Steps to prepare your campaign for success

8 Steps to Prepare Your Campaign for Success

This article helps you get a sense of the key considerations in setting up a successful Google Ads campaign. These features work together to help you design and manage campaigns that further your specific advertising goals.

1. Define Your Objective

Each campaign begins by choosing a goal. This goal focuses your campaign on delivering a specific outcome. The objective you choose will inform the options you select when setting up your campaign.

Learn more About campaign goals in Google Ads

For example, if your goal is to increase website traffic, you’ll likely want to select a type of bidding like Maximize Clicks, in order to put your money towards getting people to click your ad.

2. Choose a Campaign Type

After selecting a goal, you’ll notice a list of recommended campaign types to reach it. Your campaign type determines where your ads will show and what they’ll look like.

Learn more about Choosing the right campaign type

What are the campaign types?

- Search: Text ads on search results.

- Display: Image ads on websites, search results, and Gmail inboxes.

- Video: Video ads on YouTube.

- Demand Gen: Multi-image carousel ads on YouTube feeds, Gmail inboxes, and Discover.

- App: Auto-created ads on mobile search results, Google Play, YouTube, AdMob, Discover, and more.

- Shopping: Product listing ads on search results, Shopping tab, websites, and Gmail inboxes.

- Local: Text and image ads on Google Maps, websites, and YouTube.

- Performance Max: A combination of text, image, video, multi-image carousel, and product listing ads across various platforms.

3. Set a Budget

Set an average daily budget to control your spending. You can change it at any time.

Learn more About average daily budgets

4. Choose Your Bidding

Based on your campaign goal, select a recommended bidding focus, such as "conversions." If your preferred bid strategy isn't available, you may need to adjust your campaign goal or type.

Learn more about Automated bidding strategies

5. Add Assets to Your Ads

Enhance your Search, Video, Demand Gen, and Performance Max campaigns by adding more information to your ads, such as website links, directions, or phone numbers. These assets typically increase an ad's click-through rate.

Learn more about ad assets and assets you can select based on your business goals.

6. Create Ad Groups

Group related ads together around the same targeting for all campaigns except Shopping and Performance Max. Shopping campaigns use product groups for similar products.

Learn more about How ad groups work

7. Select Your Targeting

Targeting helps define the audience for your ads. Common forms include keywords, audiences, locations, topics, devices, and remarketing. Specific targeting options may vary depending on the campaign type.

Learn more about Targeting your ads

8. Set Up Conversions

Conversion tracking helps you track the actions customers take on your website. It's essential for assessing the effectiveness of your ads and overall campaigns. Note that conversion tracking is required for some campaign types.

Learn more About conversion tracking

Key Takeaways

By following these eight steps, you can effectively set up and manage a successful Google Ads campaign. Define clear objectives, choose the right campaign type, set a budget, select appropriate bidding, add useful assets, create focused ad groups, target your audience, and set up conversion tracking to achieve your advertising goals.

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