I wrote this in 2011, when you could still control almost everything in a Google Ads account by hand. In 2026 you can’t, and that changes what advice is actually worth giving.
To be clear from the outset, this post aims to give a few pointers on Google Ads. It cannot be an exhaustive guide, because the topic is so broad.
Google has a comprehensive help section that you should at least familiarise yourself with before you embark on any form of advertising campaign with them.
As somebody who has worked with Google Ads for many years, what I can say is that the one constant is change. Google will often bring out new policies or campaign types. Sometimes to help advertisers, sometimes to help shareholders. Either way, it is important that you keep an eye on your account.
Basics of Google Ads
There can’t be many people left who haven’t seen a Google ad. Still, it is worth stating what they are: the results that appear in search when someone searches on Google, often at the top of the page and occasionally at the bottom.
They tend to sandwich the organic results. Over the years the backgrounds have changed colour more than once, as Google experiment with ways to make ads blend in while staying on the right side of transparency. I haven’t heard it for a while, but people used to say to me, “I never click on the adverts.” I always thought, well, somebody certainly is, because Google’s revenue has skyrocketed over the last twenty years.
From an advertising point of view, it is a great platform when used correctly. One of the key selling points is that you can target your ideal audience tightly, and you only pay when somebody clicks your advert and visits your website.
There’s no substitute for either studying Google Ads or outsourcing to a qualified professional. But if you are going to build your own campaigns, the following may save you some time and money.
Analyse and Optimise
First up. Don’t spend a penny on Google Ads unless you have your tracking in place.
Google provides its own tag for tracking conversions. Most business owners with a website will already be using Google Analytics, which has an event tracking element of its own.
The key is to track what actually matters, which means answering a simple question first: how would you measure the success of your advertising? If there is no way to measure it, you certainly shouldn’t be spending money with Google Ads.
You need to track your campaign performance and be prepared to delete keywords, add new ones and edit adverts. This matters most in the early stages, to make sure your marketing budget doesn’t vanish without trace.
Another good thing about Google Ads is that you can set a daily budget at campaign level and still pause individual ad groups. That lets you trial and adjust as you go.
If you’re setting up a new campaign, start with a budget that isn’t going to make you lose sleep. It still needs enough spending power for your ads to run and gather data over a short period, so you can see whether this is going to work or whether you need to adjust the campaign or the landing page.
Combine that with language targeting, geo-targeting and time-of-day ad scheduling, and you have a system you can genuinely control.
The other part of analysis is being honest about the results you’re getting. Google Ads puts an advert in front of somebody who is searching for something. If that person clicks, it suggests, although not always, that they see it as relevant to what they were looking for. If they then arrive on your website and don’t do the thing you wanted, whether that’s buying, enquiring or getting in touch, perhaps the problem is at the destination rather than the beginning.
Alongside Google Analytics, Microsoft provides a tool called Clarity which is excellent, especially given it is free. It shows you how visitors actually engage with your website.
If you’re determined to look after your own account, the following are suggestions I’ve built up over years of managing them, in no particular order.
Google Ads Tips
- Set up conversion tracking
- Set a realistic budget, starting small and growing as your confidence does
- Make sure you understand the different keyword match types
- Understand the different campaign types and what they do. For most people starting out, Search is the logical choice, although Performance Max is Google’s attempt at a catch-all
- Ensure keywords and adverts are tightly aligned to your landing pages
Be Negative
If you’re not using negative keywords, you are wasting money.
Bidding on broad match keywords without negatives is particularly budget-draining. In fact, bidding on broad match even with negative keywords can be very costly.
Years ago people rarely used broad match, and when they did it was often by accident. Now it is becoming mainstream as we edge ever closer to a keywordless Google Ads platform.
For reach, and for uncovering search terms we humans simply wouldn’t think of, broad match is unrivalled. But because it goes beyond what you intended, it needs regular review of the search terms you are actually paying for, and negative keywords are the counter.
Keep It Relevant
Design specific ads for specific ad groups, based on the keywords in that group, and include the keyword in the ad.
The aim is to build a relationship between the keywords, the ad copy and the landing page, so they are all singing from the same hymn sheet.
At the time of this update in 2026, a single responsive search ad can hold up to 15 headlines and four descriptions. That gives you plenty of scope to cover several bases, but they all still need to be relevant to the page the visitor lands on.
Add Extensions
Google provides plenty of additional ad assets, so you can customise how your ads appear. Things like:
- sitelinks
- callouts
- promotions
- structured snippets
- images
The more of these that genuinely suit your business, the more capacity your advert has to come alive when somebody is searching for what you offer.
Hopefully this guide helps you build a targeted campaign that makes you more sales and reduces wasted spend.