If you intend to spend a certain amount of money on advertising in order to achieve quick results, you must first think about the way you will place this investment; the correct method is the one that guarantees achieving good results. Have you thought about Google AdWords platform where you can create ads tailored specifically to your target audience? 

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In this article, I will focus specifically with you on setting up and running search campaigns. I will be with you step-by-step to show you how to create a Google AdWords account and configure its settings to achieve satisfying results from your very first ad campaign.

How to create and configure your account for ads on Google AdWords

What is the Google AdWords advertising platform?

How to create an account on Google AdWords

Features of the Google AdWords platform

Are ads on Google AdWords fruitful and worth trying?!

Terms you must know before starting your first advertising campaign

1- Ad Rank (Google AdWords Rank)

2- Bidding

3- Cost Per Click (CPC)

4- Cost Per Mille (CPM)

5- Cost Per Engagement (CPE)

6- Conversion Rate

7- Campaign Type

8- Google AdWords Search Ads

9- Google AdWords Display Ads on the Google Display Network

10- Video Ads

11- Ad Extensions

12- Keywords

13- Quality Score

How to configure your Google AdWords account?

Steps required to analyze ad performance

1- Link your account to Google Analytics

2- Add UTM codes

3- Set up Conversion Tracking

4- Set up the bidding method

5- Automated bidding

6- Manual bidding

7- CPA bidding

8- Google AdWords Extensions

9- Types of ad extensions

What is the Google AdWords advertising platform?

An advertising service provided by Google, specifically a pay-per-click (PPC) advertising platform, where the advertiser or business owner pays for each click made on their ad. Unlike other advertising platforms, Google offers advertisers two primary ways to reach people:

1- Google Search Network

2- Google Display Network 

This platform was launched in 2000 as Google AdWords, and then in 2018, it was rebranded as Google Ads; however, the original name remains the most common and used by many people.

How to create an account on Google AdWords

To start, you will need an email address and a website address for your business. What if you don't have a business or website for your product? Don't worry, you can still advertise, but it is best to have a professional online store

To create your Google AdWords account, follow these steps: 

• Go to: Get More Customers With Easy Online Advertising

• You will find the location as shown in the image below. Click on "Sign in" to create an account and follow the simple steps that will appear until your account is activated. The process of creating and activating your account will only take a few minutes. If you already have an account, skip this step. 

Features of the Google AdWords platform

1. An effective platform that can attract customers and increase traffic to your website or store - which is what every store owner wants - leading to increased sales.

2. It allows you to make and share excellent, precise ads based on your preferences, across mobile or web.

3. Your ads can appear on YouTube, Google Blogger, and the Google Display Network.

4. This platform offers another great feature, where Google helps you over time analyze your ad campaigns and see which ones performed better, aiming to improve your future ad campaigns, expand your business, and gain more customers.

5. You can advertise on it even with a small budget

In fact, a limited budget may be the biggest obstacle facing some advertisers on Google AdWords. Some platforms require a high budget to display high-quality ads, but with this service, regardless of how large or expanded your company is, you can advertise in accordance with your budget, and you can pause the ad or stop it permanently at any time. 

 However, we must also clarify to you that the Google AdWords platform can sometimes be expensive, especially in some industries and fields where competition is fierce; in all cases, though, it is an investment worth making. You can design a strong advertising campaign and utilize this service in the optimal way; then you will have spent your money on what is worthwhile.

Are ads on the Google AdWords platform fruitful and worth trying?!

Does this platform, Google AdWords, really have a wide and massive reach and can it make a difference in your e-commerce store? I will not tell you that Google is the most famous search engine, as you obviously know that and do not need confirmation from me, but I will give you some evidence after which you can decide for yourself if it is an effective ad platform or not. 

Let's look at some statistics together:

1. 3.5 billion (yes, I didn't misspell it, billion, not million) searches are conducted daily on Google from smartphones or desktops. 

2. The volume of searches on Google increases at a rate of approximately 10% each year.

3. 90% of searches for a specific product are done through the Google search engine.

4. 35% of web searches (not mobile) are done through the Google search engine.

5. In the United States alone, Google captures 95% of smartphone searches.

You can probably now see the massive expansion, reach, and popularity enjoyed by the Google search engine compared to other search engines, through documented statistics rather than just word of mouth. This is what has made this service trusted and used by many advertisers as one of their most important paid marketing strategies.

Terms you must know before starting your first advertising campaign 

Now that you have a background on Google AdWords, what it is, and its features, you must know some important terms that you will need to deal with directly. Therefore, you must become familiar with them before launching your first ad campaign on Google AdWords.

1- Ad Rank (Google AdWords Rank) 

This term refers to the position and rank of your ad relative to other ads in the same field or industry. Ad position and rank depend on the maximum bid for the ad multiplied by the quality score, and we will discuss the quality score later on.

2- Bidding  

Google AdWords depends on a bidding system where you, as an advertiser, choose the maximum amount you are willing to pay for each click on your ad. Remember, the higher the financial value you pay, the higher your ad rank will be compared to others, as explained. There are three basic payment and bidding options:

1. Cost Per Click (CPC): This refers to the amount of money you pay each time your ad is clicked.

2. Cost Per Mille (CPM): This refers to the amount of money you pay per thousand impressions, i.e., when your ad is shown to a thousand people.

3. Cost Per Engagement (CPE): This refers to the cost per engagement, specifically the amount of money you pay when someone interacts with the ad in a predefined way, such as liking the ad.

3-  Conversion Rate 

This term refers to the metric of total visits to your page or product through the Google AdWords advertisement. A high conversion rate is a good indicator that your ad is excellent and provides an easy user experience, free of complexity and difficulty in accessing product information. One of the elements highly focused on is ensuring a smooth user experience that meets the customer's needs, facilitating the next step they should take to convert from just a lead into a buyer according to the buyer's Content Funnel.

4- Campaign Type 

This focuses on the type of advertising campaign you will run to promote the product, which is divided into 3 types:

1. Google AdWords Search Ads: Their meaning is clear from the name; they are text ads that appear among search results and often appear at top of the first Google results page, as this page is where people search the most.

2. Google AdWords Display Network Ads (Display Ads): Visual ads that are embedded within various web pages, usually displayed on web pages within the Google Display Network.

3. Video Ads: Short video ads ranging from 5 seconds up to 16 seconds that appear on YouTube. Here is an example in the image below. 

A short video ad promoting one of the organizations before the start of a YouTube video.  Google also provides the Bump Machine tool to produce short videos that you can use in ads.

5- Ad Extensions 

A feature that will save you some money, allowing you to include extra information about your ad without additional fees; we will talk about it in detail at the end of the article.

6- Keywords 

Words or phrases that closely match what Google search engine users search for frequently. The advertiser selects the keywords based on the searches in which they want their ads to appear. You must also understand the concept of negative keywords—words you do not want to include or target in your ad—and you will understand their purpose in detail during the account setup step. 

As you can see in the following image, when I used the keyword "Moisturiser for oily skin," ads for products closely tied to the keyword appeared on the left side of the screen. They also show the website to direct the user to the action the product owners want, which is purchasing, as we previously discussed regarding providing an easy and hassle-free experience for the user.

When I searched in Arabic for "مرطب للبشرة الدهنية," ads also appeared as shown in the image.

7- Quality Score 

Quality Score is the metric by which you can determine the quality of your ad through the lead conversion rate, relevance of your keywords, and the quality of the Landing Page. All these factors together form the quality score. Do not forget that the Quality Score is a critical metric and a vital factor in determining your Ad Rank, which was the first element we discussed. 

How do you configure your Google AdWords account?

Now you are ready to start your first ad campaign. To make this campaign and all subsequent ones fruitful and achieve their goals, you must configure your account settings correctly.

First, go to this link again: Get More Customers With Easy Online Advertising. You will find the "Start now" button in the upper-right corner as shown in the image, then you will start a series of steps to configure your campaign settings.

After logging into the account, choose "New campaign" from the menu on the upper-left. This screen will appear, showing you different options as follows:

• Sales: Select this if you want to increase sales of your business.

• Leads: In case you want to build an email list of potential customers.

• Website Traffic: Choose this if you want to increase the number of website visits.

• Brand Awareness: If you want to raise awareness about your store and brand.

• Apps Promotion: In case you want to promote a mobile app or your brand.

  However, we will choose to create a campaign on Google AdWords without guidance related to the target, as indicated by the arrow in the image. 

After that, a screen will appear for you to select the campaign type: whether the campaign will be in search results, through a YouTube video, or an app, as shown in the image. Choose what you see fit for your business. For example, let's select: Search, which means your ad will appear if someone searches for the keyword you target on Google.

Following the previous step, a small window will appear asking you to place the URL of your website or store.

Next, you will start establishing the foundations of your Google AdWords campaign through the upcoming steps. In the following image, you will name your campaign and specify whether you want it to appear on both the Search Results and Google Display Network, or just one of them. 

Tip: Concerning naming the campaign, ensure that the name is clear and specific, containing all the elements you need so you can distinguish between different campaigns and to help you organize the account later if you plan to run multiple campaigns. 

The first time you create an ad, I suggest setting a specific duration for this ad (start date and end date) if you want to measure the initial results, or in case you face issues like internet outages in your area or are unavailable for any reason, Google will continuously pull funds to cover your ad costs. You can specify a certain duration from this option, as shown in the image; for example, set two weeks for your first ad.

Now we have reached the stage of geographic targeting, where you will find different options such as promoting your ad worldwide, in your country, or entering another location like a specific city, as shown in the following image.

There are also additional options within geographic targeting, such as excluding people who already show interest, or targeting people who actually live in or are regularly in the excluded geographic locations.

Tip: Make sure to target the locations where your customers are located, which might not necessarily be the same place where your physical business is located. For example: if you own an online store, target all locations where your products can be shipped.

Then comes the selection of the audience's language; make sure to choose the most widely spoken language if you are promoting to regions with different languages.

If you are following the steps with me, you must have now reached the budget section for your ad, as shown in the image. Set the budget according to what you can afford to spend; however, experts recommend that the minimum amount you set is $5 so that the ad can show a clear effect. Why do I mention this? Because some people might set $1 as an initial budget, making it difficult for them to evaluate the ad's performance, as that tiny budget will only cover a few brief clicks, wasting the budget to no avail.

In the following image, you will find an option to set a maximum limit for the click value; for example, set a maximum limit per click of $0.25. Then click "Save and continue."

You will now find yourself in the Ad Groups section, which consists of ad campaigns that share a key performance indicator. These groups are useful for tracking the overall performance of multiple campaigns with similar goals.

The following image is from the first ad campaign where Google AdWords recommended a set of keywords for me. However, it is advised not to rely solely on these words; search for keywords using free tools such as Google Keyword Planner or paid ones like SEMrush 

After the previous step, we have reached the section of writing the ad copy, as in the following image. You must add attractive headlines to your ad. I will walk you through an example for clarification:

Imagine that you are selling a specific product like women's wristwatches; you will put "women's wristwatches" in the first headline, and make the second headline appealing enough to catch people's attention, like "free shipping worldwide."

The first description can be: "We have the highest quality wristwatches in the world," and for the second description: "Made with love in Switzerland;" I mentioned Switzerland because of its reputation and fame in watchmaking around the world. This is just a simple example, and you can achieve even better results than this.

After that step, only the payment step remains, where you will fill in your details and then submit the ad to be approved by Google. 

You have now finished setting up your account and can launch effective ads on Google AdWords. You have also understood the nature of the platform, and by repeating this process, you will be able to continuously improve your ads.

Steps required to analyze ad performance

Configuring account settings is not enough; as an advertiser, you must know the results and analytics for each ad and click-through rates. Here are some steps you can take to track and analyze your ads to get the best results:

Link your account to Google Analytics 

 Link your Google Ads account with (Google Analytics) so that you can track the number of visits to your site, the conversion rate of your visitors and customers, and be able to generate reports. This step will make things much easier for you and put all the information you want in one place instead of having to use other tools.

Add UTM codes  

 These codes are short for Urchin Tracking Module, and they are used to track specific activity related to a certain link. Through them, you can track specific parts of your campaign to get results that can be measured later and analyzed to help you in your future ad campaigns.   

Set up Conversion Tracking 

This step is crucial in knowing the number of visitor actions and leads you have acquired from your ad campaign on Google AdWords, and it also allows you to monitor and know the sales volume and activities on your store.

Set up the bidding method  

Now it is time to set up the appropriate bidding options after you have adjusted everything related to your ad campaign and ensured it is tracked properly. Do you remember what I told you about how the bidding method plays a major role in determining your ad's rank relative to other ads in the same field? 

You must set a bidding strategy suitable for your budget and goals, and here I will lay out some bidding strategies that you must know before launching your ad campaign:

Automated bidding 

 Let Google choose the appropriate bid for you based on your competitors' bids, and it will give you a very reasonable price and won't force you into a specific budget or set rate.

Manual bidding 

Through this option, you select the bid that works for you, with the opportunity to reduce costs on underperforming ads. 

CPA bidding 

If you do not like the previous two options and feel uncomfortable with them, you can use the Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) method. In this method, you only pay when you acquire a new customer, allowing you to direct your funds in a way that guarantees optimal investment. 

Now you have a comprehensive understanding of many elements regarding your ad campaign on Google AdWords. We will move on to another very important factor in your ad quality, which is the Quality Score. A high-quality ad will let you sleep easy because it will have the power to generate a high yield. 

Quality Score consists of several components: the click-through rate (CTR) of the ad via a specific keyword, landing pages, and ad relevance.

Click-through rate of the ad:  

It represents the percentage of people who click on an ad from a specific keyword; for instance, if 100 people search for a certain keyword and 3 of them click, this represents the click rate. As click-through rates increase, the Quality Score increases.

To improve the click rate, you need to see how your ad looks; perhaps there is a problem making the ad unappealing to viewers, so no one clicks on it.

Preview your ad and how it appears on Google using Ad Review by entering a keyword you target. Take a look at your ad, which will be in green, and you will find out what the problem is; perhaps the copy is not good or attractive enough for a person to click on it, so you will need to rewrite it.

 Another solution is to look at other ads targeting the same keyword you are targeting to see how your competitors are working or by looking at several Ad Copies. Since you might not know or get any information about your competitors' ad performance, the best solution in this case is to take a close look at the first three ads on Google. Why?

Do you remember the term Ad Rank? These ads definitely have a high Quality Score, otherwise Google wouldn't place them in this position. 

Ad relevance: 

The second element that affects your ad quality is ad relevance, which is related to how closely the ad is connected to the keyword. Does the ad actually meet the need of the person who searched using that word and pressed search? Remember the ad for oily skin moisturizer we discussed earlier in the keywords section; let's imagine I used the same keyword, "Moisturiser for oily skin," but imagine an ad appeared showing a moisturizer for dry skin. 

Is this what I was looking for? Of course not, I selected keywords expecting something regarding oily skin, and since what appeared pertained to dry skin, I certainly wouldn't click on this ad because it is not relevant to what I searched for (the keyword).

Landing page:

  This is the page that the ad guides the customer to, which contains the product you want to promote in the first place. This page must be attractive, and the user experience (UX) on it must be easy and smooth, and it must ultimately lead the customer to the action you want them to perform, which is buying.  You must also make sure that the content of this page is what the person typing the keyword is looking for, and the keyword must be present in the title and in the content itself. For example, if I search for a keyword like "oily skin," this keyword must be distributed throughout the content on the page. You should also know the methods to keep visitors interested in your site, and here is the answer to how you can create a marketing strategy to increase your sales

Once you have this information and analysis, go back to the ad settings and adjust all elements. This will ensure you construct a well-crafted ad appropriately. After you launch your first, second, and third ads, you are now following a long-run policy. You need to test the ads and compare them with each other to determine which had low performance and did not capture many clicks, which performed reasonably, and which was unmatched. 

 Ad extensions (Google AdWords Extension)

There remains one important thing we must cover, which is Ad Extensions (Google AdWords Extension), as they are often a useful tool. Through them, the advertiser can add new information they did not include at the start, and this information can raise click-through rates, contribute to improving the ad, and might also change the ad rank.

Using ad extensions will contribute to expanding your current ads by giving the reader more ways to interact with your product or business.  These extensions are attached to your ad and can provide extra information enabling the reader to find more varied details. 

The extension can highlight additional features of your company's product or service, for example: 

Free shipping to any region, a 60-day or specific return policy, or you can include your business location. For example, if you are advertising a restaurant, you could include a phone number to call or a website to visit. It can also point directly to where your app can be downloaded or provide a link to download it. All of these features make the ad of greater benefit to whoever sees it.

Types of ad extensions 

There are many types of extensions available to you in Google AdWords, as follows:

• Sitelink extensions: 

Here, the ad includes a section of the site that the advertiser wants to direct the customer to.

• Call extensions: 

Adding a phone number enables the customer to call directly and inquire about what they want. Here is an example in this image where a phone number is available to call if anyone wants to ask about something regarding the ad.

Image from Hubspot

• Location extensions: 

Here, the physical location or business address is added, as in this image featuring an ad for Starbucks.

Image from Hubspot

• Message extensions: 

An addition that enables anyone to inquire via text message regarding the ad. 

• Price extensions: 

You will find an example of this in the image in the keywords section.

• Review extensions: 

An addition containing reviews and ratings, such as customer ratings for a 4-star hotel or tourist resort.

To summarize the above:

After reading this article, you will be familiar with all the details that enable you to use the Google AdWords platform in your next ad to increase your audience base and product sales, such as:

• What is Google AdWords

• How to create an account on Google AdWords

• Features of Google AdWords

• Is Google AdWords fruitful and worth trying?!

• Terms you must know before starting your first advertising campaign on Google AdWords 

• Configuring a Google AdWords account

• Required steps to analyze the ad on Google AdWords

• Google AdWords Extensions

• Types of ad extensions 

These details will greatly benefit you in your marketing strategy to bring in more customers and raise the sales rate. You can now seamlessly link your Google AdWords account to Salla and register from here.