A good start in Google Ads depends on getting a few decisions right, in the right order, before you even touch the panel settings: what should the campaign produce, which action will you measure, and what structure and budget will you launch with? This article walks through those decisions first, then every screen from opening an account to submitting your ad for review. Someone who has never opened Google Ads before can follow this sequence to set up their first campaign.
Where Do You Start With Google Ads?
Clarify the goal first
The first decision is what you want the campaign to produce. Traffic, visibility, forms, sales, phone calls, or quote requests are all different goals, and every decision about budget, bids, and keywords depends on this choice. That’s also why HubSpot’s PPC campaign guide starts with the same sequence: goal, campaign, keyword, landing page.
Then define the action you’ll measure
In a B2B services campaign, a conversion might be a form fill in one case, a phone call in another, or a demo request in a third. Without defining these actions, it’s hard to tell whether the campaign is performing well or poorly. See What Is Conversion Tracking? for more on this.
How Do You Set Up Your First Campaign, Step by Step?
Once the goal and the action you’ll measure are clear, it’s time to move into the panel. The sequence below is written so that someone who has never used Google Ads can follow it start to finish, without assuming any prior knowledge at any step.
1. Open an account and choose a goal
Sign in at ads.google.com with an existing Google account (a Gmail address is enough). During initial setup, Google typically suggests a simplified mode called “Smart Campaign.” It sets up a quick campaign with a small number of questions, but it hands over most of the control over keywords, targeting, and budget to the system. For an inexperienced user this might look “easy,” but it makes it harder to understand how things actually work later on. That’s why the “Switch to Expert Mode” link at the bottom of the setup screen should be chosen the first time you open the panel.
Once you’re in expert mode, the first question is the campaign goal: options like Sales, Leads, or Website Traffic are offered. For a service business collecting requests by phone or form, “Leads” is usually the best match; for an e-commerce site, “Sales” tends to fit better.
2. Set campaign type, location, and budget
Choose “Search” as the campaign type — the format shown when a user searches for something on Google, and the most controllable format for businesses just starting out. Other settings asked during setup:
- Networks: The “Search Partners” option can be turned off at the start; if left on, the ad also shows on partner sites outside of Google, making it harder to separate that performance from Search.
- Location: This is where you choose which province, district, or “X km radius” the ad will show in. If a business that only serves a specific city targets all of Turkey, the budget can burn through on irrelevant searches.
- Language: Choose the language your target audience searches in; Turkish is usually enough in Turkey.
- Daily budget: The upper limit on average daily spend, entered in TL. For example, if you set a daily budget of 200 TL, Google balances that over the month by exceeding it slightly on some days and coming in under it on others; total monthly spend generally won’t exceed daily budget × 30.4.
- Bid: This is where you’re asked what outcome the system should optimize for (clicks, conversions, or conversion value). If conversion tracking isn’t set up yet, choosing a conversion-focused strategy at this stage can be misleading; starting with a click-focused approach until measurement is in place can be the safer choice for a first campaign. All the bid strategies are compared in What Are Google Ads Bid Strategies?
3. Create an ad group and enter keywords
After the campaign settings, you create at least one ad group, and add to it the words users might type into the search box. Google offers a suggestion list, but not every word on that list should be added automatically; broad keywords unrelated to the business can inflate impressions while burning budget on irrelevant searches. The distinction between how “broad” or “narrow” a keyword matches is covered in What Are Keyword Match Types?
4. Write ad copy and extensions
Within the ad group, you create at least one ad. The fields required:
- Final URL: The page address the user lands on after clicking the ad.
- Headlines: At least three, up to fifteen headlines can be entered; each is capped at 30 characters. Google automatically tests these in different combinations.
- Descriptions: At least two, up to four descriptions; each capped at 90 characters.
- Extensions (assets): Additional information like phone number, sitelinks, or address. For a business trying to collect requests by phone, adding a call extension is especially valuable, since it gives the user a direct way to call without even clicking.
5. Enter payment info and submit for review
In the final step, you enter billing details and a payment method (usually a credit card). The campaign doesn’t go live automatically once it’s saved — it goes through Google’s policy review. That review is usually completed within a few hours, though it can occasionally take up to a day. The ad’s status appears in the panel as “Approved,” “Under review,” or “Disapproved”; if disapproved, the reason is explained in the panel and the ad can be fixed and resubmitted.
There’s one more thing to do right after the campaign goes live: set up the measurement tag described in What Is Conversion Tracking? If this step is skipped, the campaign will run, but you’ll never see which clicks actually produced a real search or form fill.
From Ad to Campaign: The Google Ads Structure
The setup above actually built four levels at once: ad, ad group, campaign, and account. How these four levels connect, and how to plan this structure when setting up a second campaign, is covered separately in What Is Google Ads Campaign Structure? — especially useful for deciding whether to manage multiple services in a single campaign or in separate ones.
Keyword and Ad Alignment
In Search campaigns, keywords are one of the core elements that match an ad to a user’s search intent. When choosing keywords, you need to look not just at search volume, but at what the user is actually searching for and how much purchase intent it carries. eBay’s paid search case study is a good example of why it’s worth questioning whether an ad is actually generating incremental value, especially on branded searches.
Why can broad targeting be risky?
Very broad keywords can show your ad on irrelevant searches. Impressions go up in that case, but click and conversion quality can drop. See What Are Keyword Match Types? for a clearer look at match types.
Ad copy should match search intent
Whatever the user is searching for, the ad copy should offer a close answer to that need. When headline, description, landing page, and offer are all aligned to the same intent, clicks and conversions become easier to interpret.
Digging Deeper Into the Budget and Bid Decision
Even though budget and bid are entered in a single pass during setup, these are two decisions that need regular review after the campaign goes live too.
How should you think about daily budget?
Daily budget shows roughly how much the campaign can spend on an average day. At very low budgets, the campaign may not gather enough data. With very broad targeting, budget can run out quickly. That’s why budget should be considered together with the scope of the keywords you’re targeting.
What does bid strategy affect?
Bid strategy determines what outcome the system focuses on. Goals like clicks, conversions, or conversion value each require a different bidding logic. Switching from a click-focused strategy to a conversion-focused one after conversion tracking has gathered a few weeks of data generally produces healthier results. See What Are Google Ads Bid Strategies? for details.
Common Mistakes in a First Campaign
The most common mistake among beginners is launching the campaign quickly and leaving measurement incomplete. Another is combining very broad keywords with a low budget in the same campaign.
Deciding based on a single metric
Looking only at a low CPC can be misleading. Clicks can be cheap, but if they’re not producing conversions, the campaign isn’t serving its goal. As WordStream’s industry benchmark data shows, what counts as a “good” CPC or conversion rate varies significantly by industry. Results should be compared against your own goal, not general averages. The Google Ads Metrics Guide is a good place to start reading metrics together.
Summary
When getting started with Google Ads, first clarify the goal and the action you’ll measure; then complete account creation, campaign settings, keywords, ad copy, and payment in order to submit your first ad for review. Once it’s live, set up conversion tracking, and revisit budget and bid strategy based on the data that comes in.