Setting Up Your PPC Account

The first step in becoming a PPC marketer is to create your Adwords account. You may already have an account if you spent some time fiddling around, trying to get a feel for how the system works.

When it comes to setting up your PPC account, there are a handful of steps that are required in order to have everything up and running successfully. 

1) Creating your PPC marketplace account.

2)   Create/Compile a list of relevant keywords

3)    Customize your account and profile areas.

4)   Create your campaigns and assign specific keywords.

5)    Create your ad copy, titles, link, body.

6)   Monitor, split test and consistently tweak your campaigns until they are producing the best results at the lowest cost possible.

If you already have a Google Adwords account, go ahead and log in as I will show you a few things you may want to modify or customize depending on your goals.

If you are new to Adwords, head on over to: http://adwords.google.com/select  and create your account now.

Step 1: Creating Your PPC Account

Click on the “Start Now” link to begin the quick and easy registration process. It will only take roughly ten minutes to set up your account before you will be ready to customize it and create your campaigns.

On the next page you will be given the option of either creating a Standard account, or a Starter account. 

I recommend creating a Standard account to ensure that all of the features are available to you.

Before you are able to create an Adwords account, you need to have an existing Google based account, and if you don’t, you will need to create one prior to joining Adwords.  Google-based accounts include gMail.com services, Orkut and iGoogle.com. 

If you do not currently have one of these accounts, you simply choose “I do not use these services” and you will be given the opportunity of creating an account with Google, or using an alternative email address (other than a gmail one) if you wish.

Once completed, you will be directed to an account confirmation page that will indicate that your Google Adwords account is being created.  

Once the system has created your account, you will be asked to confirm your request by logging into your email account and validating your Google Adwords account by clicking on the link contained within.

Once you have done this, your account will be created and you will be able to log into Adwords.

The first time you log into Adwords you will be given the opportunity to update information relating to your target audience, as well as whether you plan to advertise to specific groups by location or language.   

Before your Google Adwords account is completely set up, you will have to enter in your billing details, however you can do this at a later time when you are ready to bring your campaigns to life, and activate your advertising.  With Google Adwords, you are required to pay a one-time fee as well, although it’s a very small amount and will more than pay for itself in no time at all.

When you do activate your account, after setting up campaigns, tweaking your ad copy and developing a solid landing page, you will see your advertisements go live within the Google Adwords marketplace, minutes after you activate them.  

If you plan to feature your advertisements within Google’s partner company however, all of your advertisements will be reviewed prior to being activated, to ensure that they comply with Googles guidelines. This usually only takes a few hours, but can take up to two business days.

Step 2: Creating Your First PPC Campaign

Within each campaign that we create, we target it towards specific keywords that are entered into Google’s search engine by potential customers.   These keywords are grouped together and assigned to each campaign that we select.

These keywords need to be direct and highly relevant in order to yield the best results, which is why keyword research is such a critical aspect of successful PPC marketing. 

Whenever a visitor to the Google.com search page, enters in any of my assigned keywords, it will trigger the Adwords system to feature my ad. 

When this happens, my campaign will appear within the “Sponsored Listings” area within the PPC marketplace (within the top search results, and within the side bar). 

As for where my listing will appear in relation to other advertisers who may be focusing on the same keywords, that all depends on what I am willing to pay for each click made to my ads.  

The higher my maximum bid, the higher placement my advertisements will receive. Google does not charge us for our advertisements appearing within the marketplace, but only when a potential customer clicks on one of our links.

To get started in creating your first PPC campaign, log into your Adwords campaign and click on the “Campaign Management” tab at the top.

Look for the area titled “Active Campaigns”. Within that area you will see a drop-down menu that includes “Create Online Campaign”. That is where you go create your first Adwords campaign.

Once inside that area, you will be given the opportunity to create a keyword-targeted campaign or a Placement-Targeted campaign.  

With keyword targeted campaigns your ads will target specific keyword groups and when those are entered into the search engine, your ads will be triggered to appear. 

You will always be required to assign one ad group to each campaign but can assign multiple ad groups as well, if you wish. 

Ad groups allow you to target specific groups of keywords, and I recommend including only 5-8 keywords per group.

You are ready to create your advertisement copy/body and publish your ads.

Check out my article on “Developing A Killer PPC Advertisement” for more information on how to carefully structure your ads for maximum exposure.