Short answer
To advertise on Google Ads, open the account, add billing and set up conversion tracking, then pick a campaign type that fits your goal. In a Search campaign you pick keywords and match types, write ad copy and set a budget and bidding strategy. Cost is not fixed: bid, ad quality and competition set it in an auction.
8 min read
What is Google Ads, and where do the ads appear?
Google Ads is the advertising platform that lets you show ads in Google search results, on YouTube, in Gmail, in the Discover feed, on Maps and on partner sites. Ads are not sold from a fixed price list; they run through an auction held in real time for each impression. With search ads you usually pay only when someone clicks your ad.
This guide walks through the steps in order for businesses advertising for the first time, or wanting to run an existing account more deliberately. We cover how we plan advertising, organic search and AI surfaces on Google together on our Google platform page.
What should be ready before you advertise on Google?
Finishing a few basics before building a campaign prevents mistakes that are hard to fix later:
- Google Ads account: It should be opened with the business's own email address. If you work with an agency, give the agency admin access; ownership of the account stays with you.
- Billing and verification: Enter the payments profile and invoicing details. Google may ask for advertiser verification; keep your company documents to hand.
- Measurement setup: Install the Google tag or Google Tag Manager on the site and link your Google Analytics property to the Google Ads account.
- Landing page: Prepare a page that explains what the ad promises, loads quickly, is easy to use on mobile and has a clearly visible form or call button.
- Goal: Sales, forms, phone calls or store visits. If the goal is unclear, the campaign type and bidding strategy cannot be chosen correctly either.
Which campaign type should you choose?
The campaign type is chosen according to where the user is in their decision process. For most businesses advertising for the first time, the clearest starting point is a Search campaign, which reaches people already searching for what they need.
- Search: Text ads shown in search results when a user types a query. The most direct route for products and services where demand already exists.
- Performance Max: A single campaign that runs across Search, YouTube, the Display Network, Gmail, Discover and Maps. The system largely decides what to show on which surface, so it needs reliable conversion data.
- Demand Gen: Builds interest among people who have not searched yet, with image and video ads on YouTube, Discover and Gmail.
- Shopping: Generates product ads with images and prices from the product data in Merchant Center. The core campaign for e-commerce sites.
- Video: Shows video ads on YouTube with awareness, consideration or conversion goals. We explain the details on our YouTube platform page.
If the budget is limited, it is healthier to start with a single type and expand once measurement is settled, rather than opening many campaign types at once.
How do you choose keywords and match types?
In a Search campaign, a keyword is the phrase that determines which searches your ad can appear for. Build the list in the customer's search language, not with your own product names. Keyword Planner in Google Ads gives an idea of search volume and competition, but the figures it shows are estimates.
- Exact match: The ad shows for searches with the same meaning as the keyword. High control, narrow reach.
- Phrase match: The ad shows for searches that include the meaning of the keyword. A balance between control and reach.
- Broad match: The ad also shows for related searches. It works when combined with Smart Bidding strategies and strong negative lists.
Negative keywords are at least as important as keywords. Excluding people searching for jobs, free options, second-hand items or services you do not offer stops the budget being wasted. Once the campaign is live, read the search terms report regularly and update the list. We discuss which queries deserve ad spend and which deserve investment in organic content in SEO vs Google Ads.
How do you prepare ad copy and assets?
Search campaigns use responsive search ads: you write several headlines and descriptions, and Google tests them in different combinations. Use the headlines to state the searched phrase, a concrete benefit and the next step. Sitelinks, callouts, call assets and location assets make the ad larger and give the user more options. Performance Max and Demand Gen also need images, logos and both landscape and vertical videos. The more varied the assets, the more placements the system can serve on.
How do you set a bidding strategy?
The bidding strategy determines how much Google bids on your behalf in the auction, and it is chosen according to the goal:
- Maximise conversions or Target CPA: For goals tracked by count, such as forms, calls or sign-ups.
- Maximise conversion value or Target ROAS: For e-commerce accounts where sale values differ from one another.
- Maximise clicks or manual CPC: When there is no conversion data yet, or for limited traffic-focused tests.
Smart Bidding strategies learn from past conversion data. After switching to a new strategy the system goes through a learning period; frequent intervention during this time makes results even more volatile. Set target values according to your own profitability calculation, not the platform's recommendation.
How do you set up conversion tracking?
Measurement is the source from which Google Ads learns which users to bid on. A wrongly configured conversion steers the budget towards the wrong people. The core steps are:
- Choose as primary conversions only actions that carry business value: a purchase, a submitted form, a phone call above a set duration. Weak signals such as page views should stay secondary.
- Define key events in Google Analytics according to your business goal and import the ones you need into Google Ads as conversions.
- Turn on enhanced conversions: data such as an email address collected at form submission or sale is hashed and matched, making measurement more complete.
- Set up consent mode for cookie consent; comply with KVKK, Turkey's data protection law, and the rules of your target market.
- For businesses that close sales by phone or through a sales team, import the outcomes from your CRM into Google Ads as offline conversions.
What determines Google advertising prices?
There is no fixed rate card in Google Ads. A real-time auction is held for each search, and Ad Rank decides whether your ad is shown and in which position. Ad Rank is formed by your bid, the quality of the ad and landing page, the expected impact of assets and the context of the search together.
Quality Score is a good indicator for understanding this logic. It is calculated from expected click-through rate, ad relevance to the search and landing page experience. A high-quality ad can win a better position with a lower bid. Cost per click is also affected by competition in your sector, target location, time of day, device and season. You set the budget; Google uses the daily budget as an average and may go over it on some days and under it on others. The platform changes billing terms and minimum thresholds from time to time, so check current information in the ad account.
What are the most common mistakes with Google ads?
- Launching the campaign before measurement is set up and losing the data from the first period.
- Targeting everyone interested in the region in location settings, instead of people actually located there.
- Using broad match without a negative keyword list.
- Sending every ad to the home page.
- Accepting automated recommendations in the account without comparing them with the business goal.
- Assuming conversions Performance Max takes from brand searches are new customers.
When should you work with an agency on Google Ads?
A business running a small Search campaign for a single service can handle the basic setup with its own team. Agency support usually makes sense in these cases: several campaign types are running at once, e-commerce needs product data and Merchant Center management, measurement involves a CRM and offline conversions, ads run in different languages for markets abroad, or your team's available time stops being enough as spend grows.
Whichever route you take, make sure account ownership stays with you and that reports show platform data together with business results. Since nobody can know the outcome of an auction in advance, be cautious of proposals that promise certain results. We explain our approach to account structure, bidding and measurement on our Google Ads service page. If you would like to review the current state of your account together, you can write to us via our contact page.
Frequently asked
- What determines Google advertising fees?
- No single price sets the fee. In the auction held for each impression, your bid, Quality Score and ad quality, competition in your sector, target location, device and timing all play a part. You set the upper limit on spend through your budget; current billing terms should be checked in the ad account.
- Can I set up Google Ads myself?
- Yes. Opening an account and building a simple Search campaign does not require advanced technical knowledge. The difficulty usually lies not in the setup but in defining conversion tracking correctly, cleaning search terms regularly and tuning the bidding strategy to the business goal.
- How long do Google ads take to deliver results?
- Ads start receiving impressions shortly after approval. However, it takes time for Smart Bidding strategies to learn and for enough data to build up for a reliable comparison. So a campaign should be judged not on its first days but on the trend over several weeks.
- Should I start with Performance Max?
- In most cases, no. Performance Max works best with reliable conversion data. In an account with newly set up measurement, the more controlled route is to build signal first with a Search or Shopping campaign, then add Performance Max with brand exclusions and clear goals.