8 Steps to Take Before Launching Your First Google Ad Campaign

Google Ads is undoubtedly a useful tool for companies of all sizes. However, there are a few things to consider before launching your first campaign. 

You may increase the efficiency of your Google Ads campaigns, prevent resource waste, and simply turn a profit by paying attention to these 8 factors first.

1. Learn The Basics 

Without any prior knowledge of Google Ads and concepts like campaigns, ad groups, keywords, bids, and budgets, you may find it fairly overwhelming to create your first campaign.

You must understand the various ad types and when to employ them before putting up your campaigns and advertisements. The following phase is to comprehend campaign structures and learn how to develop effective campaign structures.

2. Establish Campaign Objectives

Before starting your Google Ads campaign, it is important to lay out what your objectives are. Are you seeking more sales? More site visits? Email subscriptions? Whatever your objectives are, it is important to lay out measurable goals.

One popular model for setting goals is the SMART approach:

Specific – what outcomes do you need to see to consider the goal accomplished?

Measurable – how will you decide whether the goal is completed or not?

Attainable – how likely is it that you can accomplish this goal?

Relevant – does your goal align with your company mission and purpose?

Time-Bound – when will this goal be accomplished? Set a deadline

Setting SMART goals ensures that your objectives actually get completed in a timely and realistic manner. It’s easy to say “I want more sales!” but how do you get there? What exactly is needed to get there? SMART goals allow you to get granular and break down an objective into a series of actionable steps. 

3. Know Your Audience

You must understand your market and target audience before you even start to set up your Google Advertising account and create ads.

The following three considerations are key when trying to understand your audience:

Understand the Market

  • Businesses don’t operate in a vacuum or separately from their customers, so finding out what their problems are will help you create effective marketing campaigns. Pay close attention to the market issue and the wants of potential clients or customers.

Identify the Product-Market Fit

  • Knowing how your products or services meet the wants of your customers and how you’re distinct from your competitors is important. Are you meeting market demand? Do you have a firm understanding of your industry and competitors? 

Correct Your Messaging

  • Your advertising messaging should align with your audience’s demands and your company’s objectives. Additionally, ensure that your ad messaging is aligned with your campaign objectives.

4. Understand Audience Targeting

You can decide whether your advertisements appear to all audiences or just a select group of people. For simpler audience targeting, you can break your audience into different groups or segments. These groupings or segments are based on particular demographics, interests, or custom segments.

You can add your own segments or select from pre-existing segments when publishing a campaign. You may also develop segments depending on how customers respond to your advertisements and brand using remarketing lists.

Make sure to look at what the various segments are for each type of ad.

5. Identify The Right Keywords for Your Ads

The different levels of ‘keyword match’ indicates how closely a keyword must match the user’s search term for the advertisement to be eligible for an auction.

There are three main keyword match types, each of which offers a unique audience targeting option. While exact match enables you to connect with users at the bottom of the funnel or with particular user intents, broad match enables you to reach larger audiences and search intents.

Your keywords should be as relevant as possible to the advertisement and landing page they drive traffic to. If you need inspiration, look at your competitor’s website and their advertisements .. Consider the search terms your ideal client would use to find the items or services you offer.

6. Optimize Your Landing Page

When a user clicks on your advertisement, they “land” on your landing page. Your landing page needs to be optimized if you want to enhance user experience and therefore, boost conversions.

Make sure your landing page is suitable to the advertisement that brought users to it and that users can easily browse it. Google rewards landing pages that are extremely relevant. Site relevancy is determined by a number of elements, such as the page’s navigational simplicity and the presence of your keywords.

A clear call to action is another crucial component of a successful landing page. If your aim is to fill out a particular number of forms, and you indicate this in your advertisement but it isn’t present on your landing page, this constitutes a poor user experience, and Google may give your landing page a low ranking.

7. Setup Proper Conversion Tracking

Google defines a conversion as, “an action that’s counted when someone engages with your ad or free product listing.”

It’s unlikely that you’ll generate a lot of sales on Google Ads as a new company without first building trust. Before a prospective consumer is willing to trust you enough to make a purchase, you must invest some time in establishing and maintaining a connection with them. By offering you the opportunity to select from a variety of objectives, including generating sales, registrations, email sign-ups, lead generation, and more, Google makes this simple. Here is a complete and easy guide on how to set up Google Ads conversion tracking.

Why is tracking conversions essential?

  • Conversion monitoring is a great way to test what’s working and what isn’t in your marketing campaigns.
  • They help you determine whether advertising, keywords, and landing pages are effective or ineffective.
  • Ensure that you are getting a solid return on your advertising dollars and generating conversions, not just impressions.
  • Allow you to experiment to better understand your target audience’s behavior and what your business needs to do to engage with them more.

8. Have Clear Account Structure

Even once you grasp the concept of product-market fit and master the fundamentals of Google Ads, the interface may appear to be a little challenging to use. This work is a little bit easier with a sorted account structure.

You have more control over your advertising’ appearance and trigger times and locations when you categorize them. Think of it as a neatly organized cabinet where you can always find what you need since everything has a place.

The following two factors are crucial to your account structure:

Naming

  • I was one of many marketers who dubbed my first campaign “CA without a goal guideline” since I didn’t know any better. Many marketers who start out designing campaigns and advertising, including myself, come up with campaign titles out of thin air. As we begin to create campaigns, random names could make sense, but as we continue to add campaigns, maintaining the account gets confusing.
  • In the future, it will be challenging to go in and hunt for specific campaigns and ad groups if you don’t have a consistent and understandable naming approach/convention.
  • A good naming convention enables improved management, organization, and data filtering. Additionally, a clear naming convention is helpful if you have a new team member who needs to get used to the account.

Understand Your Account Split

  • It is simpler to track your progress and find successful techniques when you have a clear account split and separate distinct campaign kinds. Campaigns can be divided based on bidding tactics, keyword varieties, languages, budget, etc.
  • Once more, there isn’t just one ideal strategy to divide your campaigns. Your business and campaign goals will determine whether you want to run several campaigns for audiences in various markets and at various points in the purchase cycle.

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