Why and how to get started with Google AdWords?

What makes Adwords so awesome?

Well, if you must know, Google Adwords is awesome in many ways;

• You can easily target your audience
• You only pay for results
• You have clear results of your campaigns
• You can reach specific marketing goals

You can easily target your audience

Selecting specific keyword matches in Search campaigns and Interest targeting in Display campaigns are only two of the many targeting options Adwords is giving you.
Basically, you can serve ads to your audience or segments of your audience. Whoever they are, doesn’t matter. When I talk about segments, I mean whatever you want. Interests, age, location, language and so on.

Only pay for results

You decide how much you want to spend, when do you want to spend it, what do you want to spend it on. Adwords gives you plenty of options when it comes to spending your budget. You only pay when someone is interested enough to click on your ad. You set the daily budget, but if your ad is more popular on some days, Adwords will step in and raise your daily budget for 20%. That way you don’t miss out on clicks that could be valuable and which could have gone to your competition.

Clear results of your campaign

Many, many, many available reports giving you clear insights into your campaign’s performance. So much data available, you’ll get lost in it.

Set clear marketing goals and reach them

The ultimate goal of any marketing campaign is to reach set goals. When we are talking about online marketing, the list of goals is neverending. You may want people to visit your website, install your app, call your business, order something, engage in some way etc. In Adwords, you can do that.

Okay, you caught my attention. What do I need to do to set up my Adwords account?

First off, go to the Adwords Sign up Page. If you don’t have a Google account or you don’t want to use your current, create a new one. After signing in, you’ll see this:

Type in the email address you want to use for your advertising and of course, the website you want to promote.
Click ‘Continue’ and step into the wonderful world of Google Adwords.
The first thing you’ll see will be:

This is the new version of Adwords, but I recommend you check out the previous version. Go to the top right corner and click on the ‘three vertical dots’ button.

The previous version looks like this:

The reason I wanted you to check out both versions is that you have to like one better than the other. Try to use them both and decide which one is for you. For example, I was already used to work in the previous version when the new one came along, so I’m having difficulties of switching to the new version. See for yourself.

Another thing I’m going to show you in this blog post is how to set up your payment methods, so that way, you’ll have everything set up to start advertising.
Go to your ‘Admin’ tab in the top right corner. In the new version, it looks like those three vertical dots, in the previous version it looks like a gear. 
Then click on ‘Billings and Payments’, and after it opens, go to ‘Payment methods’.

When you click to add your method, you will then have to put down your credit or debit card info as of course the billing address.

Click ‘Save’ and that’s it, folks. Your first step to advertising on Google.

I am taking this slow, somebody will say baby steps, but I just want to make sure you get everything right and that I make learning about Google Adwords as easy as possible for you. In my next blog post, I will be talking about how to link your Google Adwords and Analytics account.
There’s plenty more to come, so make sure you stay with me! 🙂