Google AdWords is a powerful tool for reaching more of your target audience. While Google doesn’t intentionally make it difficult to use, it may be overwhelming for first-time users who don’t have experience with the platform. That’s why we created this easy-to-follow guide to ensure you properly set up your AdWords campaign, whether it’s your first time or 100th time.
Google AdWords is one of the most effective online advertising tools out there to increase your brand awareness and reach potential customers and donors. Specifically, it allows you to create ads that appear on Google Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs) and the Google Display network. By creating ads with keywords that your target audience is searching for regarding your organization, you will expand your reach. If you need more information about online advertising, be sure to check out our beginner’s guide to online advertising.
Before tackling your first AdWords campaign, you’ll need to understand and decide on a few things. We’ll go into detail of each of these factors to help you prepare your campaign.
As a Google Search Network Only advertiser, you only have to pay when your ads receive a click. Google AdWords is engineered to display the most relevant ads to a user’s search inquiry. Below, we will go into detail about how the system works and how they choose which ad to have the highest ranking.
Google uses an auction system to determine the ad rankings that appear on a SERP and the cost for each ad click. However, the system is unique in that the highest bidder doesn’t always receive the highest ranking. The highest ranking is actually determined by your ad rank score. The results will fluctuate from time to time depending on the competition. For an in-depth explanation, watch Hal Varian, Google’s Chief Economist, explain insights on the AdWords auction system.
Google’s system multiplies your maximum bid and your quality score to create your ad rank score. The ad rank score ensures that the most relevant paid ads appear first for the user. We’ll break down each part of the algorithm so that you can successfully create your campaign.
Your bid makes up half of your ad rank score. The higher your bid, the higher your score. Remember that you only pay per click and that you will just pay enough to beat the next highest bidder, which may be lower than your maximum bid.
While your bid is important, it’s not as effective if your ad quality score is low. Your quality score is determined by your landing page experience, ad relevance, and expected clickthrough rate. You are always able to check your quality score. Make sure you present a high-quality ad to increase your ad rank score.
Google formulates an expected impact of your ad format. You can add extensions to your ad format (such as rating, contact info, website info, etc.) to boost your format impact score. In the event of two ads having a similar bid and quality, the one with the highest expected impact of ad format will have the highest ranking.
How you will measure your success from using Google AdWords is entirely up to you. Will you determine your success based off of the increase in donations to your nonprofit? Or are you seeking engagement with your organization that will eventually lead to growth in event attendance? Whatever your goals may be, prioritize them and measure the effectiveness of your ads accordingly.
First and foremost, it is necessary to be comfortable with the budget you set for your ads. Set an initial baseline budget and adjust accordingly based on the results of your advertising efforts. You can adjust your bid based on where, when, and how your target audience searches for keywords that relate to your organization. Meaning that if your target audience is more likely to search for these keywords through their smartphone, you can increase your bid to a higher percentage for searches on mobile devices.
You must consider your target audience before creating your campaign on Google AdWords. After all, the whole point of this adventure is to increase your reach to them! So when creating your campaign be sure to consider things like:
Also, be sure to pay attention when setting up your geographical location of your ad campaign. Pick target geographic locations for each campaign that focuses on your target audience in the areas where they are located to maximize your advertising efforts. Instead of creating an international or nationwide campaign, create multiple campaigns tailored to each geographic location you are targeting.
Now that you have considered the factors that go into creating your campaign, you’re ready to set it up properly.
The first step is to select the correct type of campaign to create. We’ll briefly describe each one so that you can choose which one is best for your organization. Please note that Google Ad Grant recipients are only eligible to use their accounts to create Search Network Campaigns.
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Search Network |
A Search Network Only campaign means that your text ads will display on the Google SERPs when users search for words that relate to your ad’s keywords. This is helpful for organizations who want to connect with potential customers when they are searching for relevant products and services. |
| Display Network | Display Network Only campaigns will reach your customers while they are on websites and apps that have relevant content to your keywords. You can target site’s based on sites your target audience frequently uses and select any site that has Google AdSense. This type of campaign is recommended for more experienced Google AdWords advertisers and is most beneficial if your organization is interested in building brand awareness. It gives you a different way to find your target audience based on their interests. |
| Shopping | Shopping campaigns allow you to promote your online and local inventory if you’re a retailer. Instead of a generic text ad, it will show users a photo of your product, a title, price, store name, and more. These ads give users a lot of information on the ad, so click-throughs will only be genuinely qualified leads. Additionally, these ads will increase your website traffic. |
| Video | The video campaign will show video ads on YouTube, either by themselves or within another streaming video. While this may sound complicated, it’s actually meant for first-timers to more-experienced pros. The ads are simple to create and to manage. |
| Universal App | This campaign is unique because you don’t design specific ads for your organization. Instead, you provide text, a starting bid, budget, and your target language and locations. Google’s systems then test different combinations and show ads that are performing the best. These ads will be promoted through Google Search, Google Play, YouTube, and the Google Display Network. |
We’ll be focusing on the Search Network Only campaign for the rest of this post. We will go into detail about how to create an effective ad campaign to display on the Google SERPs.
Now that you better understand what you want to get out of your online ads and Google AdWords, let’s roll up our sleeves and get to work. You are only four steps away from launching your ad campaign!
After creating a Search Network Only campaign, you will be prompted to select a goal: sales, leads, or website traffic. Choose the goal that best relates to the one you set earlier. You will use this goal to determine your success.
If you are a Google Ad Grants recipient, click the link under this section that says "Create your campaign without a goal".
Sales: Select this goal if you are wanting to attract users who are ready to act. If you’re a nonprofit whose objective is to increase donations, then choose Sales. The Google AdWords system will make recommendations to help you reach specific users in your target audience who are ready to take action with your organization.
Leads: Select this goal if you would like to increase engagement with your organization. For example, this goal is relevant to an organization who would like to see a growth in event attendance. The Google AdWords system will make recommendations to help you expand your reach and increase your lead generation.
Website Traffic: If your overall goal is to spread the word about your organization to a new, relevant audience, then choose Website Traffic. The Google AdWords system will make recommendations to help you attract your target audience to your website.
Next, we have to establish the settings for your Google AdWords campaign.
Next, you’ll create ad groups. Your campaign will be consist of one or more ad groups. An ad group has one or more ads that target a shared set of keywords. It’s recommended to set up your ad groups with ads that share a common theme. Learn why in this video from Google AdWords. To set up an ad group, you’ll create an ad group name, default bid, and keywords.
Lastly, you’ll need to create ads to go into your ad groups that will grasp your target audience’s attention. Google recommends setting up at least three ads that closely relate to the theme of the keywords you selected per ad group. Try rearranging the ad copy or using different key phrases to ensure that your ads are slightly different yet still relate to the same theme of keywords.
That’s how you create an effective ad on Google AdWords! Once you create at least three of these (the minimum that Google recommends), you’ll have an ad campaign all set up!