Creating a Google Ads Campaign

google ads, adwords, tracking

ClickerVolt Team
Written by ClickerVolt TeamLast update 3 years ago

In this tutorial, we will see how to setup a Google Ads (Adwords) campaign to send visitors to the funnel we created here.


Note: It is not meant to be a PPC tutorial or best practices article. The goal of this tutorial is simply to show you how to "connect" Google Ads and ClickerVolt, so that you can track all ads and keywords generating visits to your links.



VERY IMPORTANT:

Before anything else, make sure you enable the auto-tagging option in your Google Ads account. It is needed for recording parallel tracking visits correctly. 


See here: https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/3095550?hl=en


Step 1: Create a Google Ads campaign




For the campaign's goal, let's keep it simple and select "Website traffic" and "Search":



I never enter anything in this box, just press continue:



Step 2: Setup the Basic Campaign Settings

I personally never select the "Display Network" here - when I create display campaigns, I create them separately from my search campaigns.



When you select your locations, make sure this targeting option is selected - otherwise you'll get plenty of traffic from other countries as well:



Then setup your daily budget and bidding type - if you can place your Google Ads conversion script on the order confirmation page, then I recommend to set the focus on "Conversions" bidding type. A lot of affiliate networks allow you to add your conversion script - make use of it if you can. 



If you can't use your Google Ads conversion script, then select the "Clicks" type and make sure to enable the max CPC option - otherwise you may end up paying as much as $100 or more for one single click - this stuff happens, and when it does, believe me it's not funny....




Add as many extensions as you can, then save and continue to the next step...



Step 3: Setup at least One Ad Group


Create at least one ad group, and for each ad group input your set of keywords then click save to go to the next step.


Step 3: Create at least One Ad per Ad Group

After writing your ad, you will want to fill these two text fields:


 

This is where you need to pay attention.


Let's switch over to ClickerVolt for a bit.


Let's open our campaign's link and select the Google Ads dynamic tokens in the source tracking area.



If you have not created your Google Ads source template yet, you will have to do it now like this:


Select "Custom Entry", then in the "Create from Model" box select "Google Ads (Search-Display)" model:



This will load the predefined model... then click save to be able to use this source template in your tracking links.



Now that it is saved, you can select it and copy your tracking URL 




You will then paste this tracking URL in the tracking template field in the ad we started creating earlier:



Now concerning the final URL, you will simply click your own tracking link, and see where it redirects to.


In the screenshot above, my tracking URL is:


https://demo.clickervolt.com/wp-content/plugins/clickervolt/go.php?s=funnel-1-lander&src=5f3007ee6f89ancd&v1={keyword}&v2={target}&v3={placement}&v4={network}&v5={adgroupid}&v6={creative}&v7={adposition}&v8={matchtype}&v9={lpurl}


When I click it, I am being redirected to this URL:


https://demo.clickervolt.com/landing-page-for-simple-funnel/


THIS is my final URL:



IMPORTANT:


Note that my final URL doesn't have any query parameter (the part after the "?" symbol in a URL). If it had, I would need to remove all of them before pasting it into the Final URL field.


For example, if I my tracking URL had redirected me to:


https://demo.clickervolt.com/landing-page-for-simple-funnel/?demo=yes&to-be-removed=of-course 


Then I would remove everything after the "?" symbol and that "?" symbol itself to keep only this part:


https://demo.clickervolt.com/landing-page-for-simple-funnel/


In addition to that, it is important that your tracking link always redirects to the same URL. If it does not, then your Final URL will not always be correct, and your ad will be suspended.


If you want to be able to rotate between different URLs, then consider using ClickerVolt's cloaked redirect mode:



When you use the cloaked redirect mode, your tracking URL always remains in the browser's address bar and effectively becomes your Final URL (after you remove the query parameters as explained above).


In such a case, it is better to use the Pretty URL version of your tracking link rather than the Fastest URL one:



But note that rotating URLs is against Google Ads policies and will have your account shutdown - so make sure the page that you had when your ad was approved remains the page your visitors always see. If you want to split test different pages, create different links and ads.

Step 4: Save Your Campaign

Once your ad is created, save it and continue following Google Ad's steps until your campaign is fully created.


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