How to set up a Google Adwords Campaign

We found an excellent short explanation of how to set up a Google AdWords camapign on SearchEngineLand's blog.

Originally written to help non-profits set up campaigns for Google grants, this is an excellent cheat sheet for marketers who know the basics but are rusty on logistics:

       "1. Perform a keyword research for all topics that might be relevant the program.

       2. Group similar keywords into categories / topics

       3. Create a list of negative keywords while searching for keywords. A negative keyword is a term or an expression that you do not want to show up for and by adding negative keywords, you will save money that you would otherwise spent on unwanted clicks,

       4. Once you have your keywords organized in groups, search for new keywords for each of the groups. Simply copy and paste the keywords of a group in the keyword tool and as a result you will generate some precious long tail keywords. Long tail keywords are keywords that contain three words or more and are therefore most likely to convert.

       5. Set up all your positive keywords in the broad match modifier match type. This method will guarantee both reach-ability and targeting precision. In case you are not familiar with the term broad match modifier, just put a plus sign before each word of the keyword.

For instance, if your keyword is "donate to animal shelter," you want to change that to +donate +to +animal +shelter when you add the keyword to your campaign (next to each other as one keyword, not below each other as several keywords).

       6. Optimize the campaign on a weekly basis looking at your search query report. Specifically, add negative keywords when a term is not matching your goals and add a phrase match keyword every time a term is showing up often and is generating a good CTR.

You can access the search query report by going into the keyword tab of your campaign and clicking on “details” and then “all”. Make sure to select the right date range on the top right corner."

The author, Alisa Cromer is publisher of a variety of online media, including LocalMediaInsider and  MediaExecsTech,  developed while on a fellowship with the Reynolds Journalism Institute and which has evolved into a leading marketing company for media technology start-ups. In 2017 she founded Worldstir.com, an online magazine,  to showcases perspectives from around the  world on new topic each month, translated from and to the top five languages in the world.