2f Set Bid Strategy
Your objectives will help you to decide bid strategy, cpm - for views, cpa - for conversions, cpc - for clicks.
2g Set your [daily] Budget
A few factors will influence your budget not least what you can actually afford to spend. Another key component is how much a lead or sale is worth to you as it helps you to decide how much you are willing to pay for a click or a conversion.
2h Add Extensions for sitelinks, callouts, location, reviews, offers etc..
These allow you to add additional information to appear below your ad. Locations: highlight the different locations of your business with a map or the distance to your business which can also link to your location page. Sitelinks: Link to other pages on your website for example other linked products, opening hours, etc. Call: Add buttons with your phone number which people can tap or click on to call your business directly. Callout: allows you to add relevant extra information such as 'free delivery', 'qualified experts', etc.
2g Set Campaign Targeting options
This is where your earlier work on identifying your market comes in handy. some examples of targeting on the Display Network include; Placements, where you target people whilst they are browsing particular sites; Topics & Interests allows you to reach people whilst they are browsing content in similar interest categories and Demographics which enable you to target by gender, age and whether they are a parent or not.
2h Add Exclusions (e.g. Adult Content, Gambling etc..)
Perhaps you need to consider what industries or products you may want to disassociate from (e.g. gambling, defence, oil). Also for some campaigns you may want to exclude an audience (e.g. exisiting customers for new customer messages). Whilst on the subject of exclusions you will probably wish to exclude your IP address to avoid paying for in-house clicks.
2g Define display Schedule
Limiting the time your ads show to the times your potential customers are most likely to be browsing or around your opening hours helps to make sure you reach the most customers at the best time. It also ensures that your budget is spent effectively.
2h Set Ad Delivery profile
You can choose to show your ads evenly across the day or accelerated so they are shown more earlier in the day.
2j Choose Ad Rotation option
Select whether you want to rotate your ads until they are optimised or indefinitely, bear in mind the latter would need close monitoring.
2k Set Bid Adjustments
Set bid adjustments to get the most out of your preferred targets. You can choose to adjust bids up or down according to factors such as time, location and audiences.
3. Ad Groups
Ad Groups are a set of ads targeting shared keywords. In each Campaign create separate Ad Groups to target a set of keywords around a specific product or service. These keywords are typically very similar in nature and should match the ad copy, tone and intent of you ads within each group.
3a Create First Ad & Check Landing Page URL
It may sound obvious but check your landing page URL takes you to the right page with the information your customer expects to find.
3b Choose Keywords
Identify keywords that define your product/service based on what customers would search for. Keywords are the basis of your targeting, if you've done your homework it should be an easy step to copy them from your keyword analysis and drop them into your ad group.
3c Add Negative Keywords
If there are search terms you know are not relevant you can add them as negative keywords, especially if your product name can have an alternate meaning e.g. pipe (smoking or plumbing?).
3d Define Keyword Match Types
Use match-types to tighten or broaden your keyword scope. Choose between broad, phrase and exact.
3e Add Remarketing Audiences (optional)
Define lists of people you may want to remarket to e.g. shopping cart abandoners, people who have visited your site before, etc.
3f Set [manual] CPC Bids (optional)
If you want to bid more or less aggressively for certain keywords in an ad group, you can set keyword-specific max CPC bids to overide the default.
3g Create Ad Variants
Create at least three variants of each ad. This allows you to compare performance and retire poor performing versions.
3h Specify Custom Tracking Parameters
This is optional, but useful if you are using Google Analytics. These parameters allow you to pass additional variables into your tracking URLs e.g. ad variant.
4. Final Checks
There's plenty of opportunity for error and oversight in the setup process and given how quickly this will go public it's worth taking a few minutes to do some final checks and make sure everything is in place.
