How to Run Your First Google Ads Campaign — Step-by-Step Guide (2025)

Step-by-step Guide — How to Run Your First Google Ads Campaign (beginner-friendly, 2025)

How to Run Your First Google Ads Campaign — Step by Step

Quick overview (what you’ll do)

Pick a clear goal (sales, leads, traffic).
Set up accounts & billing.
Create the campaign (type, targeting, budget).
Build ad groups, keywords/creative.
Add conversion tracking and launch.
Monitor, optimize, scale.
Google also offers a simple 5-step walkthrough in its Ads onboarding if you want the guided UI tour.

1. Prep: choose a single goal + prepare assets

Pick one primary goal for your first campaign (e.g., “get demo signups” or “sell product A”). Gather:

Landing page URL(s) that match the ad intent (fast, mobile-friendly).
A short headline, 2–3 descriptions, and 2–3 images (if using Display/Performance Max).
Payment method ready in Google Ads account.

Why one goal? It keeps bidding add conversions clear so Google’s machine learning can optimize properly.

2. Create your Google Ads account & connect tools

If you don’t have one, create a Google Ads account and add billing info. Link these if you have them:

Google Analytics 4 (GA4) — for deeper conversion and audience data.
Google Search Console (for organic + paid diagnostics).
This setup helps you measure results and import goals later. For how to start a campaign from the Ads UI, follow Google’s step-by-step create-campaign guide.

3. Pick campaign type & goal

Common beginner-friendly campaign types:

Search (text ads on Google Search) — great for intent-driven buyers.
Performance Max — Google’s all-inventory, goal-focused campaign that uses assets and automation (good for broad reach).

Display / Remarketing — for awareness/retargeting with images.
Choose the campaign goal (Sales, Leads, Traffic) during setup — Google will recommend settings based on the goal.

4.Targeting, keywords & audience

For Search campaigns:

Build tight ad groups (1 theme/product per ad group)

Use keyword match types: exact, phrase, broad match modifier (or broad with smart bidding + responsive assets). Start with a mix but avoid huge, unfocused keyword lists.
For Performance Max / Display: upload high-quality images, short headlines, long headlines, descriptions, and audience signals (interests, remarketing lists).
Good structure = easier optimization and cleaner data.

5. Budget & bidding (beginner recommendations)

Start with a modest daily budget you’re comfortable losing while testing (many beginners start $5–$20/day per campaign depending on vertical
For bidding, pick a strategy that matches your goal:
Maximize clicks — if testing traffic.
Maximize conversions / Target CPA / Target ROAS — use these onlyyou have conversion data. Smart Bidding (Google’s automated bidding using auction-timesignals) is highly recommended once you have some conversion history.

Tip: Smart Bidding needs a short learning period — give it 1–2 weeks and enough conversions to “learn.”

6. Add renversion tracking (must-do)

For Search: provide 8–15 headlines and 4–6 descriptions so Google can assemble high-performing combinations (short, benefit-led, and include a call to action).

For Display/Video: use high-quality visuals, a clear CTA, and short text overlays.

Match landing page message to the ad (same offer, headline, and CTA). Relevance improves Quality Score and lowers CPC

7. Create ads (best practices)

Before you launch, set up conversion actions — e.g., form submit, purchase, phone call. Install the Google tag or use Google Tag Manager, and test conversions so your campaigns can optimize for real results. Conversion tracking is essential for measuring ROI and for Smart Bidding to work.

8. Policy check & launch

Quick policy review before you go live: make sure your ads and landing pages meet Google Ads policies (no misleading claims, correct business info, legal compliance). Policy violations can get ads disapproved or accounts suspended.

Adjust bids, pause poor keywords/ads, test new creatives.
Make small changes and let algorithms re-learn before making more changes.

Quick optimization checklist (after launch)

Add egative keywords weekly.
Test 2–3 ad variations per ad group
landing page speed & mobile UX.
Expand with remarImprove keting lists and lookalike audiences.
Scale budget on campaigns hitting your CPA/ROAS targets.

9. Closing notes & resources

Running paid search is iterative — expect a learning curve. Use Google’s official walkthroughs and docs when you need UI screenshots or exact menu locations. Useful starting docs:

Google’s create-campaign guide, conversion tracking docs, and Smart Bidding guide