Data Science Vidhya

Any digital campaign that you run follows the steps of integrated marketing communication steps. These steps are Objectives, Audience, Media / Channel, Message, Budget and response / impact. Google Search Ads help businesses and advertisers reach their goals showing their ads on Google’s search engine results in the form of sponsored ads along with the organic results. The specific objectives of a Google Search campaign can vary based on the advertiser’s goals and business needs. 

Step 1: Why do you want to run digital campaigns?

The objectives of the marketer / advertiser would vary based on what they are trying to achieve. There are different objectives of running google search ads. These objectives could be Brand awareness, product and brand consideration, website traffic, lead generation, and sales. These objectives are interlinked along the consumer funnel. Brand awareness is part of the Top of the Funnel stage (ToFu). Product and brand consideration, website traffic and lead generation are part of the Middle of the funnel stage (MoFu) and nurturing lead for final conversion i.e. sales are part of the Bottom of the Funnel stage (BoFu). These different objectives are detailed below.

• Brand Awareness: Marketers can use google search ads to create awareness about their brand. This can be done by ensuring that your Brand is visible in the Google search engine results with the help of impressions of the ads. Marketers can target relevant keywords while designing search ads to ensure impressions of their ads in search results.
• Product and Brand consideration: Marketers would like to use google search campaign to compare their offering / product features with that of other competitors offering when consumers search for the related product or service to develop product and brand consideration.
• Website Traffic: The next stage of the consumer funnel is to drive traffic to the website of the business. The website traffic can be measured with clicks. Google search ads can be targeted towards consumers who are actively searching for product or services using keywords. If the ad is relevant to the consumer based on the keyword, then the consumer clicks on the ads resulting in website traffic.
• Lead Generation: Marketers can use Google search ads for lead generation for business. Marketers requests potential customers to submit their contact details especially their name, email id and mobile number to generate leads. The leads are generally generated with the help of a landing page.
• Sales: Marketers would like to encourage customers to complete the transaction online resulting in sales. 

Step 2: Conduct keyword search using Google keyword planner to define your Audience

Keywords: Google search ads allows you to select keywords targeting which consumers might be using to search for products or services on google search engine. When consumers search keywords in Google search engine if you as marketer have targeted these keywords while designing your search ads, then your search ad will be shown to the consumers who are using the keywords.

Use Google Keyword Planner to identify:

• High-intent keywords your audience is searching for

• Search volume, competition, and suggested bid

📌 Example:
If you’re advertising MBA coaching:

• Keywords: “best CAT coaching,” “MBA entrance classes,” “CAT 2025 preparation”

Basically, google search engine matches the keywords typed by the consumers to the keywords that are targeted by marketer. This match making of keywords is called Keyword Matching Types

• Broad Match: Your ad may appear for searches that include misspellings, synonyms, related searches, and other variations. It provides a broad reach but may also include less relevant traffic.
• Phrase Match: Your ad will appear for searches that include the exact phrase or close variations of the phrase. This provides a more targeted reach than broad match.
• Exact Match: Your ad will only appear for searches that exactly match the keyword or close variations. This provides the most precise targeting.

Negative Keywords allow you to exclude certain terms from triggering your ads. This helps refine your targeting and prevents your ads from showing for irrelevant searches.

For example, if you sell luxury watches, you might use “cheap” as a negative keyword to exclude searches for inexpensive or budget watches.

Apart from keyword-based targeting, there are other ways in which you can define audience for your ads.

Step 3: Create a Google Ads Account

• Go to https://ads.google.com
• Sign in with a Google account
• Set up billing info and your time zone

Step 4: Set Up a New Campaign

• Choose Search Network

• Choose your goal (e.g., Leads, Website Traffic)

• Name your campaign (e.g., “MBA Leads – July 2025”)

• Turn off Display Network if you’re only running search ads

Step 5: Create Ad Groups

Each Ad Group should target one theme or intent. For example:

Ad Group: “CAT Coaching”

• Keywords: CAT classes, best CAT coaching, CAT 2025 prep

Ad Group: “Online MBA Prep”

• Keywords: online CAT classes, CAT online test series

Step 6: Define Targeting Settings

• Locations: Where do your customers live (e.g., India, specific cities)?

• Languages: English, Hindi, etc.

• Audience Segments (optional): People actively researching related services

Below are some of the audiences targeting options available in Google Search ads.

Affinity Audience are groups of users with a strong interest in a particular topic. Google categorizes users into affinity segments based on their online behaviour. For example, affinity audience like “Movie goers” or “adventure sports lovers”. Advertisers can use affinity audiences to reach users who have a general interest in their product or service category.

In market Audience In-Market audiences consist of users who are actively researching or considering making a purchase in a specific product or service category. Advertisers can target users who are more likely to convert, as they are currently in the market for relevant products or services.

Data segment Audience The data segments consist of groups of individuals who have visited your website or used your app, collected through code snippets integrated into your site or app.

Step 7: Set Your Budget and Bidding

In this step, you will decide what will be the daily budget of your advertisement. This will be based on the number of clicks that you are targeting. The Cost per click (CPC) and the number of clicks that you are targeting will determine the daily budget of your campaign.

• Daily Budget: Start small (e.g., ₹500–₹2,000/day) and scale

• Bidding Strategy:

  • Start with Maximize conversions or Manual CPC (if experienced)

  • Later test Target CPA or ROAS once you have data

Step 8: Write Responsive Search Ads i.e. your message

Here you communicate and deliver the message to your potential audience / consumer. This is the front end of your Google search ads. The Google search ads may look like this in the google search engine.

The anatomy of google search is like this

• URL: This is where you will drive the traffic. Landing page url
• Headline: This will be the headline of your search ads. The headline will have the keywords.
• Description: This will be description of your search ads. The description will also have keywords.

Create multiple headlines and descriptions. Google will auto-optimize combinations.

✍️ Example Ad Copy:

• Headlines:

  • “Top CAT Coaching 2025”

  • “95% Success Rate in MBA Exams”

  • “Live & Recorded Classes Available”

• Descriptions:

  • “Join India’s Top CAT Coaching Program. Expert Faculty. Proven Results.”

  • “Book a Free Demo Class Today. Limited Seats Available.”

Add Final URL (landing page link).

Add Ad Extensions (Highly Recommended)

• Sitelinks: “Demo Class,” “Faculty,” “Fees,” “Contact”

• Callout Extensions: “Flexible Timing,” “24/7 Support”

• Call Extension: Add phone number

The additional text that appears alongside the google search ads are called as Ad extensions. There different forms of ad extensions like Call extensions, location extensions, callout extensions, sitelink extensions, structured snippet extensions. These increase ad visibility and CTR.

Step 9: Review and Launch

• Targeting
• Budget
• Landing page links
• Ad copy
• Click Publish once everything looks good.

Step 6: Response / Impact

In this stage, you will evaluate the response to your ad or see the impact of ad on your business. The response could be evaluated in terms of awareness, brand recall,  attitude, or intention to purchase.  The impact could be evaluated in terms of impressions, clicks, lead generated or sales. The impact could be also be evaluate on the basis of Cost per mile (CPM), Cost per click (CPC), cost per lead (CPL), Cost per acquisition (CPA).