How to Run an AdWords
Campaign for the First Time
With a low up-front cost, a captive audience in the hundreds
of millions, and a great history of success, learning how to run an AdWords
campaign through Google is an essential element for any business today. Here’s
a quick six-step run down of how to run your first AdWords campaign right:
Step 1: Set Your Goals
Every aspect of marketing involves this step. You cannot be
successful unless you first define what success means. When you want to run an
AdWords campaign this means establishing your goals, targets, and objectives.
Try to keep it simple, use analytics to make a clear statement, such as, “I
want to convert 5 sales from no more than a $100/month ad budget.”
Step 2: Get Your
Keywords Straight
A perfectly worded ad is useless if it isn’t seen; search
engine marketing depends on good keywords. This means taking the time to
research and identify keywords and brand terms before spending money on AdWords.
Step 3: Create Your
Campaign
Like most of its tools, Google makes AdWords easy to create
with a self-explanatory form. Identify your keywords and audience and have your
ad copy ready; you can plug it right into the box. Google will recommend additional
keywords that you may want to consider as well. The final step is to set your
bid. There are a lot of different standards and guidelines on which bids to set
and when, but bottom line the “right” bid is all about circumstance and number
crunching.
Step 4: Begin Tracking
Once the ad is set up, you are not done. If you want to run
an AdWords campaign that is a success this means tracking it and making changes
when and where necessary. Google makes this process easy for you through Google
Analytics, though there are other equally worthy programs all at different
price points.
Step 5: Add More Copy
Where Needed
Once you launch your first campaign, it will become
immediately obvious where you need more work. Use the analytics and results
generated from step 4 and add more ads where they will be seen and generate a
larger ROI. The more ads you run, the faster you will learn about what works
and what does not.
Step 6: Keep Checking
In
Even after you are relatively certain that you have nailed
the targets and the goals of your ad, you need to keep updated with it.
Learning how to run an AdWords campaign doesn’t stop at success. Keep playing
with keywords, change up copy to keep things fresh, and generally spend time
managing an AdWords campaign much in the way you would manage a print ad.
