Advertising on Google Ads: setup from start to finish
To advertise on Google Ads you need to open an account, choose your objective, pick keywords, enter a daily budget and set up conversion tracking. A first campaign goes live in about forty minutes, but getting results means waiting through the first two weeks while data is collected.
Google Ads lets you run ads in search results and on Google's partner sites. Payment is per click, meaning you are charged when the ad is clicked rather than when it is shown.
The order below covers the minimum steps needed to set a first campaign up properly. None of them can be skipped, though some can be improved later.
1. Account and billing
You start at ads.google.com with your Google account. If you go through the standard setup instead of Expert mode, Google builds the campaign on your behalf and you are not in control. Switch to Expert mode before creating a campaign.
Have your billing details and tax number ready
The payment method can be a card or a bank transfer, transfers are prepaid
Currency is chosen when the account is opened and cannot be changed later
2. Campaign objective and type
The objective determines which signal Google optimizes against. Choose Sales if you sell, or Leads if you collect forms.
If you are starting out, begin with a Search campaign. Performance Max gives you less control and needs more data before it learns.
Campaign type | When to use it |
|---|---|
Search | Demand already exists, people are searching for your product |
Shopping | E-commerce, with a product feed ready |
Performance Max | A mature account with accumulated conversion data |
Display | Awareness and remarketing |
3. Keywords and match types
Keywords decide which searches your ad appears in. The match type decides how flexible that is.
Starting with broad match burns through the budget quickly. Starting with phrase match and expanding based on the search terms report is more controlled.
Exact match: [running shoes] — that search only
Phrase match: "running shoes" — searches containing that phrase
Broad match: running shoes — every search Google considers related
4. Budget and bidding
A daily budget is an average, not a commitment. Google can go over it on some days but balances it out across the month.
On a first campaign, starting with Maximize Clicks makes sense for collecting data. Once conversion data accumulates you move to Target CPA or Target ROAS.
5. Conversion tracking — the step you must not skip
A campaign launched without conversion tracking does not know which click turned into a sale. Google does not know either, so it cannot optimize.
This is the most frequently skipped part of the setup and the one with the most expensive consequences. The ad is live, money is being spent, and what works is invisible.
A campaign with no conversion tracking spends blind. Set it up before you go live.
What happens once the ad is live
This is where the real work starts and where most businesses struggle. While the campaign runs, these questions need an answer every day:
Is the budget being spent, or has it stalled somewhere?
Which channel actually brought sales, and which only brought clicks?
Is conversion tracking still working, or did a theme update break it?
Has the site slowed down, is the visitor from the ad waiting for the page?
Are there disapproved products in the feed?
And those answers do not live on one screen
Google Ads shows spend. Analytics shows traffic. Search Console shows search. Merchant Center shows products. Each on its own screen, each in its own language.
On small accounts that is manageable. Once you pass three channels, a meaningful part of the day goes into switching screens, and when something breaks it takes days to notice.
Sources
Ad budget calculator
Change the five numbers below to match your own business. The budget is calculated backwards from your goal.
The monthly sales figure you want ads to bring in.
What a customer spends on average. Short for AOV, average order value.
What is left as a percentage after you subtract product cost from the sale price. If $1,000 leaves you $300, that is 30 percent.
How much of that gross profit you are willing to spend on ads. Common range is 40 to 60 percent, spending all of it means breaking even.
How many of a hundred visitors buy. Short for CVR, conversion rate. If you do not know it, 1 to 2 percent is a reasonable start.
Your monthly ad budget
$45,000
About $1,480 per day
300
Orders needed
How many orders per month it takes to hit the revenue goal.
$150
Target CPA
Cost per acquisition. The most one sale is allowed to cost you.
15,000
Visits needed
How many people have to reach the site to produce those orders.
$3.00
Implied CPC
Cost per click. The most you can pay for a single click and still hit the target.
6.67x
Target ROAS
Return on ad spend. How much revenue every 1 unit of spend has to bring back.
How the number was reached
- Divide the revenue goal $300,000 by the average order value $1,000. You need 300 orders a month.
- 30% of the order value is profit, so each order leaves $300 of gross profit.
- You spend 50% of that profit on ads. One sale may cost at most $150, and that is your target CPA.
- 300 orders times $150 is $45,000 per month.
- At a 2% conversion rate those orders need 15,000 visits. Budget divided by visits means you can pay $3.00 per click.
This is not a guess, it is the arithmetic result of the goals you entered. Change a number and the result changes with it. The closer your conversion rate and margin are to your real data, the closer this is to reality.
Frequently asked questions
What is the minimum budget on Google Ads?
How long until the ad goes live?
Should I manage it myself or use an agency?
If I stop Google Ads, will my rankings drop?
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