Creating a Google Ads campaign may seem complex, but this detailed guide will take you through the process to help you promote your products or services online. By following these steps and tips, you’ll maximize the results of your online advertising and outperform the competition with SEA paid search.
You can delegate the creation of your Google Ads campaign to our SEA agency Altosor Communication to save time and efficiency right from the start, and make your marketing campaign a success.
Discover our Google Ads campaign rates
10 steps to setting up a Google Ads campaign
Setting up a Google Ads campaign involves several key steps, including :
- Create a Google Ads account: Register for free at ads.google.com and follow the instructions to create your account.
- Keyword selection: Use the Google Ads keyword planning tool to identify relevant and profitable terms for your ad.
- Ad creation: Write eye-catching ads with a title, description and visible link to your website or landing page of choice.
- Bidding and budgeting: Choose a bidding strategy to suit your objectives (cost-per-click, cost-per-impression, cost-per-conversion) and set a daily budget for your campaign.
- Setting targeting options: Select the relevant targeting options based on your target audience (geographic, demographic, centers of interest).
1. Define the advertising objective of your Google Ads campaign
Before diving into the details of Google Ads campaigns, it’s essential to define a precise advertising objective to guide your strategy. A clearly defined objective is crucial to the success of a Google Ads campaign. This objective must be based on your company’s specific expectations. Here are a few examples of common objectives:
- Generate online sales or conversions
- Attract local customers
- Increase newsletter subscriptions
- Promoting an event
- Increase traffic to your website
- Improve brand awareness.
Once you’ve established this objective, you can choose the type of Google Ads campaign best suited to your needs. The objective you choose will directly influence the configuration of your campaign, including the choice of campaign type, the keywords selected and the creation of ads.
Free consultation with a Google Ads expert
2. Understand your market and your competitors’ strategies
In-depth knowledge of your market and what your competitors are doing can help you create a more effective campaign.
Understanding your market and your competitors’ strategies is essential to creating an effective Google Ads campaign. Here are a few steps to follow:
- Analyze your market: Identify who your customers are, what their needs are and how they make their purchasing decisions. Use tools such as Google Trends, Google Analytics and market reports to obtain this information.
- Identify your competitors: Make a list of your main competitors. You can do this by searching for your products or services on Google and seeing which companies come up.
- Analyze your competitors’ strategy: Examine your competitors’ ads on Google. What keywords are they targeting? What kind of language do they use in their ads? What are their calls to action? Use tools such as SEMRush or SpyFu to obtain detailed information on your competitors’ strategy.
- Identify opportunities: Based on your analysis, identify opportunities to stand out from your competitors. This could be by targeting keywords your competitors are overlooking, creating more compelling ads, or offering unique incentives.
- Test and optimize your strategy: Once you’ve launched your campaign, monitor its performance regularly and make adjustments based on what’s working and what’s not.
By understanding your market and your competitors’ strategies, you can create a Google Ads campaign that effectively targets your ideal customers and stands out from the competition.
3. Create personas for your Google ads campaign
Personas help you understand who your ideal customers are and how they interact with your brand.
Creating personas for your Google Ads campaign is an important step in understanding who your ideal customers are and how they interact with your brand. Here’s a step-by-step guide to creating personas for your campaign:
- Identify key information: Start by identifying the key information you’ll need to create your personas. This could include demographic information (age, gender, place of residence, etc.), information on buying behavior (how, when and why they buy), and information on their interests and preferences.
- Collect data: Use different methods to collect this information. You can use surveys, interviews, analysis of your sales data, and tools like Google Analytics.
- Create customer groups: Based on the data you’ve collected, create different groups of customers who share similar characteristics. Each group will represent a persona.
- Bring your personas to life: For each group, create a detailed profile describing that persona. Give it a name, a picture, and write a short story about it. Include all the key information you identified in step 1.
- Use your personas to guide your campaign strategy: Your personas should help you make key decisions about your Google Ads campaign, such as which keywords to target, what type of ads to create, and where and when to display your ads.
Remember, personas are tools to help you better understand your customers. They are not perfect, and should be reviewed and updated regularly as you gather new information.
4. Select a Google Ads campaign type
Google Ads offers several types of campaigns on different networks to meet different advertising objectives:
- Search campaigns: These ads appear in Google search results and are ideal for reaching Internet users who are actively looking for your products or services.
- Display campaigns: These display ads in the form of images or videos on various Google partner websites.
- Shopping campaigns: This type of campaign highlights your products directly in Google Shopping search results, ideal for e-commerce businesses.
- Video campaigns: These are used to display video ads on YouTube and other partner sites.
- App campaigns: These campaigns are designed to promote mobile applications on Google Play and other platforms.
Each type of campaign has its own specificities, so it’s essential to choose the network that best matches your advertising objectives.
Contact us for an online quote
5. Set a budget to launch your Google Ads campaign
You need to decide how much you’re willing to spend on your campaign.
Setting a budget for your Google Ads campaign is a crucial step that requires detailed planning. Here are a few steps to follow:
- Define your objectives: Your campaign objectives will largely determine your budget. For example, if you’re looking to increase brand awareness, you may need a larger budget than if you’re simply looking to generate a few sales. Find out more here.
- Understand the average cost per click (CPC) in your sector: The average cost per click varies according to the sector and the keywords you’re targeting. Use the Google Ads keyword planning tool to obtain a CPC estimate for your keywords.
- Estimate the number of clicks you need: Based on your estimated conversion rate, determine how many clicks you’ll need to reach your objectives. For example, if you have a conversion rate of 5%, you’ll need 20 clicks to get one conversion.
- Calculate your daily budget: Multiply the number of clicks you need per day by your estimated CPC to obtain your daily budget. 4 .
- Calculate your monthly budget: Multiply your daily budget by the number of days in the month to obtain your monthly budget.
- Allow room for optimization: Leave some margin in your budget to test different elements of your campaign, such as ads and keywords, and to optimize your performance.
Don’t forget that you can always adjust your budget according to the results of your campaign. If you see that certain ads or keywords are performing better than others, you can increase your budget for these elements.
Discover our Google Ads campaign rates
What budget for a Google ads campaign?
Defining the budget for a Google Ads campaign depends on a number of factors, including your objectives, the competitiveness of your keywords and the size of your business.
According to Google Ads Help, you have the option of defining an average daily budget or a shared budget for a campaign. For example, with an average daily budget of €10, your monthly spending limit would be €304.
The average cost per click in Google Ads is generally between €2 and €4 on the search network. However, these figures can vary depending on the competitiveness of your keywords and your sector of activity.
In our experience, for small local businesses, the recommended budget for Google Ads is generally between €500 and €7,000 per month. For medium-sized companies, the recommended budget is generally between €2,000 and €30,000 per month.
However, it is possible to start with a budget as low as €5 per day. The important thing is to regularly monitor your campaign’s performance and adjust your budget accordingly to maximize your return on investment.
Use our Altosor Google Ads consultants to optimize your campaigns every month and save on your advertising budget. We’ll give you the best advice on how to achieve the best results with the lowest budget, and maximize your ROI.
6. Keyword selection
Keywords are essential to reach your target audience with your ads. Here are some tips for choosing relevant, high-quality keywords:
- Use tools such as Google Keyword Planner to identify popular keywords in your field.
- Select keywords based on search volume, competition and cost-per-click (CPC). Our Google Ads expert evaluates each word before selecting it.
- Give preference to long-tail expressions, which are more specific and less competitive.
- Consider different match types: exact, phrase or modified wide query.
Don’t forget to regularly monitor the performance of your keywords and adjust your selection if necessary.
7. Ad creation
To create attractive and convincing ads, follow these recommendations:
- Use catchy titles (max. 30 characters) that reflect your target keywords.
- Write relevant descriptions (90 characters max) that highlight the benefits of your products or services.
- Integrate ad extensions to enrich your ads with additional information, such as links to specific pages on your site.
8. Budget and auction management
Google Ads works on abidding systemfor keywords. Here are some tips on how to manage your campaign budget effectively:
- Determine a daily budget based on your goals and financial resources.
- Choose a bidding strategy adapted to your objectives, for example: maximize clicks, maximize conversions or target cost per acquisition (CPA).
- Regularly monitor the performance of your ads and adjust bids if necessary.
Contact us for an online quote
9. Google Adwords campaign targeting options
Google Ads offers various targeting options to effectively reach your audience:
- Geographic targeting: Target specific areas such as countries, regions, cities or zip codes.
- Demographic targeting: Target groups of Internet users based on criteria such as age, gender or income.
- Interest-based targeting: Target Internet users according to their interests, browsing habits and purchasing behavior.
10. Tracking and analyzing the performance of your Google ads campaign
It’s essential to track the performance of your Google Ads campaign to measure its success and identify areas for improvement. Use the tracking and optimization tools provided by Google Ads, such as reports, data analysis and conversion tracking. Use the analysis tools provided by Google Ads, such as click-through rate(CTR), cost-per-click(CPC) and conversions, to measure the effectiveness of your ads and identify areas for improvement. And don’t forget to integrate Google Analytics with your Google Ads account for more in-depth analysis.
By putting these tips into practice, you’ll create high-performance Google Ads campaigns tailored to your needs. Remember that perseverance and adaptation are the key to success in the world of digital marketing.
Creating an effective Google Ads campaign takes time and effort. The SEA experts at Altosoradvertising agency are at your disposal to guide you in setting up a high-performance Googel Ads campaign for your company. Don’t wait any longer to maximize your advertising results while outperforming the competition.
Free consultation with a Google Ads expert
Advertising on LinkedIn Ads offers a unique opportunity to increase your reach and build long-term relationships with a large professional audience, thanks to targeted advertising campaigns and a variety of tools. On the other hand, Meta ads (formerly Facebook Ads) make it possible to reach a wider, more diverse audience on platforms like Facebook and Instagram, creating original, effective and high-performance campaigns3.