How to set up your first Google Ads campaign yourself

A Search campaign puts a text ad above or below Google’s results when someone types words you chose, and you pay when someone clicks. It is the kind to build first by hand, because Google then shows you most of the searches that brought clicks and what the clicks cost, while the campaigns Google proposes at sign-up choose more of the searches and the ads for you.

What to have ready#

Start with a Google Ads account in your own name, with a card in it. Google lets you skip the campaign it offers at sign-up, and Create a Google Ads account has the steps, including the time zone and currency to choose with care. Keyword Planner, Google’s keyword tool inside the account, shows keyword ideas only after the billing details are in.

Have ready the page people will land on, the one for the product or service you advertise, which should answer the search and load quickly on a phone, and a daily amount you could keep up for a month. Then put the Google tag, Google’s snippet of code for your site, on every page, and add one conversion action, which tells Google what to count as a lead or a sale, such as a sent form or a purchase, because step 2 needs it. With both in place Google counts leads and sales, not only clicks; Install the Google tag and Conversion actions have the steps.

The campaign, step by step#

1. Check that you are in Expert Mode A Search campaign needs Expert Mode, the full version of Google Ads, because Smart Mode runs only Smart campaigns, which leave the exact searches to Google AI. If the icon at the top right of Google Ads reads Tools, or Tools & settings, you are in Expert Mode; go on to step 2. If it reads Settings, you are in Smart Mode, and Switch to Expert Mode is under it, as one of Google’s volunteer Product Experts wrote in the Google Ads Community in January 2025. The switch is one-way, and an existing Smart campaign stays editable. Google campaign types says what each kind of campaign needs.
2. Start a Search campaign From the Campaigns page, start a new campaign. Google asks for an objective, such as Sales, Leads or Website traffic, and lets you go on without one; pick Website traffic or no objective until your conversion action has recorded real leads or sales, since Google cannot aim at results it has not seen yet. Pick Search as the type. Google files each conversion action under a goal, such as Submit lead forms; under Use these conversion goals for campaign performance optimization, make sure the goal that holds yours is selected, because Google’s help says a Search campaign needs at least one conversion goal even without an objective. Then name the campaign after the product and the area.
3. Bid for clicks Under Bidding, choose Maximize clicks, which sets bids to get as many clicks as the budget allows. Leave the maximum cost-per-click limit empty at first, since Google warns that a limit set too low can keep the strategy from reaching its goal. Once your conversion action has recorded real leads, Maximize conversions can bid on them instead.
4. Show the ads on Google Search only By default Google also shows a Search campaign on its search partners, other sites that carry Google’s search ads. Under Networks, uncheck Include Google search partners and leave Include Google Display Network, which shows ads on other websites and apps, unchecked; Google warns that clicks from some partner sites may not always be well targeted.
5. Choose the area Under Locations, enter the country, a state or city, or a radius around your address of at least 1 km, about 0.6 miles. Google preselects, and recommends for Search, the location option that also reaches people elsewhere who show interest in the area. If you serve or deliver only there, choose Presence: People in or regularly in your targeted locations, under Location options.
6. Switch AI Max off As of November 2026 a new Search campaign starts with AI Max on, which shows the ad on searches beyond your keywords, writes extra headlines and descriptions from your site, and can send people to other pages of the site. Google notes that these features need bidding on conversions, the leads or sales the tag counts, to work well, and this campaign bids for clicks, so uncheck the option to optimize the campaign with AI Max. AI Max can go back on once the campaign bids on counted leads.
7. Write a short list of keywords In one ad group, the set of keywords and ads inside a campaign, list what a customer types when ready to buy or hire one product or service, such as the service plus a word like price, near me, repair or buy. Type each keyword between quotation marks, such as “water heater repair”: that makes it phrase match, shown on searches that include its meaning, such as emergency water heater repair. Without the marks Google uses broad match, which can show the ad on searches merely related to the keyword, and between square brackets a keyword is exact match, the narrowest. Keep the list short enough that you can read the searches it brings in the first week, in the search terms report described below.
8. Write the ad Enter the page as the final URL. A responsive search ad takes 3 to 15 headlines of up to 30 characters and 2 to 4 descriptions of up to 90, and Google shows at least one of each, combined in the order it chooses. So write as many different headlines as you can, each complete on its own: the service, the area, the price or an offer, a reason to choose you and what to do next, with a keyword in at least one. Leave the headlines unpinned, because Google says pinning them to fixed places is not recommended for most advertisers. The two path fields, words shown after your web address in the ad, are optional, and so are assets such as sitelinks to other pages of your site, callouts with short selling points and a phone number.
9. Set the budget Enter your own daily amount rather than one Google suggests. With a daily budget, Google may spend up to twice that amount on a busy day but no more than 30.4 times it in a month, 30.4 being the average number of days in a month, so $10 a day can cost up to $304 in a month; What does Google Ads cost a small business? explains how Google bills. If you would rather have a fixed ceiling while you try Google out, set a total budget for the campaign’s whole run instead, with start and end dates. Keyword Planner’s forecast for the keywords from step 7 shows roughly how many clicks a day your amount buys.
10. Check, publish and pause Check the settings against the table below, and under Recommendations check that auto-apply is off, because with it on, Google can add broad match keywords, search partners or the Display Network by itself. Then publish and pause the campaign right away. Google reviews every new ad, most within one business day, and reviews paused ads just like active ones; once the ad’s status moves from Under review to Eligible, switch the campaign on, so it starts when you choose rather than the moment the ad is approved.

A check before you publish#

Google’s help pages, read on November 8, 2026, give these starting points for a new Search campaign. Before you publish, each setting should read as in the last column.

From sign‑up to a live ad#

Madder’s help guides put opening the account at about 10 minutes, the Google tag at about 30 and a conversion action at about 15. Building the campaign takes longest, because most of the work goes into the keywords and the headlines, so set aside an afternoon for a first one. Google’s review follows, and Google says ads can take a few days to start showing.

Advertiser verification, Google’s check of who you are and what your business does, may come later: Google says every advertiser will eventually be asked for it, by email or a notice in the account with a deadline, and that some ads may be restricted until it is done. Once a week after launch, open the search terms report under Insights and reports, which lists the searches that brought clicks, and add negative keywords, words that keep the ad off searches containing them, for searches from people who will never buy. Google suggests giving Maximize clicks a few days or weeks before judging it.

Madder builds a Search campaign from your page#

Madder writes a campaign like this one from the page you give it: a short list of phrase-match keywords and one responsive search ad, written in the page’s language, in one ad group, with the daily budget you pick. The campaign shows on Google Search only, without search partners or the Display Network, bids Maximize clicks and covers your whole country, because Madder cannot aim a Google campaign at a town or a radius yet. Madder shows you the campaign as a plan; approving it creates the campaign in your own Google Ads account, switched off until you approve again. Madder then reports the campaign’s spend and clicks, and suggests changes in chat for you to approve; How Madder works has each step.

Questions owners ask#