Setting up & running a PPC campaign is easy & no such expertise required to do this.
In this guide, you will learn how to set up an effective PPC campaign in Google Ads.
What is PPC Marketing?
Before we get started, we need to understand what PPC Marketing is.
PPC or Pay-per-click advertising /Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is a paid marketing strategy that is done via online software like Google Ads or Bing Ads.
When you do PPC marketing, you only get charged on per per-click basis on your ad on search engines & you don’t need to pay anything to set up any ad campaign.
This advertising is done in two ways:
Search Advertising: When you opt for this type of marketing, your ad will only show on search engines like Google & its related search engines (AOL, etc.).
Display Advertising: This type of advertising is mainly done for branding. The ads run on display networks such as websites, and videos using banners & creatives.
This is completely optional to choose the platform for running ads. It depends on the motto of any business advertising if they want leads/sales, or branding.
In this guide, we will only talk about Google Ads.
Step 1: Setting Up A Campaign
This is the very first step of your PPC marketing. Just like any organizational structure, Google Ads has some levels which are
- Campaign
- Ad Groups
- Keywords
- Ads
In a very simple way, we can understand this like, Google Ads has a campaign, the Campaign has ad groups, Ad group has keywords & ad copies.
So, in this way, the Campaign has a top-level in the Google Ads structure where ad groups, ads & keywords come later on.
To start a campaign login to the Google Ads & click on the create campaign, this will take you to a window where it will ask for the goal of creating your campaign.
You can choose any of the objectives above & hit continue.
Once you choose any of the above objectives, it will take you to the next step for choosing the network for your ads.
The network choice can be different, depending on the objective you choose.
I’ve chosen Sales so I get this window:
Here you will be asked about the ad campaign type you want to have for running your ads.
As mentioned above, Search is for search engine ads & display is for display or banner ads for websites & video platforms.
There are some other options as well which are the combination of search & display network
Smart: Your ad will run on both search & display networks.
Shopping: This is a different type of campaign that runs on Google Merchant Center using the product feed from your website.
Video: Dedicated for the video ad formats, will run on YouTube & other partner media playing websites.
Other than sales or leads, if you choose App promotion as the objective in the previous campaign goal step then you will have the option to run ads (basically mobile app promotion) on the app network. This is dedicated to mobile app promotion & ads run on various platforms to promote app downloads.
I’ve selected sales as the campaign objective & search as the ads platform because I want to run my ads to Google & its partner search engine.
I may have chosen Display as the ad platform but I would need ads in the banner to be uploaded here so that they can be run on websites.
In the third step of the screen, it will ask about “Select the ways you’d like to reach your goal”
Here you need to choose how you want your conversions. These can be:
- Website visits: Your customer will land on your website & make your defined conversion action.
- Phone calls: When getting phone calls is your conversion action.
- Store visits: When you want your customers to visit your online store.
- App downloads: When your goal is to increase the downloads of your mobile app.
I selected Website Visits & added my website URL and hit the continue button.
After you hit the Continue button, you will be on the General Settings page where you need to fill in basic information like campaign name, etc.
I name my campaign My First Campaign.
In the next option, if you want to make ad scheduling, etc you can go for the Show More Setting option. Otherwise, it’s good to go.
Then we need to drill father & select the targeting, language & audience.
Here I’ve selected India as my target location because I want to run ads in India. You can choose it according to your targeted country, state, or city.
Then you have to choose the language of the ad targeting. I’ve chosen English because I want to show my ads to the people whose Google search setting is set to English or in another way, who are English speakers.
Now you have to choose the audience by searching for the customer type according to your business.
You will get three options:
Search: The very basic step is to search your audience where you need to find your audience manually.
Browse: Here you can go to the category of audience & choose the best among them for your business.
Ideas: This is completely based on your website. Google Ads will automatically scan your website & share some ideas with you. Be careful while you choose the ideas suggested by Google. Since it’s a bot it can be wrong sometimes.
After you choose your audience, the next step is to select the daily budget of your campaign.
Here, your currency is by default set based on your account setup & cannot be changed.
My default currency is Indian Rupee, so I’ve added ₹2,000 as my daily budget.
After you set the daily budget, you need to specify your maximum CPC bid. Maximum CPC bid means how much maximum amount you are willing to pay on each click on your ad.
Maximum CPC bid can be anything but always research about it while checking out for the bidding price for your industry keywords in Google Keywords Planner.
I’ve added ₹70 per click.
Once done, hit the SAVE & CONTINUE button.
Step 2: Setting Up Ad Group
The campaign level setting has been done. Now you need to a setup Ad group.
Just like the campaign, you also need to add a name for your ad group.
A campaign can have multiple ad groups, so always split ad groups according to their relevancy.
If you are creating any campaign for a travel website, it is better to create a separate ad group for Hotel bookings, Flight bookings, or holiday packages. In this way, you can achieve a good Google Quality score & which will result in maximum clicks at a lower cost.
So, as a first step, I named my ad group SEO Webinar & started choosing keywords that I will target.
To select the keywords just add the service name & general keyword idea to the keywords field & Google Ads will suggest the keywords.
Always choose the keywords according to your ad group’s relevancy.
Once done, hit the SAVE & CONTINUE button.
Step 3: Setting Up Ads
Once you are done with the ad group. You will be taken to the next step for creating ads.
Here are some required fields that you need to understand.
Final URL: A webpage or landing page where you want your users to land.
Headlines: 3 fields of headline space where you can choose 3 best headlines for your ad copy. Each headline should have ma aximum 30-character length.
Display Path: URL that displays on ads but is different from the final URL, you can include keywords to increase the relevancy. You can include keywords in two parts here with 1a 5-character length each.
Descriptions: Two description fields where you can add descriptions with call-to-action words like call now, learn more, etc. with a 90-character length each.
Preview: Once you are done with composing your ad copy, you can check the preview for it on the right sidebar for Mobile, desktop & display networks.
See how I’ve created my add-in left side & the preview shows on the right side on a mobile device.
Here you need to keep the following things in mind while you write your ad copy:
- Always be clear. Mentioned your message, and service clearly.
- Include your targeted keywords every time.
- Include a call to action like Shop Now, Register Today.
- Mention the problem of your audience.
- Never mention someone’s or a group’s weakness.
If you follow the above tips for creating effective ad copies, you will always be ahead of your competitors.
After you write your ad copy, click SAVE & CONTINUE.
Step 4: Enter Your Payment Information
Once you are done with all your ads set, you will be taken to the billing screen where you need to add your billing information.
The information you will enter is secured & google takes full control over your privacy.
Once you complete this step, you are ready to win some new business with your Google Ads.
The above guide is for basic PPC marketing. Once you start your ads, you need to timely optimize them by adding/removing keywords according to your campaign needs.
Conclusion
If you just started your business & set up a website, the first step for your marketing should be PPC advertising. SEO needs time & paid advertising is the only way you can instantly get a ranking on Google & other search engines & achieve business goals in the initial stage.
Meanwhile, it is always recommended that you invest your time & efforts in other marketing channels as well as email marketing, SEO,and Social media. These will always help you in a long way.
If you think we have missed any point or you have any tips to run an effective PPC campaign, let us know in the comments.
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