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This is a step-by-step guide on how to set up a Google AdWords pay-per-click (PPC) advertising campaign. I previously wrote an article on how to increase your landing page quality score, but I figured a case study on how to set up a new campaign using a site we all know and love would be even more engaging. I’ve chosen DoshDosh.com as the sample target because Maki’s written some great content and it will be an easy example to present to all of you. Let’s suppose DoshDosh was my client’s site, and Maki wanted to drive traffic to his blog post on How to Make Money Blogging. Here’s how I would set up the first ad group:

1. Getting Set Up
After my AdWords account is set up, I create a new keyword-targeted campaign, and name the campaign and ad group. For this example, I’m naming my new campaign “DoshDosh” and my first ad group “Make Money Blogging.” All ads and keywords in this group will be directly related to the phrase “make money blogging.”

Once the language and target countries are chosen, this is where the fun begins.

2. Creating The Ad
When creating your ad, keep in mind that the most important element to getting a great landing page quality score is relevancy. Use the proper keywords and call to action terms, and you will have a good chance of scoring high. I consider the landing page title, page content, and target keywords to formulate the proper ad headline and tagline. In this case, the blog post page I’ve chosen is titled “How to Make Money Blogging: 7 Strategies to Get Started.” This is a great page title, as it includes valuable target keywords, and ties directly into the content of the article.

Note: If your target URLs don’t include the proper titles or content relating to your target keywords, create ones that do.

The ad headline should include the most relevant keywords, tying together the page title and contents with the keywords you will be bidding on. I’ve created the ad headlines “Make Money Blogging” and “How to Make Money Blog” for two reasons. First, it’s good to test different headlines and taglines to see which ad will receive the higher click-through-rate (CTR). Second, “blog” and “blogging” count as two different search terms, so because of the fact that I’m bidding on both keywords for this example’s sake, I have to include both terms in the ads to get the lowest minimum cost-per-click.

Line 1 of the ad should include the offer (i.e. start now), whereas line 2 should include the benefit (free).

3. Choosing The Keywords (Wisely)
After you’ve done your keyword research and have your list of target keywords, break them up into the appropriate ad groups. For each ad group, it’s best to keep a tight grouping of keyword phrases that relate directly to the advertisement. Notice that I did not include the phrase “make money online.”

4. Setting Your Price
Personally, I believe this is the most crucial part. First, I enter the daily budget at $5.00 — this can always be changed later. Then, where it asks for a default maximum CPC, I enter $.01 and click “View Traffic Estimator.” Setting the max CPC at $.01 tells me the minimum CPC bid amount for all of the keywords. Make sense? Check this out:

The fact that my minimum CPC’s range from $.05 - $.10 means that there is pretty good relevancy between the ad, keywords, and landing page, and that I could eventually only be paying $.05 or less per click. A minimum CPC bid of $.15 or higher would indicate that there’s room for improving relevancy in this ad group. If one of the keywords had a minimum CPC of $1.00 or higher, I would simply remove it and create a separate ad group for it.

Also, keep in mind that this isn’t a one-shot deal. If you set up your campaign incorrectly, and you want to start over again fresh, just cancel out of the set up, take a breath, and start again. I had initially set up this test and forgot to create the second ad variation, and one of the keywords was showing a minimum CPC of $.20 and I thought, Oh HELL no. I started over, created the second ad, and now all minimum CPC’s are below $.11. When setting up a campaign, never settle for the first minimum CPC estimate if you know you can try harder to lower it. It will be much harder to lower the CPC later on down the line after you’ve launched the ad group, so do it during the set up if you can. Looking at these ads again, I could have probably gotten even lower minimum CPC’s if I’d included an additional tagline like “Learn How to Make Money Blogging With Our Free Tips and Strategies.” Well, moving on…

Here’s what the new estimated CPC’s look like when I enter $.26 as my max CPC. You can see that AdWords estimates the average CPC as well as the ad position.

Once you’re happy with the estimates, save your campaign. But keep in mind that if your ads don’t receive a good CTR, they may never reach the top spots while maintaining a low CPC. In my example, if an ad performs well, a good CTR could launch it into the top three spots, and also receive a declining CPC of less than $.05. A poor ad may never get clicks, which could result in lower positions and higher minimum CPC’s. [Enter the dreaded $10.00 CPC!]

So why did I even write all of this? Because if you have an online business, PPC can be just as important as SEO, in driving traffic and getting qualified leads. PPC is a great way to supplement the traffic that your site isn’t getting via natural search results. If you understand SEO, you should understand PPC as well, and vice versa. In addition, using AdWords to gain qualified leads doesn’t mean you have to spend thousands of dollars on your campaigns. If you know your maximum cost-per-action (CPA), niche markets can gain valuable traffic and leads when advertising is set up and monitored properly, with only a small daily budget. If I were to actually pay for this traffic to DoshDosh.com, I could potentially get 100 AdWords clicks for only $5.00! Hey Maki, you looking to hire a PPC Manager?

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Check out these related articles:

• Quick Tip for Lowering CPC in AdWords
• Why PPC and SEO Go Hand in Hand for Online Businesses
• Uber Excited In a Geeky AdWords Kind of Way
• How to Raise Your Google AdWords Landing Page Quality Score…