Google Text Ads Setup and Best Practices

Let's go to the Google Ad Manager and look at how to create a Google text ad. All right, so what we want to do is navigate to the campaign section of the platform, and once we're there, we can choose to create a campaign. You press the blue button, and since we already started a campaign in an earlier section, we'll say resume campaign draft and pick up where we left off.

As you can see on the left, it shows the different steps involved. So, you know, we decided on billing: we use locations and languages. We're going to skip the next step, audience, and we'll circle back to it later in the course.

Now, let me just speak to this page for a moment. This is, of course, a new feature. It's AI-powered, and essentially they're saying, instead of you doing it, do what I'm about to show you and create your own ads and use, you know, develop a keyword list for your ads, let AI do it, right? Let us do it, and if we do it, we're going to, you're going to see more conversions and at the same amount of money, giving you a greater return on your investment, which might very well be the case, and it's something you should certainly test, but since we are learning how to do this, we're going to do it the manual way first, right? So, we would go next. You could toggle this on if you want to use that, but first, we're going to try to do it the old-fashioned way.

So, the first step there is to enter the website, the brand website, right, citypoweringyes.com, for the purpose of this. Now, it's going to generate a description after crawling that website, looking at the about us, and trying to understand what products and services, a little bit about the company, and I can edit this description. In this case, I'm going to say this is fine.

It's going to help the algorithm understand what keywords it should be suggesting, headlines, etc., and ultimately what audiences, one of the factors to help it determine what audiences it needs to reach. So, we're going to say generate that. As I said, I could have edited it, right, and now it's coming up with some suggestions on the basis of that.

Now, I can say add a product or service to advertise. I could say, well, you don't really specifically talking about gas, so I could add products, actually. We add natural gas, all right, as a product or service.

Electricity service, I can spell correctly. Electricity service, right, and then it has keywords that are already there. I don't like this term electrical firms, namely, because that's not really relevant to this particular brand.

That's more like an electrician. So, I would, in a real case scenario, I would look at the keywords that I picked as a part of my keyword research, and I'd analyze, and I would add these. So, I'm just going to put one in here, best electricity rates, right, but in reality, you would, you know, match that to your keyword strategy, see if the additional ones that were suggested by Google make sense or not.

It's telling me I should add more keywords, whatever, you know, it's always going to give suggestions as you move along. You also have this ads advisor, which is in beta, so everyone might not have access to this, but you could use it like ChatGPT or any AI tool to ask questions around additional headlines or, you know, products, etc., any decisions that you're making, but we're going to move ahead.

Now we're at the point where you can create your actual ad. The first field is the URL, and you can also include display paths. The path fields are part of your display URL and can be up to 15 characters each, which can help reinforce what the page is about.

You can also add a phone number so people can call directly from the ad as another call to action. Next, you’ll create your headlines, and as you build, Google will give you an ad strength score along with suggestions to improve it (such as adding more headlines).

At this stage, many fields are pre-populated based on Google’s analysis of the website. Google may recommend including certain keywords in your headlines based on search volume. For example, it may suggest location-based phrasing or high-intent terms, and it will show estimated search volume for some keywords.

You can have up to 15 headlines, and you can edit or replace any suggested headline with your own. For example, you might add value-focused language like “90-day no-risk guarantee,” location cues like “New York smart choice,” and benefit-focused phrases such as “affordable rates,” “switch online in minutes,” “transparent pricing,” or “save money.”

Keep headlines within 30 characters so they don’t get truncated, and make sure the full message can be seen. You can continue adding headlines or request more ideas from Google if needed.

Next, you’ll add descriptions. You can include up to four descriptions, and each description must fit within 90 characters. Descriptions should expand on the headline with more detail and highlight benefits to the customer.

The suggested descriptions typically align with the headlines you’re using, but it’s often more effective to emphasize customer value (such as savings or convenience) rather than focusing primarily on company background. You can request more description ideas from Google as well.

After that, you can review image assets. Images can appear alongside your ad and may improve click-through rate by drawing attention. You can upload images from your computer or reuse assets from past campaigns stored in your account.

Your business name and logo should also be added. Then you can include sitelinks, which allow you to add additional links beneath your ad to direct users to specific pages on your site (such as About Us, Benefits, or other relevant sections).

Google may suggest sitelinks based on your website content, but you can add more or swap them out. These links can help users find what they need faster and can drive traffic directly to key pages.

You can also add more business information and callouts. Callouts can include details like hours, location, or other highlights. Google provides additional asset types that can improve ad performance and add more detail to your ad.

Some extensions may not apply to every brand. For example, if you sell products online, you may add price and product-related assets. You may also be able to add messaging assets that allow users to message your business directly, depending on your setup.

Structured snippets give you more space to highlight the range of your products or services. If your goal is to collect leads, you can also add a lead form that opens directly from the ad. If you promote an app, you can add an app extension as well.

Once you’ve added your extensions, you’ll be able to preview what the ad looks like. You’ll also see the ad strength score as you build. As you add more relevant keywords and assets, that score may improve.

After your campaigns are running, Google will continue to provide recommendations to improve performance. These suggestions often include keyword ideas, new extensions, or guidance on which keywords are underperforming.

That’s the basic process for using Google Ads Manager to set up a text ad. Before we close this section, it’s also important to understand the ad policies you need to comply with.

Prohibited practices include cloaking, deceptive behavior, click fraud, or incentivizing clicks. Click fraud can include bots or repeated clicks intended to drive up a competitor’s costs. Google attempts to detect this behavior, but you should never engage in any tactics like that.

If you use personalized advertising, you must comply with regulations related to user data, privacy, and consent. You also want to avoid disruptive or intrusive ad practices that negatively impact the user experience, especially on your landing page.

Ad targeting also comes with restrictions related to sensitive categories. You cannot target users directly based on race, ethnicity, religion, or sexual orientation. In some cases, you may be able to reach aligned audiences through interests, but you cannot select sensitive categories as targeting criteria.

You also must not advertise illegal products and services, adult content, counterfeit goods, dangerous products, or deceptive practices. Restricted content (such as alcohol, gambling, healthcare, financial services, and political content) can be advertised, but it requires additional compliance and policy considerations.

For example, financial services and housing have additional targeting restrictions under federal regulations. Certain demographic-based targeting approaches are prohibited in these categories.

Copyright and trademark policies also apply. Ads must not infringe on the intellectual property rights of others. If you use music or other protected content in your ads, make sure you have proper clearance, or your campaign can be shut down.

Misrepresentation is also prohibited. Avoid misleading claims, inaccurate information, or exaggerated promises. If you advertise savings, you must be able to deliver those savings as stated.

To wrap up this section, do a few Google searches and look for ads that use sitelinks, callouts, structured snippets, location extensions, pricing, and promotions. Try to identify which extensions are being used and connect them back to where you would set those up in Google Ads Manager.

Okay, so that concludes section five. In section six, we're going to be talking about two factors that play a significant role in determining whether your ad shows up on pages in people's search results and the ranking of your ads in their search results.

So, that's ad rank and quality score.