How To Use Google Ads: A Beginner’s Guide in 2025 

Key takeaways:

• Success with Google Ads begins with clearly defined goals, thorough keyword research to target the right audience, and a well-structured campaign to effectively organize your ads and budget.
• Understanding the difference between manual and automated bidding, setting a realistic daily budget, and continuously monitoring and adjusting bids are necessary for optimizing costs and maximizing campaign performance.
• Google Ads is an ongoing process. Regularly analyze your campaign data, test different ad creatives and landing pages, and adapt your strategies based on performance insights to drive traffic and achieve sustainable growth.

If you’re looking to drive targeted traffic to your website, increase sales, or get your business in from of more people, Google Ads (formerly known as Google AdWords) can be a great way to do that. It’s one of the most powerful ways to reach potential customers right when they’re searching for products or services like yours.

 If you’re new to Google Ads, it might seem like a lot to take in. But once you break it down and get familiar with the basics, it’s a straightforward process that can deliver solid results.

Before we jump into setting up your first campaign, let’s take a quick look at what Google Ads is and how it works so you can get a better understanding of the platform.

What is Google Ads?

Google Ads is Google’s pay-per-click (PPC) online advertising platform that enables businesses to display ads on Google’s search results pages (SERPs) and its network of websites, apps, and videos. By bidding on relevant keywords, businesses can reach users actively searching for their offerings.

Google Ads offers various advertising campaigns, including Search, Display, Video, Shopping, App, and Performance Max. Competition for ad placements affects costs and campaign performance.

Ultimately, Google Ads can significantly increase website traffic by connecting businesses with the right audience at the right time.

How Google Ads work

At its core, Google Ads allows businesses to create online ads that appear in search results or on websites across the Google network. But how exactly does it work?

• Advertisers create ads. Businesses start by creating text-based advertisements with a compelling headline, a descriptive body, and a URL directing users to a specific landing page.
• Advertisers set bids. Each advertiser sets a bid, the maximum amount they are willing to pay for a click on their ad. This bid plays an important role in determining the ad’s placement.
• Google’s algorithm determines ad rank. Google uses a combination of the bid amount, ad relevance, and landing page quality to determine the ad rank. A higher ad rank means better placement in search results.
• Ads are displayed. Once the ad rank is determined, ads are displayed on Google’s SERPs and across other websites within Google’s network.
• Users click on ads. When users click on these ads, they are directed to the advertiser’s website, and the advertiser is charged for each click.
• Advertisers track performance. Using Google Ads’ robust analytics tools, advertisers can track key performance metrics such as clicks, conversions, and cost-per-click (CPC) to measure the effectiveness of their campaigns.

By understanding how Google Ads works, businesses can create more effective ad campaigns that drive traffic and achieve their marketing goals.

How to use Google Ads

Now that you have a basic understanding of how Google Ads works, let’s walk through the steps to create your first campaign. It’s simpler than it looks once you get the hang of it.

Step 1. Create a Google Ads account

You can’t start your campaign without an account. Don’t worry, it’s a straightforward process so you can start in no time. Here are the steps to get started:

1. Go to the official Google Ads sign-up page.
2. Follow the on-screen instructions to link your Google account or create a new one.
3. Provide your basic business information and billing details.

Step 2. Set your campaign goals

Defining your campaign goal is necessary as it influences your chosen campaign type and settings. Common goals include:

• Leads. Generating inquiries or contact information from potential customers.
• Website traffic. Driving visitors to your website.
• Sales. Increasing online or offline sales.
• Brand awareness and reach. Showing your ads to a broad audience to build recognition.
• App promotion. Getting more installations and engagement for your app.

Choose the goal that best aligns with your current business needs. For example, if you want to generate inquiries, “Leads” would be a suitable goal.

Here’s a preview of a Google Ads campaign goal selector:

Step 3. Choose the right campaign type

As mentioned earlier, Google offers various campaign types.  Here’s a look at the different campaign types and what they’re best suited for:

• Search. Ideal for reaching users who are actively searching for your products or services and capturing intent-based traffic. To give you a context, below is an example of a Google Search Ad by Network Solutions:

• Display. Allows you to showcase visual ads on a vast website network, helping build brand awareness.
• Video. Leverages the power of YouTube to reach a large audience with engaging video ads.
• Performance Max. An AI-powered campaign type that automates bidding, budget allocation, and ad placements across all Google platforms to maximize conversions.

When considering Google advertising campaigns, consider where your target audience spends time online and what type of ad format will best capture their attention. Search ads allow advertisers to create multiple ad variations optimized by Google’s AI, which ensures effective targeting and placement in search result pages.

Step 4. Do your keyword research

Keywords are the foundation of your Google Ads campaigns. They are the words and phrases that people type into Google when searching for information.

Here are some key elements to consider when doing your keyword research:

• Google Keyword Planner. This free tool within Google Ads helps you discover relevant keywords, analyze their search volume, and estimate their cost.
• Match types. Control how closely a user’s search query needs to match your keywords (Broad, Phrase, Exact).
• Search intent. Understand the “why” behind a user’s search. Are they looking to buy, learn, or find a specific website? Tailoring your keywords and ads to match search intent is important.

 Here’s what the Google Keyword Planner interface looks like:

Step 5. Choose a bidding strategy and set your budget

Start by setting realistic expectations for your bidding strategy, as this determines your cost per click. There are two main paths to decide how you’ll bid for ad visibility. Here’s a simplified comparison of these paths:

Manual bidding

• You have full control. With manual bidding, you set the maximum amount you’re willing to pay for a click or conversion. It’s like driving your car with your hands in the steering wheel.
• It takes more effort. You need to actively monitor and adjust your bids to optimize your campaign’s performance. It’s like manually adjusting your car’s speed to stay on course.
• Better for experienced advertisers. Manual bidding is great if you have a deep understanding of your target audience and want precise control over your bids.

Automated bidding

• Google’s algorithms take charge. With automated bidding, Google uses machine learning to adjust your bids in real-time to maximize your campaign’s goals. It’s like having an autopilot for your car.
• Less manual work. Automated bidding can save you time as you don’t need to constantly adjust bids. Google handles it based on your campaign objectives.
• Ideal for beginners and large campaigns. Automated bidding is useful if you’re new to Google Ads or managing extensive campaigns because it can optimize bids more efficiently at scale.

Following your bidding strategy selection, you’ll set your daily budget, which Google allows you to distribute for cost control – the final say is yours. Ongoing campaign monitoring is important. Increase bids for well-performing keywords and ads to capitalize on their success and decrease bids for those that aren’t meeting your expectations.

Here’s an example of a Google Ads budget and bidding strategy:

Step 6. Write a compelling ad copy

Your ad copy is what users see on the search results page. As such, it needs to be clear, concise, and persuasive. Here’s what to keep in mind when writing your Google Ads copy:

• Use strong keywords in your headlines and highlight key benefits.
• Provide additional details about your offer.
• Ensure your ad copy is easy to understand.
• Include a clear call-to-action (CTA) and tell users what you want them to do (e.g., “Learn More,” “Shop Now,” “Contact Us”).
• Make sure your ad copy is directly relevant to your keywords and landing page.

Step 7. Launch and monitor performance

Once your campaign is set up, it’s time to launch! However, your work doesn’t end there. Here are some important areas to monitor once your ads are live:

• Track key metrics like Click-Through Rate (CTR), Cost Per Click (CPC), and conversions to understand your ads’ performance.
• Monitor your quality score, which reflects the relevance and quality of your keywords, ads, and landing page. A higher quality score can lead to lower costs and better ad positions.
• Conduct A/B testing experiment with different ad copy, keywords, and bidding strategies to identify what works best.

 This is how the performance dashboard appears in Google Ads:

Tips to optimize your Google Ads campaigns

Optimizing your Google Ads campaigns is key to ensuring you’re getting the most out of your budget and efforts. The better optimized your campaigns are, the more likely you are to reach your target audience and drive conversions. Here are some actionable tips to help you maximize the effectiveness of your Google Ads:

• Use ad extensions. Enhance your ads with additional information, such as site link extensions, callout extensions, and structured snippet extensions, to make them more prominent and informative.
• Run A/B tests. Regularly test different versions of your ad copy, landing pages, and bidding strategies to identify winning combinations.
• Use negative keywords. Add negative keywords to prevent your ads from showing irrelevant searches. For example, if you sell new bikes, you might add “used” as a negative keyword.
• Adjust bids based on performance. Monitor your campaign performance and adjust bids for keywords and ad groups performing well or poorly.
• Consider Gmail as an additional advertising channel to enhance your ad visibility and engagement. You can reach potential customers through their email or when they conduct product searches.
• Consult a Google Ads expert for more personalized support and guidance. They can help you create a tailored ads plan to enhance your advertising efforts.

Advanced Google Ads features to boost your campaign

Once you’re comfortable with the basics, consider exploring these advanced Google Ads features that can take your campaigns to the next level:

• Performance Max campaigns (PMax). Leverage Google’s AI to reach customers across all channels with a single campaign.
• Conversion tracking. Set up conversion tracking to measure valuable actions like sales, leads, and sign-ups, allowing you to optimize your campaigns for specific results.
• Remarketing and custom audiences. Re-engage users who have previously interacted with your website or create custom audiences based on specific demographics and interests to enhance targeting and improve campaign effectiveness.

Common mistakes to avoid

Google Ads can be a powerful tool, but it’s easy to make mistakes, especially if you’re just starting out. To help you get the best results from your campaigns, here are some common pitfalls to watch out for:

• Using broad keywords without modifiers, which can result in your ads showing for irrelevant searches and wasting your budget.
• Ignoring mobile optimization. A significant portion of searches happen on mobile devices, so ensure your ads and landing pages are mobile-friendly.
• Not testing enough ad variations. Relying on a single ad variation limits your ability to identify high-performing copy.
• Failing to maintain a high-quality score, which influences ad rank and click-through rates.

Launch a basic Google Ads Campaign today

Getting started with Google Ads might seem daunting, but with a structured approach, anyone can learn to leverage its power. Remember that success with Google Ads is an ongoing process of testing, analyzing, and optimizing your campaigns. Don’t be afraid to start with a simple campaign and learn firsthand how it works.

Frequently asked questions