip
Are your campaigns using up all of your budget? Your budget settings include the option to View recommended budget, which is based on analysis of your campaign performance, typically from the past 15 days.
Choosing an Ad Delivery Method
Some advertisers may see different options in their campaigns’ settings tabs. This is because different campaign types support different features. If you can’t locate the options below, learn how you can switch campaign types to see them.
Ad delivery determines how often your ads show throughout the day. After you set your campaign’s budget, you have the option to choose one of two ad delivery methods:
- Standard delivery (the default option) distributes your budget throughout the day to avoid reaching your budget early on. This option is recommended if you want to reach your audience evenly throughout the day, rather than just in the morning.
- Accelerated delivery displays your ads more quickly until you run out of budget. So, if your campaign is limited by budget, your ad might stop running earlier in the day.
There are more ad delivery options in “Advanced settings.” Ad rotation determines how often AdWords will deliver your active ads in relation to one another within an ad group. You can choose to optimize either for clicks or conversions, or to rotate your ads more evenly. If you’re running ads on the Display Network, you can set a limit on the number of times your ad appears to a unique visitor using frequency capping.
Understanding ad delivery and your budget
For most advertisers, budget is used whenever a potential customer clicks your ad. The more often your ad shows, the faster you’ll use up your daily budget. Your ad will stop showing as soon as your daily allocated budget is spent. So your choice of delivery method determines how often and over how much time your ad shows, and how long your budget lasts.
Standard delivery (default method)
- How it works: AdWords will try to evenly distribute your ad delivery across the entire day (12 a.m. – 11:59 p.m.).
- Who it’s best for: This method is best if you want to reach customers at different times throughout the day. If you have a small budget, this method can also help you avoid spending your entire budget in the morning. For instance, if you run a gourmet food delivery business, you’d want to make sure you reach customers at breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
- What to expect: Since your ad delivery occurs throughout the day, you might not see your ad appear every time you look for it. (Remember, to see your ad in context, it’s better to use the ad preview tool than to do a search on Google.)
Accelerated delivery
- How it works: As soon as each day starts (12 a.m.), your ad appears more quickly until you hit your budget limit.
- Who it’s best for: This method is best if it’s important to you that your ads show starting in the morning and more quickly thereafter until your budget is reached, even if that means they might not show all day.
- What to expect: Remember that your ads will stop showing once you’ve reached your budget allocated for that day (see below for more details). So, if you reach your budget limit early in the morning, your ad won’t run again until the next day.
Choosing an ad rotation setting for your campaign
Ad rotation is the way AdWords delivers your ads on both the Search Network and the Display Network. If you have multiple ads within an ad group, your ads will rotate, because no more than one ad from your account can show at a time. If you’d like to specify how often you’d like the ads in your ad group to be served relative to one another, you have four options:
- Optimize for clicks (default): Ads expected to provide more clicks are delivered more often into the ad auction than other ads in the ad group. These higher-quality ads gain more impressions than other ads in the ad group, resulting in higher ad-served percentages. By using this option, your ad group will likely receive more impressions and clicks overall, since higher-quality ads attain better positions and attract more user attention.
- How it works: the Optimized algorithm sends ads into auctions based on principles of statistical analysis. As data is accumulated, ad serving will become weighted more heavily in favor of the ads that appear statistically likely to perform better. It’s possible for ad serving to remain relatively even within this setting, if ads in an ad group have similar performance or if the ad group does not receive a substantial amount of impressions and clicks for some period of time.
- Optimize for conversions: Ads expected to provide more conversions are delivered more often into the ad auction than other ads in the ad group. This option optimizes for conversions, so it takes both clickthrough rate (CTR) and conversion rate into consideration. If there isn’t enough conversion data to determine which ad will provide the most conversions, ads will rotate using “Optimize for clicks” data. Although this option may result in your ad group receiving fewer clicks than the previous option, it will likely receive more conversions, which can result in an improved return on investment (ROI).
- Rotate evenly: Delivers your ads more evenly into the ad auction. If ads in an ad group are unchanged for 90 days, the campaign will automatically begin to optimize for clicks or conversions. If the campaign is using Conversion Optimizer or Enhanced CPC, it will optimize for conversions, otherwise it will optimize for clicks. Even though this setting is at the campaign level, the even rotation period is tracked separately for each ad group. It starts (and resets) for an ad group whenever the ads in that ad group change: specifically, when a new ad gets added, when an existing ad is changed, or when a paused/deleted ad is enabled. When the even rotation period ends and AdWords optimizes for clicks, the campaign setting will continue to say “Rotate evenly.” Note that for campaigns using the CPM bidding option, ads will continue to rotate more evenly beyond the 90 days.
- Rotate indefinitely: Similar to the “Rotate evenly” setting, this option delivers your ads more evenly into the ad auction, but does so for an indefinite amount of time and does not optimize. This option is not recommended for most advertisers.
Note
- Generally, rotating evenly allows ads with lower clickthrough rates and conversion rates to show more often, so this option could result in a lower average position or fewer clicks and conversions if the lower performing ads are not paused manually. Once you’re confident that you’ve received enough impressions to accurately measure the ads performance, it is recommend to rotate your ads indefinitely and control which ads are enabled versus allowing Google to make the decision for you.
- The “Rotate evenly” and “Rotate indefinitely” options, the percentages of ads served in the ad group will be more even than the other ad rotation options. However, they may not be exactly even because AdWords considers an ad’s Quality Score when ranking on a search result page and an ad with a high quality score may appear on the first page of search results where it accrues an impression every time it’s served vs an ad with a low Quality Score that appears on subsequent pages that only accrue impressions if the user clicks through to that page.
Setting a frequency cap on impressions for Display Network ads
Frequency capping limits the number of times your ads appear to the same unique user on the Google Display Network. It doesn’t apply to the Search Network.
If you turn on frequency capping for a campaign, you specify a limit for the number of impressions you’ll allow per day, per week, or per month for an individual user. You also choose whether the cap applies to each ad, ad group, or campaign. If you’re advertising on websites that see a lot of repeat visitors (like The New York Times), this helps you avoid showing your ad too much to the same folks.
Ad Scheduling
Depending on your business (retail store with operating hours versus 24-7 ecommerce website) you can schedule your ad delivery times to only deliver your ads while you’re open for business. Learn more about using custom ad scheduling.