Creating an effective Google Ads campaign (the 2024 guide)

Google Ads (formerly Google Adwords) is a powerful growth driver. In this guide, I explain step-by-step how to create an effective Google Ads campaign, but also how to set up conversion tracking and how to optimize it.

Google Ads is the essential advertising network Like Facebook, it makes it possible to promote its services, strengthen its reputation, generate leads, sales or even increase traffic to its website.

At Growth Room, we are precisely a SEA specialized agency. And we can tell you that Google Ads is an exceptional acquisition channel, provided you master it well.

How to create an effective Google Ads campaign

Who is this guide for?

• For beginners who want to launch their first Google Ads campaigns
• For those who have already tried, but who are pedaling through the mud and are not getting satisfactory results.

To make the article easier to understand, I will take the example of a friend who is a decorator who wants to start using Google Ads. Her name: Anaëlle.

On the program:

• How to properly structure a Google Ads campaign
• Example of an effective Google Ads campaign
• Tracking: how to set up conversion tracking
• Optimizations for a successful campaign

Reading time: 15-20 minutes (yes, I timed it)

To go even further than this article, subscribe to our Google Ads training !

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Google Ads: how to (well) structure your campaign

Structuring your campaign is important to perform. If you didn't have good results, maybe that's where you fished. An effective Google Ads campaign is above all a well-structured campaign!

As a reminder, a Google Ads account consists of 3 levels:

• Campagne
• Ad group
• adverts

Here is a classic pattern for a campaign.

Google Ads campaign

You can do uA single campaign or several campaigns, each structured by product/service or by type of customer.

For my example, my friend is located near Nantes, in Loire-Atlantique. It offers several services. Decorative coaching, layout and layout for individuals. And for businesses (real estate agencies), home staging.

In my case, I will opt for a structure by service.

So I will have to create a separate campaign for each. If you sell beauty products for example, you will have to structure by category and then by product. A campaign for creams, one for cleansers, etc. You understood the principle.

The advantage of doing several campaigns is to better control them. It is entirely possible to create a single campaign, but you may get lost and no longer have a clear vision of ad groups, because you will have to create a lot of them.

Ad groups

An ad group is a collection of ads and keywords.

Each ad group should be thought of as a segment of your campaign. And the sum of these segments makes up your entire campaign.

The keywords defined are all linked to the same ads.

If in your ad group, you have “men's face cream” and “women's face cream” as keywords, all your ads will be shown for these two keywords. The more general you are, the more your ads will be less relevant and therefore less effective.

Note that it exists two structuring models: SKAG and IBAG.

SKAG or IBAG: which model should you choose?

SKAG (Single Keyword Per Ad Group)

You only put one keyword per ad group. It is divided into three types of queries: broad, exact expression and exact keyword. I explain all this to you in the section dedicated to keywords.

Disadvantage: complex management. The more keywords you have, the more ad groups you will need to create for each keyword.

Advantage: this ad group structure makes it possible to optimize the quality level (Quality Score) of your ads.

What is the Google Ads Quality Score?

Google calculates the ranking of each ad (Ad Rank). The best ranked will appear in first place, the second in second position, etc.

The Quality Score is a component of the Ad Rank (in addition to the auction, the context of the request or even one of the ad extensions). The higher the score (ranging from 1 to 10), the more Google will consider your ad to be relevant to Internet users' queries.

The higher the quality score, the better the position of your ad will be. Having a high Quality Score also means ensuring that your ads will be shown at a lower cost.

This Quality Score includes several criteria:

• Expected click through rate (your historical CTR if you have already shown ads, the CTR of other similar ads)
• The usability of your landing page (relevance with the request and the announcement, ergonomics, speed, responsive)
• The relevance of your ad (between the request and the announcement, ad extensions)

The IBAG (Intent-based Ad Group)

The idea here is to organize your ad groups by intention or by theme.

This model has good performances but has one drawback: the multiplicity of keywords. We will not necessarily find them in our ads, which may reduce the relevance score given by Google. The more focused and precise you are, the better.

For a small account, it is advisable to opt for SKAG. What I'm going to do for Anaëlle: a campaign + ad groups for each keyword.

What types of Google Ads ads?

Three types of ads:

• Text ad. You create 3 titles and 2 descriptions. Here, you take everything into your own hands.
• Responsive ad. You specify up to 15 titles and 4 descriptions. Google will test and display the most relevant combinations for your targets.
• Dynamic ad. You're giving Google free rein. All you have to do is give the URL of his site/page, specify the descriptions and he takes care of the rest.

Be aware that the type of ad used does not affect the performance of your campaigns.

Google recommends Make at least 2 text ads and 1 responsive ad. Text ads should be different (titles and descriptions). You can also add a dynamic ad to test this format.

For the creation of the ads, I show you all this later.

Creating an effective Google Ads campaign: choosing keywords

Now that we have the structure of the campaign, let's move on to choosing the keywords. Another important step because it will determine the performance of your campaign.

Keywords are the heart of your campaign!

They should be relevant and sufficiently researched. You should select keywords that are specific but also large in terms of search on Google.

To find your keywords, you have several tools at your disposal. I gave you some of them in my article on SEO writing.

The Google Ads Keyword Planner

The easiest to use (and free) is the Keyword planner integrated into Google Ads. It does its job very well and shows you the volume of monthly searches for each keyword, the impression rate and the associated level of competition. It also shows you the keywords based on a site's URL. Rather practical for analyzing competitors.

This tool can be found in “Tools and Settings” in your account.

When looking for keywords, I advise you to create a separate document and list them. You will then only have to integrate them when creating your ad groups.

Also, don't forget to create a second list of keywords... to be excluded! The ones that are not relevant to you.

For example, for my friend Anaëlle, I do not want to reach people who want or plan to study decoration. So I'm going to rule out “studies for an interior designer”, “profession”, “training”, “becoming an interior decorator”, etc.

Google Ads: what keyword should you invest in?

Another important step: estimate whether your ad will be profitable or not.

To do this, you must compare your max CPC with the CPC estimate found in the Keyword Planner.

The maximum CPC is determined by the conversion rate of your site, the profit per customer and the profit margin of the advertising you want.

Max CPC = (Profit per customer) x (1-profit margin) x (site conversion rate) or max CPC = Profit per customer x Google commission x site conversion rate

Example:

Profit per customer: 50€

Site conversion rate: 1%

Profit margin estimated to be satisfactory: 30%

Max CPC: 50 x (1-0.30) x 0.01 = €0.35

If you don't have any historical data, you can start with a hypothesis.

The structure of keywords

Once you have chosen your keywords, you will then have to determine their “structure”.

As mentioned above, a keyword can have 3 forms:

• Broad query
• Exact expression
• Exact keyword

And keywords with query modifiers? It was not a mistake on my part. The broad query modifier was recently removed (as of July 2021).

“The broad query modifier is no longer available as a separate matching behavior. Existing broad query modifier keywords behave like exact phrases, and you can't create such keywords anymore,” says Google Ads on its support help site.

What are the types of queries on Google Ads?

To fully understand, here is a table:

Creating an effective Google Ads campaign: example

Now that we've laid the foundations, let's get to the heart of the matter.

We are going to create our Google Ads campaign for Anaëlle, my great decorator.

I'm passing the details on creating a Google Ads account, it's really very simple. For beginners, note that you must switch to “expert mode” when creating your account.

What type of Google Ads campaign should I choose?

Google offers 3 types of campaigns:

• Search network (ads that appear in the search engine)
• Display network
• Shopping

As well as a goal. On Google Ads, the goals are clear. No subtleties like on Facebook Ads.

For Anaëlle, I am going to do a campaign on the search network with the objective of prospects.

In this article, I will only do one campaign for a single “Layout and decoration” service. It is its most comprehensive offering. It wants to increase its customer base in this segment.

I do not recommend displaying, which is a waste of cash if you are not very familiar with Google Ads.

On the other hand, leave “Include Google Search Network Partners” checked. These are other platforms where your ads may also appear. We're not going to spit in the soup right?!

As for conversion actions (bottom of page), we'll get to that later. I am voluntarily skipping this step.

Step 1: Define your broadcast schedule

Google offers to indicate an end date. Here, it is advisable not to specify anything and to stop your campaign manually. If you have an imperative, you can of course put one.

In the settings, you can also specify the days and times of broadcast. It's up to you to decide according to your business and your target personas. For Anaëlle, I will initially put on the campaign all week (weekends included). I will analyze later, and adjust if necessary.

Step 2: Define your geographic area

Anaëlle operates in the Nantes region, in Loire-Atlantique. I will therefore select Nantes with a radius of 80 kilometers (it is open to travel).

Can I specify that I want to reach people living in this area.

Advice. If you're not a local business, you can specify multiple areas and then see which ones work best.

“It is entirely possible to target the whole of France, especially if you are in e-commerce. For B2B companies that offer SaaS, for example, we can also target the whole of France, but it will be more appropriate to initially target large cities, where their personas are located.”

Julian Boulinguez, B2C and Google Ads expert at Growth Room.

Step 3: Targeting audiences

On Google Ads, you have keyword targeting but you also have the option of targeting by audiences. You can pair them together to send the right message to the right people.

Several types of audiences:

• Of affinity. People who have already shown an interest in a given topic.
• Detailed demographic audience (education level, family situation, age, etc.)
• Market audiences. People who are actively looking for a product/service and have an intention to buy.
• Remarketing and similar audiences. Internet users who have already interacted with your business and people who share the same characteristics and behaviors as your audience segments.
• Combined audiences. They make it possible to define your ideal audience more precisely by combining existing audiences.

In the case of my friend, I'm going to take an affinity hearing.

At Growth Room, we observed that this audience was often the most successful. Of course, it all depends on your business. I am not making generalizations.

Audience strategies

• “Under observation” at the level of its campaign or its ad groups. The idea is to observe what is happening and then make bid adjustments based on performance. Important: these adjustments will only be possible if a manual bidding strategy has been selected. I'll explain the different bidding strategies just after.
• “Targeting.” Here, we only want to target a defined audience.

I'm going back to my practical case: I'm going to choose an affinity audience and put it “under observation”. I don't want to position myself solely on this audience.

Note that it is possible to select several audiences and put them all under observation. In addition to those presented above, you can also do more precise socio-demographic targeting, device targeting and distribution schedule targeting. It all happens in your campaign and ad group settings.

” However, be careful with the audiences. Cookies are less and less searchable by Google. It will soon no longer be relevant to do so.”

Julian Boulinguez

Step 4: Budget and bids

At the level of your campaign, you will then have to indicate your budget and your bidding strategy.

What daily budget should you define for your Google Ads campaign?

It all depends on your acquisition cost. The ideal is to put 3X its acquisition cost. Example: 100 euros per lead = 300 euros per day.

Note: when you launch your campaign, Google will probably spend more in the first few days (x2). Don't panic! He will smooth out the budget over the next few days.

Let me explain: if you have set a budget of 300 euros, for example, Google will allow you to spend x2 the first two days (i.e. 1200 euros). But he will then make adjustments the following days. 100 euros one day, 150 euros the next day, etc.

Bidding strategies

The bidding strategy you choose directly affects the performance of your campaigns and the visibility of your ads.

Google Ads offers several bidding strategies adapted to different objectives and types of campaigns.

Automatic bidding strategies:

• Target CPA. You're giving Google your maximum cost per conversion. Google takes care of getting the most at this price.
• ROAS target. Google takes care of having you as many conversions as possible while respecting your target ROAS.
• Maximize clicks. Google automatically sets bids in order to get you the most clicks for your budget.
• Maximize conversions. Google automatically sets bids in order to get you the most conversions for your budget.
• Maximize conversion value. Google automatically sets bids to get you the most revenue for your budget.
• Target print rate. The search engine sets bids so that your ads reach a good threshold of impressions (displayed at the top of the page or anywhere on the results page)

The manual bidding strategy:

• Manual CPC. However, with an algorithmic touch.

Effective Google Ads campaign: which bidding strategy should you choose?

For visibility and visits:

• Maximize clicks
• Target print rate

For conversions and sales:

• Maximize conversions
• CPC
• Target CPA

For an income objective:

• Maximizing value
• ROAS target.

As for my friend, I will prefer a manual bidding strategy in order to have maximum control at the start. I advise you to do some manual work if you are just starting out.

The creation of ad groups

As mentioned above, my objective will be to create keyword ad groups (SKAG) with exact words and keywords. So I will have to create several with for example “Interior designer”, “apartment decoration”, “decoration project”, etc.

You must then specify the default auction. This corresponds to the maximum cost-per-click (max CPC) bid for an ad group. We saw that earlier in the article.

Writing effective Google Ads ads

We are now moving on to writing the ads.

As mentioned earlier, you have several types of ads: textual, responsive, and dynamic. It is recommended to create 2 text ads and 1 responsive ad.

• Text ad: 3 titles and 2 descriptions.
• Responsive ad. Up to 15 titles and 4 descriptions. Google will test and show the most relevant combinations.

Headlines are the most important. This is the first thing your prospects will read after they search on Google.

Two goals: perfectly match what prospects have been looking for and stand out from the competition. Add the most important keyword of the search in the headline (titles) to be sure to be 100% relevant.

Descriptions help present the offer and encourage Internet users to click for more information.

Points of vigilance!

Google prohibits ads that are too generic and contain vague phrases. Example: “Buy here.” It also prohibits exclamation points in titles, superlatives such as “best” or explicit comparisons with one or more competitors.

Find all the rules on Google Ads Policy Center.

Here is an example (draft) of a text ad for Anaëlle. Note that I haven't worked on copywriting yet.

Ad extensions

Once ads are created, don't forget to make ad extensions afterwards. These allow for more “bulky” ads, and therefore, to increase engagement (CTR). These extensions are one of the components of an effective Google Ads campaign. Remember Ad Rank.

Several types of extensions:

Ancillary links

These are additional links that appear under the text of your ads on the Search Network. They allow you to redirect users to a specific page on your site. Ex: “Rates”, “Contact us”, etc.

Note that you cannot put additional links for “one page” sites/landing pages (logical). However, it is possible to anchor links on your page. An anchor on its rates or on its “Make an appointment” form.

The hook extensions

These are text snippets (25 characters maximum). These snippets can be your benefits.

Extracts from the site

These make it possible to describe the characteristics of a product or a service.

Call extensions

They show either the business phone number or a referral number provided by Google. Using the forwarding number allows Google to “track” calls generated by ads.

Location and affiliated location

To tell Internet users where we are.

Promotion extensions

They allow you to display the current promotion (s). Example “Mother's Day: 50% off roses”.

For Anaëlle, I'm going to add side links and teaser links. She doesn't want to show her phone number.

Note that this step takes place at the campaign settings level.

Exclude keywords

Remember your list of keywords to exclude, keywords that you don't want to appear on. You will now have to indicate them.

How do I exclude keywords?

Copy and paste your list at the level of your campaign, in the “keywords to exclude” tab (left column). You can create a list that you can apply to other campaigns later.

Are you starting to let go? Come on, we're not weakening. There are still 2 essential things to do:

• The tracking
• Optimizing the campaign

Google Ads tracking: how to set up conversion tracking?

Now that you have created and configured everything, you need to set up conversion tracking. Essential step to know if your Google Ads campaign is effective and profitable.

Several possibilities (which will depend on your goals):

• Importing Google Analytics conversion goals
• Setting up conversion tracking with Google Tag Manager
• Set up the tracking of conversions generated by calls

Here, I will show you how to set up conversion tracking with Google Tag Manager, an ideal tool for optimizing your Ads.

Note that connecting your Google Ads account to Google Analytics is imperative to analyze certain data (bounce rate, session duration, etc.) Google Ads explains everything, and very clearly, how to do it in your account.

Conversion tracking with Google Tag Manager

Prerequisites:

• Have a Google Tag Manager account connected to your website. You will first have to install scripts (in the “header” and “body”) provided by Google Tag Manager. I'm skipping this step, the tool shows you all that when you start up.
• Have a thank you page (Thank You Page) to which Internet users are redirected after indicating their contact (objective of the campaign)

In your Google Ads account, go to “tools and settings,” then click “Conversions.”

Then create a new action by clicking on the “+” and on “Website”.

On the next window, specify the category and the name of the conversion type. The “Number” parameter allows you to select the number of conversions to count per click or interaction.

Regarding Anaëlle, her company sells a service and wants to generate contacts. I will choose “Contact” and “One” in Number. The “All” Number is more intended for tracking purchases.

For the follow-up period for post-click conversion and post-display conversions, it is recommended to take as many days as possible so that as much data as possible can be traced back to Google Ads.

The attribution model

Several models offered:

• Last click. It attributes the conversion to the ad that the user last clicked on.
• First click. It attributes all the credit for the conversion to the first ad the user clicked on.
• Linear. The conversion credit is distributed evenly across all clicks along the conversion path.
• Attribution with depreciation over time. Clicks that are chronologically closest to conversion get more credit.
• Position-based model. 40% of credit is given at the first and last click. The remaining 20% is split between the other clicks.

It is advisable here to select the latest attribution model, “position-based model.”

Setting up tags with Google Tag Manager

You must then configure two tags in Google Tag Manager in order to be able to escalate the conversion:

• The Google Ads conversion tracking tag
• The Linker conversion tag. This makes it easier to collect click data, and thus to measure conversions more effectively.

The Google Ads conversion tracking tag

Log in to your Google Tag Manager account and click on the blue “New” button (Tags tab).

In the “Tag Configuration” section, select “Google Ads Conversion Tracking” and then enter the Conversion ID and Conversion Label specified in Google Ads.

Then set up a trigger or “Trigger” in the “Triggering” section. Here the tag will be triggered when the user has seen the Thank You Page.

The Conversion Linker tag

To install it is simple. Click “New” again, then in “Conversion Tag” click “Conversion Linker”. Here, we will configure it so that it is triggered on all pages of the site.

Once the tags are set up, click “Submit” and post the changes. Be sure to include a description of the version so you can find your way around later.

You now know how to create your campaign and how to track conversions with Google Tag Manager. You can now launch it.

However, An effective Google Ads campaign is more than just creating it. It all comes down to optimizations as well. That's what we're going to see now in this last part (I promise, it's the last one).

Optimizing your Google Ads campaign

First of all, know that Google Ads needs data, and therefore requires a learning phase. Don't start optimizing right away.

“As a general rule, you have to wait at least 2 weeks. Above all, do not touch your campaign in the 7 days following its broadcast. However, it is possible to make optimizations every week if you have a fairly large budget.”

Julian Boulinguez

Analyzing your Google Ads campaign

Perform a data diagnosis

The first step is to diagnose your data and indicators (CPC, CPA, impressions, conversion rate, etc.) at the level of your campaign. Do they live up to your set goal? But also at the level of your ad groups.

For ad groups:

• Compare metrics for different ad groups. What is good and what is not? Did this group generate conversions? Is the cost per conversion good or bad?
• Comparing indicators to the average (in your ad groups). Example: if you have a cost per conversion of €65 and one of your groups shows €12, that's great. On the other hand, the one at 134€ is very bad.
• Compare indicators between 2 periods. Example: between the month of May and the month of June. Are you going in the right direction or not? Is the development positive or negative?

The KPIs to follow

In lead generation, two metrics to track:

• Cost per conversion
• Impression shares: Rate of impressions on the Search Network + rate of impressions lost on the Search Network (linked to the ranking) + rate of impressions lost on the Search Network (linked to the budget). Lost impressions related to the ranking are due to lost bids and a too low Quality Score.

Create specific columns for each indicator

To facilitate analysis and comparison, modify your account interface by creating specific columns for each indicator that you are interested in.

How to do it?

In your ad groups, click “edit columns” and select the relevant indicators or remove the ones that are not relevant. You can also change their position.

To display print shares, go to “Edit columns” and “competitor metrics”.

Advice. Analyze and make optimizations on ad groups with at least 200 clicks. Sufficient data is needed. Under 200 clicks, it's useless. In your dashboard, you can create a >200 clicks filter to get a clearer vision.

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And to edit your Google Ads campaigns while winning offline and saving as much time as possible, discover Google Ads Editor.

Effective Google Ads campaign: what are the optimizations?

Search terms

A keyword — when it is a broad query (see table above) — can correspond to a dozen or even a hundred search terms. With a single keyword, Google can indeed make you appear on lots of search terms. Example for “Facebook Ads training”: “become a Facebook Ads expert”, “Facebook Ads tutorial”, “digital marketing”.

You will therefore have to look at what Google is broadcasting you on.

Two things to do:

• Exclude search terms that are not relevant.
• Add terms that are relevant but have not been targeted before. Google can in fact make us “discover” keywords that we would not have thought of at the beginning. If multiple terms are relevant but have a different search intent than your keyword, add them as new keywords in new ad groups.

It all happens in the “Search Terms” tab in your account.

The keywords

You should constantly monitor the performance of your keywords.

Here, you have to look at the CTR. This should not be less than 5% (catastrophic).

Your keywords should also have a QS (Quality Score) of at least 7/10. Below that, you'll pay more to appear on a keyword. To optimize them, look at the corresponding search terms. Which are the least relevant to your keyword? Exclude them or use them to create a new ad group. It can be interesting.

Everything happens in the “Keywords for the Research Network” tab

The auctions

Let's imagine:

One of your ad groups generated conversions and the CPA is below the target. That is very good. The problem: impression shares are low. In this case, you can raise the stakes (max CPC). However, keep your CPA goal in mind (what you are prepared to spend). The more you increase your bids, the more you increase your share of impressions, and therefore your cost per conversion.

One of your ad groups generated conversions, but the CPA is higher than the target. Then lower the stakes to lower the CPA.

One of your ad groups did not generate any conversions and your CPA exploded: red alert! Pause

The ads

For ads, the metric to look at is also the CTR. The higher it is, the more relevant the ad is. Ideally, it should be greater than 10%.

Compare the CTR between all of your ads to see which ones work best. For those with a CTR of less than 10%, you will have to refine them by excluding search terms (which we saw earlier) or redo them by improving the copywriting in terms of descriptions and especially titles.

Also, don't forget to optimize your landing page. She also plays a lot!

The conversion rate

Conversion rate is also an important metric.

To increase your conversion rate, no secret: you must improve your CTR (overall) and especially improve/modify your landing page. To see where it gets stuck, you can use tools like Hotjar and Microsoft Clarity that allow you to see how users “behave” on your page.

Finally, it is also possible toOptimize your budget on Google Ads. If you can put in more money, optimize bids on the ad groups that work best.

💡 You can “spy” on your competitors, and know your place on the auctions. To do this, go to the “Keywords” tab and then “Auction Analysis”.

This article was long. Congratulations if you have read to the end!

Google Ads is not a simple network. A lot of parameters have to be taken into account for create an effective Google Ads campaign.

In this guide, I've given you the basics. Now it's time for remarketing! In this article, I show you How to create a Google Ads remarketing campaign on the Search network as well as on the Display network. I assure you, it will be less dense, now that we have laid the foundations!

What to remember in 5 questions

What is the most important thing about Google Ads?

Your keywords. They are the core of your campaigns.

What is the Quality Score?

The Quality Score is a component of the Ad Rank. It is a score given by Google. The higher it is, the more it means that Google considers your ad to be relevant to users' queries. The Quality Score to aim for is at least 7.

What bidding strategy should you choose for your Google Ads campaign?

The bidding strategy you choose directly affects the performance of your campaigns and the visibility of your ads. At the start, it is recommended to choose a manual bidding strategy in order to have maximum control (and to be able to make adjustments).

What daily budget should you define for your Google Ads campaign?

The ideal is to put 3X its acquisition cost.

How to optimize your campaign?

After analyzing and comparing your data, you should first rule out irrelevant search terms.

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