Once you have settled on your desired account structure, you can begin creating your campaigns.
Review your campaign settings:
Type: You’ll be automatically opted into Search Network with Display Select. This option works well for certain advertisers who are trying to get the most reach as possible, but be aware that this will allow your text ads to show outside of search, on Google’s Display network (i.e. various sites across the web). We recommend keeping search and display separate, so try starting with “Search Network Only.”
Locations & Languages: Make sure you’re targeting the appropriate ones for this campaign!
Bid Strategy: WordStream recommends using a manual bidding strategy as it gives you the most control over your bids and budget allocation. Leaving your bid strategy to automatic allows google to set whatever bids it pleases, and risks eating up your budget very quickly.
Default Bid & Budget: Default bid is simply the max CPC that will be tied to each keyword you add. This can be easily changed for each keyword, which you’ll likely want to do so just set it to a number that you’re comfortable paying per click. Budget is even more important. Calculate how much you are willing to spend per day on that campaign with the marketing budget you have allotted to AdWords to help you decide.
You can make adjustments to your campaign settings in “Manage PPC” under “Settings” in the dark grey tool bar.
Create Ad Groups and Ads
To get your campaign running properly you need ads. Ads are tied to a list of keywords within an ad group, so the first thing we’ll need to do is create a new ad group. [Click “Create New Ad Group” in the Ad Group Tab in Manage PPC.]
Then you’ll need to create your first ad (an ad group won’t be able to run unless there’s at least one advertisement in that group). To get started with ad text creation keep the following pieces of advice in mind:
Character limit: Google will easily alert you when you’re going over the character limit, but as a reminder the ad headline can have 25 characters, description line 1, 2, and your display URL allow for 35, and you shouldn’t need to worry about your destination URL.
Relevance: Your ad text needs to reflect the keywords and landing page text the ad is directing to. If you’re bidding on a general keyword like “tennis shoes” and your ad reads “Women’s Tennis Shoes,” then male searchers are going to be discouraged and not click on your ad. Clearly display your target keywords within the headline and description lines of your ad text.
Best Practices: When creating an ad in WordStream, it can be helpful to run a “Best Practices Check” before running your new ad.
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Direct to the Most Relevant Landing Page: In an ideal world, you’ll already have landing pages created for each ad group running. If not, I would allocate some time and resources to create ad group specific landing pages. This might sounds ridiculous, but if the landing page that the searcher is directed to isn’t relevant to the ad clicked on, then the chances of them bouncing back to Google are high.
Next you will want to add your previously constructed keyword list. As a reminder, this list should be short (no more then 10-20 keywords) and extremely relevant to the ad text and landing page that the users are being directed to. Also keep in mind that by default, new keywords are added on broad match. [You can change your default Match Type in your default settings.]
Keep Going!
The process doesn’t stop with one ad in one ad group. Be sure to have at least 2-3 unique ads in each ad group you create. To see success in your Account, you will want to constantly monitor, update, and create new ads to maximize what is performing best. The same goes for your keyword and negative keyword lists.
Once you have accrued enough data, you can use WordStream Advisor’s 20-Minute Workweek to stay up to date with some of the most essential optimization tactics.