Getting Your Google Adwords Ad Running - Part 6

We're getting closer to getting your Google Adwords ad up and running! If you have followed the previous installments of this article, you will have your two ads written and your landing page created and ready to go.

If you remember, when you set up your Google Standard Account, you put in a fake Google Adwords ad and paused the campaign. You will now enter your actual ads into the system, put in a real bid for your keywords, and fire up your campaign!

Log in to your Adwords account and from the Campaign Summary view, click on the name of the campaign you initially set up (which will be called "Campaign #1 unless you renamed it.) This will take you to the Ad Group level. Click on your Ad group (it should be labeled as "Ad Group #1) and you will see the Google Adwords ad you initially wrote when setting up your account. Now click the "View all tabs at once" link towards the bottom right and the screen will expand to show a complete summary of your campaign. The summary info at the bottom of the screen shows what your current Google Adwords ad looks like. Click the edit button next to your ad to bring up the edit screen (see below figure.)

Now, simply overwrite your fake Google Adwords ad with one of your new ones. Fill in the headline, description lines, and the display/destination URL's and click on "Save Ad." You will now see your new ad as it will look to viewers. Now we just need to type in your second ad. Right above your ad in the display area, there is an area with the heading "Create New Ad:" and just to the right of this is a clickable link titled "Text ad." Click on this link to enter your second ad (see figure below.) Note that the fields may already be filled out with your current ad. Just delete them and type in your second Google Adwords ad. Your first ad will not be deleted.

Type in your Google Adwords ad just like you did before and then click on "Save Ad." You should now see both ads displayed in the Ad Group summary page. At this point, you will want to verify that your ads are still on the "Pause" setting as we don't want to start the campaign just yet. Take a look at the column marked "Status" and make sure both ads are labeled as "Paused." If this is not the case, you will want to place checkmarks next to each ad and then select the "Pause" button (see figure below).

Your keyword summary is the middle section of the page. You will see all the keywords you have built for your campaign. You can delete specific keywords by checking the small box next to the keyword itself and then clicking on the delete button located in the green bar towards the top. One other change you will need to make is to set the amount you wish to spend per keyword click. You did this when you set up your Standard Edition account but you placed in a very low value just to get your account up and running. You will now need to go in and set a realistic value. Google allows you to set this amount for each keyword but, to start out, I recommend setting one amount that will be used for all keywords. To set your bid amount, click on "Edit" under the "Current Bid" column (see figure below.)

Once in the keyword/CPC edit screen, enter your default bid as shown in the below figure. This is the maximum amount you agree to pay for any particular keyword. Keyword costs change all the time and depend on many factors including the amount of traffic for a particular keyword as well as advertiser competition. By setting a maximum bid amount for your keywords, you are creating a safety net for yourself. For example, maybe you've been getting several main keywords for 10 cents per click. However, next month, for various reasons, some of those keywords are now up to 30 or 40 cents per click. By putting in a maximum CPC bid, you protect yourself against some keyword costs rising as your campaign runs.

Setting your maximum CPC bid is a matter of personal choice. I recommend starting with something small in the range of 20-35 cents but you may be more comfortable going higher depending on your budget. If a particular keyword cost goes higher than your max CPC bid, that particular keyword will become inactive. You will be able to monitor when this happens and make decisions on whether to bid higher for that keyword or keep it out of your campaign. Once you've made your decision on what max CPC to use, click on "Save Changes."

Ok, were almost there. But before we pull the trigger and start your campaign, let's go over some additional settings that are very important. From the keyword screen, click on the name of your campaign towards the top left of the page (see figure below.) This will take you to the campaign screen where you will be able to access the "Edit Campaign Settings" link.

Now simply click on the "Edit Campaign Settings" link as shown in the figure below.

This will bring up a page which will let you define many important settings for your Google Adwords ad. Let's go through them.

Basic Settings Area (see figure below): This area allows you to enter the name of your campaign, gives the start date, and lets you define an exact date by which the campaign will end. This is handy if you know you are running a special promo for just a specific period of time. Just enter the date on which you want the campaign to cease and Google will take care of the rest.

Budget Options (see figure below): This area allows you to set your daily budget. Since it will take a little time to measure and fine-tune your ads, I recommend setting a lower amount to start and as you fine-tune the campaign and get conversions, you may want to increase this value. Once your budget for the day is met, your Google Adwords ad will stop showing. Start with one or two dollars a day. You can always go into the campaign settings and readjust at any time.

You have two choices with regards to how your ads are delivered. The first will deliver your ads evenly over time. Google looks at what you've set for your budget and delivers the ads evenly throughout the day until your budget has been reached. This is my recommendation. However, you also have the choice of displaying your Google Adwords ad as often as possible until your budget is met.

Advanced Options (see figure below): The first section, Keyword Bidding, should be left at the default setting of "Maximum CPC bidding." You already set this value in the previous step.

Ad Scheduling allows you to set the time of day your ads appear. Feel free to change this according to your market. Don't be surprised when you find that most people are clicking on your "Insomnia Solutions" landing page at 3:00AM! You can have your ads display all the time or just during certain portions of the day or night. For example, if the goal of your Google Adwords ad is to get prospects to call you, you can schedule your ads to only show during your business owners. This will ensure someone will be there to talk to the prospect in person.

The Position Preference setting tells the system to only show your Google Adwords ad when it falls in a certain position. For example, you might only want your ads to show up when they are in positions 1-3. That is, ad position one, two and three from the very top of the sponsored ads. For now, I suggest you just leave the default setting. Run your campaign and monitor first - then you can come back here if you wish and play with different settings to see how it affects your overall campaign.

For some insane reason, Google has the Ad Serving button set to "Optimize." This needs to be set to "Rotate: Show ads more evenly." If you have your thinking cap on, you'll know immediately why it is a mistake to leave this setting on "Optimize." Remember when I explained the importance of A/B split testing? Well, how in the world are you supposed to test two ads against each other if the Google starts serving up the better ad more frequently? That right, you can't! Enough said.

Networks (see figure below): The Networks area allows you to set how your Google Adwords ad is served on the entire Google network system. There are two main hubs to this network; Google Search and Content Network. Clicking just on the Google Search button means your ad will show up along the top or right side of the Google search results page. In addition, you will see another box titled "Search Network" right underneath. Clicking this box will allow your ad to also be shown Google's partner sites like AOL and Ask.com.

Clicking on just the Content Network button means your ad will be served up on websites that are in the Google Adsense program. These are websites that Google deems related to your ad. For example, if your Google Adwords ad relates to poetry, your ad will show up on poetry related websites.

My recommendation here is to just click on "Google search" and nothing else to start. These three networks generally respond quite differently from each other and mixing up the statistics by including them all will make it more difficult to fine-tune your ad later on.

Google tries to scare you from opting out of the Content Network. Don't let 'em bully you. Keep things simple at first. After you gain experience and success, you can come back and create separate campaigns for testing the other networks.

Target Audience (see figure below): This section is where you set your language and locations. The default setting for language is English but you can add additional languages by holding down your Control key and clicking on additional selection.

Google tells you the location currently selected. This can be easily changed by clicking the "Edit" link. Doing this opens up a window that allows you to target your campaign to the entire planet or just a small radius around where your business is located. The choice is yours. If you only provide a local service, then there is no point is having your ad show up 15 states away. You can select by state, city, and zip code. You can even create a geometric shape around the areas you want to serve up your Google Adwords ad!

Ok, are you ready to finally get things started? Let's get your Google Adwords ad up and running! From the main campaign screen, all you need to do is to click on "Resume Campaign" as shown below. Once you do this, your two ads will start rotating evenly to Google searchers.

Congratulations! You've just accomplished quite a lot. This is where many people stop. They get their ads up and just leave them there with no testing and very little changing. You've already taken an important first step by rotating 2 ads in an A/B split test. The next step is to monitor and fine-tune your campaign. Don't be discouraged if your ads don't perform all that well at this point. You took your best shot and now it's time to let the Google searchers decide how well you did. The real fun of a Google Adwords campaign is next!

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