How to Post a Google Ad

Posting your first Google Ad can feel like standing at the control panel of a spaceship - tons of buttons, blinking lights, and a bit of uncertainty. Don't worry, it's far less complicated than it looks. This guide will walk you through launching your first Google Ad campaign, step-by-step, from initial planning to writing ad copy that actually gets clicked.

Before You Begin: The Pre-Flight Checklist

Jumping straight into the Google Ads platform without a plan is a quick way to waste your budget. Successful ads are born from a solid strategy, so let's spend a few minutes setting the foundation for your campaign.

1. Define Your Goal: What's a "Win"?

Before you spend a single dollar, you need to know what you want to achieve. What action do you want someone to take after seeing your ad? For most new advertisers, it comes down to one of a few core business objectives:

• Leads: You want potential customers to fill out a contact form, sign up for a newsletter, or call you. This is common for service businesses, consultants, and B2B companies.
• Sales: You want someone to buy a product directly from your website. This is the primary goal for e-commerce stores.
• Website Traffic: You want to bring more people to your website to read content, learn about your brand, or explore your services.
• Brand Awareness: You want more people to simply know your brand exists, even if they don't click or buy immediately.

Pick one primary goal for your first campaign. Trying to achieve everything at once will dilute your efforts. Your choice here will influence every other decision you make, from the ad copy you write to how you measure success.

2. Get into Keyword Research Mode

Google Ads is built on keywords - the exact words and phrases people type into the search bar. Your job is to bid on the keywords that your ideal customers are using when they look for a solution like yours. Thinking like your customer is a good starting point, but you should use tools to guide your research. Google's own Keyword Planner (available inside your Google Ads account) is an excellent place to start.

As you build your list, think about the different types of search intent:

• Informational: "how to fix a leaky faucet"
• Navigational: "plumber near me"
• Transactional: "emergency plumbing service cost"

As a business, you generally want to focus on keywords with transactional or commercial intent. These users are typically closer to making a purchase decision.

A Quick Word on Match Types

Google doesn't just match your ad to the exact keyword you entered. It uses "match types" to give you different levels of control:

• Broad Match: Ads can show on searches related to your keyword, but not containing the exact terms. Example: Bidding on running shoes might show your ad for athletic sneakers or marathon trainers. Use this cautiously as it can bring in irrelevant traffic.
• Phrase Match: Your ad shows for searches that include the meaning of your keyword. Your ad for "women's tennis shoes" could show for searches like buy tennis shoes for women or women's footwear for tennis.
• Exact Match: Your ad only shows for searches that have the same exact meaning as your keyword. Your ad for [red running shoes for men] would only show for searches with the same specific intent.

For your first campaign, starting with Phrase Match and a handful of highly relevant Exact Match keywords gives you a good balance of reach and control. And don’t forget Negative Keywords - the terms you don't want your ad to show for (e.g., adding free as a negative keyword to avoid people looking for a freebie).

3. Set a Sensible Budget

You control exactly how much you spend in Google Ads. You can set a budget on a per-day basis. For example, a $15/day budget means you'll spend approximately $450 over a 30-day month.

It’s tempting to start with a tiny budget like $5 per day, but this might not generate enough clicks to give you meaningful data. It's often better to start with a slightly larger daily budget ($20-$50) for a shorter period (1-2 weeks) to gather data quickly on what's working and what isn't, and then adjust based on performance.

Step-by-Step: Launching Your First Ad Campaign

With your homework done, it's time to build your campaign inside Google Ads.

Step 1: Create a Google Ads Account

If you don't have one already, head over to ads.google.com and create an account. You'll need a Google account and some business information to get started. During setup, Google will try to guide you into a "Smart Campaign" - it’s best to click the option to "Switch to Expert Mode" to get full control over your settings.

Step 2: Select a Campaign Goal

Once you're in the dashboard, click the big blue "+" button to create a new campaign. The first screen you see will ask you to pick an objective for your campaign. This should line up directly with the goal you defined in your prep work (e.g., Sales, Leads, or Website traffic).

Step 3: Choose Your Campaign Type

Google offers several types of campaigns. For your very first ad, you'll almost certainly want to choose "Search." This shows your text ads at the top of Google search results when people search for your keywords - it’s the classic Google Ad.

Other types like Display (image ads on websites), Video (YouTube ads), and Shopping (product ads) are powerful, but Search is the best place to learn the fundamentals.

Step 4: Set Your Budget and Bidding

Here you'll enter the daily budget you decided on earlier. Below that, you'll see a section for "Bidding." This tells Google how you want to spend your money. Don't get overwhelmed by the options, to start, focus on "Clicks." Selecting this option tells Google, "Get me as many clicks as possible within my daily budget." Once your campaign has more data, you can switch to a conversion-focused strategy, but Maximize Clicks is the perfect place to start.

Step 5: Narrow Your Targeting (Location, Language, & More)

This is where you tell Google who you want to see your ads. Don't show your Boston-based plumbing ads to people in California. You can target by country, state, city, zip code, and even a specific radius around your business address. Also, ensure you've selected the correct languages your audience speaks.

There are also "Audience segments" you can explore later, which allow you to target people based on interests and demographics. For now, location and language are the most important settings.

Step 6: Create Your Ad Groups and Add Keywords

Think of an Ad Group as a container. For each group, you’ll pick a specific theme, add a small list of closely related keywords, and then write ads that are directly relevant to those keywords.

For example, a shoe store might create different ad groups:

• Ad Group 1: Men's Running Shoes
• Ad Group 2: Women's Hiking Boots

Keeping ad groups tightly themed like this improves your Quality Score – a metric Google uses to determine how relevant your ads are – and will lead to a lower Cost-Per-Click (CPC).

Step 7: Write Your Ad!

This is the fun part! This is what people will actually see in the search results. A modern "Responsive Search Ad" is made up of a few key components:

• Final URL: The web page where users will land after clicking your ad (e.g., a specific product page or service page, not just your homepage).
• Headlines (up to 15): Short, punchy lines of text (up to 30 characters each). Google will mix and match these to find the best-performing combinations.
• Descriptions (up to 4): Longer text snippets (up to 90 characters each) that expand on the headlines.

Take your time and write compelling copy. You'll supply multiple headlines and descriptions, and Google’s algorithm will decide which combinations to show to which user. At the end of the ad creation process, Google will prompt you to set up Ad Extensions (like Sitelinks and Callouts). Take a few minutes to fill these out, they make your ad bigger and provide more ways for people to engage.

Step 8: Review and Launch

The final screen will show you a full summary of your campaign settings. Read through it carefully. Check your budget, targeting, keywords, and ad copy. If everything looks good, hit the "Publish campaign" button. Congratulations, your ad is now live and will start showing to potential customers!

After the Launch: Don't Just Set It and Forget It

Posting your ad is just the beginning. The real work - and profit - comes from optimization. For the first few days and weeks, you need to log into your Google Ads account to see how things are going. Pay close attention to a few key metrics:

• Impressions: How many times your ad was shown.
• Clicks: How many people actually clicked your ad.
• Click-Through Rate (CTR): The percentage of impressions that resulted in a click (Clicks ÷ Impressions). A high CTR generally means your ad copy is effective and relevant.
• Cost-Per-Click (CPC): How much you paid for each click.

Use this data to make smart decisions. Are some keywords getting a lot of clicks but not converting on your website? Pause them. Is one version of your ad copy getting a much higher CTR? Make more ads like it. This continuous loop of analyzing and refining is what separates successful campaigns from costly failures.

Final Thoughts

Setting up your first Google Ad boils down to a clear loop: developing a strategy, building your campaign in a structured way, launching it, and then analyzing the data to steadily improve performance. Follow the steps above, and you'll avoid the common pitfalls many beginners fall into, putting you leagues ahead.

Once you’re running campaigns, keeping track of what's working shouldn't be another chore that takes hours. At Graphed, we made it simple to see your performance across Google Ads and your other marketing platforms in one place. By connecting your sources, you can use plain English to ask questions like, "Show me my top-performing Google Ad campaigns by ROI this month" and see the insights instantly, without having to dig through dashboards or export CSV files all morning.