Google Ads are one of the most powerful tools for growing your business and building a social media presence.
In this world, it’s important to understand that you have to pay to play. That doesn’t necessarily mean that you must buy a Google Ad to become a player in your industry. However, an added boost in reach from an ad campaign will surely help.
In this article, I’ll walk you through a simple checklist to help run your first Google Ad campaign, as described by Google themselves.
1 – Name Your Campaign & Understand Your Ad’s Purpose
After creating your campaign name, the first question that Google will ask you is about your campaign’s primary goal.
While it may seem simple that this is part of the checklist, you’d be surprised at how many people run advertisements without properly understanding their own intentions. For example, if you want to get customers to buy your new eBook, you shouldn’t be selecting ad campaigns that generate brand awareness. If you want more website traffic, make sure to select the important keywords from the start.
2 – Set Your Budget
The beautiful thing about Google Ads is that you get to control how much you spend.
There are two ways to set a budget – you can either create it via a limit or a bid. With a limit, you’re capping the amount of money you can spend in a given time period – a day, week, month, etc. With a bid, you set a maximum amount you’re willing to spend to rank for a specific keyword.
The option you choose depends entirely on your goals. If you’re just starting out, I would recommend choosing a limit over a bid. Things can spiral out of control quickly when you don’t know what you’re doing, so it’s best to know how much you’ll spend if you max out your budget.
3 – Select Your Keywords
Once you’ve got all of the back-end stuff done, it’s time to input your keywords. This is vital – I’d say more important than any other step – because your keywords determine where your ad is placed, who sees it, and ultimately who reacts to it.
Pick keywords that match the goal you’re after and the goal that your target customers are after. You want to be selecting keywords that potential customers are searching for!
4 – Decide Where to Show Yours Ads & Then Copywrite
You must decide which platforms you want your ads to show up on, whether that be mobile devices, videos, search, etc. Once you’ve decided on that, it’s time to produce the actual content of your advertisement.
Imagine yourself in an elevator pitch. It’s you vs. a stranger and the goal is to get them to buy your product. In your ad, you need to be as precise as possible with your intentions and selling points. Failure to do so will result in ad money spent with no results to show for it.
The Bottom Line
GoogleAds specialists are specialists for a reason! But, that doesn’t mean you can’t run some great ads to get you started. With the proper set-up and use of a defined checklist, you can reach the right customers, sell your products, and grow your business. Your well-thought-out Google Ads Campaign combined with effective branding will get your business to new heights.
