The hardest part in your campaign setup is now done.
Now, you need to actually create the ads that users are going to see and—hopefully—click on.
Create Text Ads
The format for text ads is pretty rigid.
In most cases, you need to create a headline no longer than 30 characters and a description no longer than 90 characters.
You’ll need to play around with this format and its constraints to make your brand stand out and get your message across.
Let’s go back to our Men’s Clothes campaign. After providing your keywords in the ad group, Google will prompt you to create a responsive ad.
Responsive Ads
You can actually create up to 15 different headlines and four descriptions on a responsive ad. The display format won’t change, and only three headlines and two descriptions will be shown to the internet user on the search engine display. Google will automatically decide which parts of your content to show based on what the user is searching for and the space available.
Landing Page
The first field to fill out is the URL, or the address of the web page the user will be directed to on your website.
As you fill in these fields, you’ll see that the preview gets updated automatically.
Next, you can provide a summary of your landing page URL using two 15-character fields. This is the URL that will be displayed:
Now let’s have a look at headlines and descriptions.
Text Content
Now we’re getting into the realm of copywriting, which is essentially the art of persuading a user to notice your ad and click on it.
You need to be concise and try your best to choose words that the user will use in their search. It’s also a good idea to use calls to action, such as “Buy now,” “Get a quote,” and so on.
For our ad, we’re going to talk about Good value ski pants, Snowboard pants, etc.
For example, in the case of our store, we’re going to say that we sell major brands at discounted prices.
That’s our key differentiator.
Finally, we’re going to use the description to convey our full message and give more details about our products or services. This is a great opportunity to say a bit more about your brand and your company.
Here's the final result.
Now you just need to save the ad.
Create Image Ads on the Display Network
You need to be a little more creative when you’re creating display ads.
What I'll do at this point is give you some advice and let you know about some best practices. The rest is up to you (or your graphic designer) and your creative skills.
To start with, you need to keep in mind that banners will be displayed everywhere in the Display Network.
So, they need to be suitable for many different formats.
Essentially, you need to consider the fact that some site publishers will only accept small banners, while others will only accept larger ones, so you need to make your ad available in different sizes.
You just need to add your visual and textual elements and Google will take care of selecting the most appropriate elements when placing your ad.
It’s worth noting that ads can be static or animated. YouTube is an integral part of the Display Network, so you can even create video ads.
The advice I’m going to give you will apply to all formats.
If the banner is small, we still need to be able to read the message without straining our eyes.
It’s hard enough to grab a user’s attention on a website as it is. If they can’t read your message, that’s not going to help you.
So, make sure that your font size is no smaller than 16 pixels.
Otherwise, your message might go unnoticed on a cellphone!
The second piece of advice I’m going to give you is keep it simple.
The more elements you add to the banner, the more likely it will clash with the website it’s being displayed on.
Simplicity really is key.
Finally, remember that by creating banners, you’re also trying to raise awareness of your business and your brand identity.
Make sure you stick to your brand guidelines so that users can associate the displayed ad with the brand you’re promoting.
Also, try to stick to a hierarchy between the different elements that make up your banner.
It’s recommended that you start with your company logo, followed by the ad’s value proposition, followed by a call to action to persuade users to click on the banner.
Remember that your ads will be checked by Google’s teams before being displayed on the Search or Display Network, to ensure that they meet the standards within their code of conduct.
Don’t be surprised if you have to wait between 24 and 48 hours after creating and configuring your campaign for it to be launched.
Create Ad Extensions
Before we move on to the next part, there’s just one more step.
Now that we’ve created our ad, Google is going to ask us to create some ad extensions.
Remember, we spoke about them in the first part of the course.
Ad extensions are a way of displaying additional information with your ads. They’re used in the Ad Rank formula to calculate how your ads will be scored.
As you can see from the image above, you can add various types of extensions:
The call extension lets you add a phone number at the bottom of your ad.
The sitelink extension lets you redirect users to other pages on your website.
The callout extension gives you the chance to highlight your key differentiator.
There are many other extensions available. Remember that extensions are very important for the Google Ads algorithm and give you more space for your ad in the search engine results.
It’s also a chance for you to give more information that the user might find useful, making them more likely to click on your ad than your competitor’s.
Once you’ve created your extensions, you just need to click on the Publish button at the bottom of the page.
So, there you have it! You’ve just created your first advertising campaign on Google Ads. Well done!
Let’s Recap!
There are various different ad formats available in Google Ads. There are two main types of ads: text ads that are shown in the Search Network and image ads that are shown in the Display Network.
For a responsive text ad, you can add up to 15 headlines—each with up to 30 characters—and four descriptions of a maximum of 90 characters.
Display ads require a little more creativity, because they need to be suitable for display on different parts of a website to catch an internet user's eye as they surf the web.
You can also create ad extensions, which are additional elements for your ads where you can provide the user with further information (phone number, link to other web pages, etc.).
In the next part, we’re going to time travel a little into the future to assess the performance of a campaign a few days after its publication. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Take a little time to test your knowledge on this part of the course with a series of questions in the next chapter.
