This Google Ads Campaign Setup Checklist will assist you to line up a profitable Google Ads campaign. When setting up correctly, Google Ads can be a very powerful tool to send quality visitors to your site that converts!

Follow these steps to urge a start on your competitors.

Step 1: Set budgets and goals

First, decide the goal to set the Google Ads campaign.

Which budget is out there and what the planned duration is of the campaign?

The campaign goal may be a maximum cost you’d wish to pay per conversion, which might be a purchase, lead, or anything you define as a priority on your site. Have one goal per Google Ads campaign. Having two goals for one campaign often makes it harder to optimize because the goals might clash with each other. If you’ve got more goals you would like to realize, then add another campaign within an equivalent Google Ads account and focus this one on the new goal.

Step 2: Keywords

Step 2.1: Create a large keyword list
Add as many relevant keywords to every ad group. Don’t forget to use plurals, different match types, and maybe even misspellings! To build the keyword list you’ll use the Keyword Tool within Google Ads.

Step 2.2: Group keywords into ad groups
There isn’t one right way in classifying the ad groups: a good layout of the ad groups makes the ad copy’s fit the keywords and makes it easier to optimize the Google Ads campaign later on. Ad groups are often divided supported the sort of keyword and relevance with the merchandise. It is not advisable to place specific and general keywords within the same ad group.

Step 2.3: Use different match types
Don’t rely too much on broad match keywords. Keep control over when your ad is being shown with the phrase and exact match keywords.

Step 2.4: Add negatives
Do add negative keywords to the keyword list. These negative keywords assist you to remain on top of things when Google shows your ads.

Step 3: Ads

Step 3.1: Use keyword in each ad copy
It is difficult to describe the perfect ad copy, this varies per Google Ads campaign, product, and keyword. By testing and optimizing the ad copy’s you can find out which ad copy is the best for which ad group.

TIP: Use the keyword insertion tag in your ads!

Step 3.2: Use specific landing pages for every ad group
Link your ads to the foremost specific landing pages on your site. If needed, consider creating new landing pages.

Step 3.3: Set up an ad testing structure
By testing and optimizing the ad copy’s you can find out which ad copy is the best for which ad group. Gradually start with at least 2 ad copies per ad group.

Step 4: Campaign Settings

Step 4.1: Make sure Campaign Type is about Network only
This checklist is formed for search campaigns, so confirm you’re not showing your ad on the display network instead.

Step 4.2: Disable search partner
In general, the search partners will offer you a poorer conversion rate. Let’s turn this off to start with, if you need more volume you can enable this again.

Step 4.3: Set mobile bid adjustments to -100%
It depends on the merchandise, but mobile often results in lower conversion rates also. Same as the search partners, you’ll turn this back on if you would like more volume. If you are doing so, it’s recommended to focus on mobile during a separate campaign.

Step 4.4: Set ad rotation to Rotate indefinitely
This will split out your ad rotation to 50/50, which we will need to get clean data to optimize your ads later on.

Step 4.5: Set language targeting to the acceptable language
You can start by targeting the language of your ads and website.

Step 4.6: Set location targeting to the acceptable location
Choose the situation you’d like your ads to be shown. Google offers the power to run ads in every possible location. Make sure to not target a too-small area because the search volume will decrease.

You can set bid adjustments per location if you would like to possess your ad shown higher in additional relevant locations.

Step 5: Tracking

Measure the results of the Google Ads campaign! Google provides two ways that help you to easily measure your results.

Option 1: Google Ads Conversion Tracking Code
The conversion tracking code measures the results of the Google Ads campaign. The conversion tracking code is often placed on a ‘Thank You’ page that appears when a conversion is completed.

Option 2: Google Analytics Tracking Code
Google Analytics is free software provided by Google that measures the statistics of the whole website (so not just the visitors from AdWords).

Setting up Google Analytics for your website is very recommended. Google Analytics is far and away from the simplest program (mainly because it’s offered for free) for measuring the statistics of your website.

Step 6: Launch

Set your campaign live!

Step 7: Optimise!

You thought you were done now? Unfortunately not.

The power of Google Ads lies in the ongoing optimization of your campaigns. Now that you set up your campaigns, you can actively optimize this based on the data. This means you will need to pause underperforming keywords, change your keyword bids, optimize your ad copy’s, change your settings, and much more.