Alright, now that your store and product feed are ready to roll, it’s time for the fun part—setting up your first Google Shopping campaign. While the idea of setting up a campaign may seem daunting, especially if you're doing it for the first time, it’s actually more straightforward than you might think. This tutorial will guide you step-by-step through the process, helping you avoid common pitfalls and ensuring your first campaign starts on the right foot.

We’ll break it down into five major steps:

1. Creating a New Campaign in Google Ads
2. Choosing a Budget That Works
3. Setting Campaign Goals
4. Selecting Bidding Strategies
5. Geotargeting and Ad Scheduling

We’ll also sprinkle in some personal insights to help you learn from my own experiences—particularly my early mistakes—so you can avoid wasting time and money.

Step 1: Creating a New Campaign in Google Ads

Let’s start with the basics: actually getting a Shopping campaign up and running in Google Ads. It’s not as hard as it sounds, but there are a few things you need to know to avoid confusion.

Step-by-Step Guide to Create Your Campaign:

1. Login to Google Ads First, log into your Google Ads account. If you don’t have one yet, you’ll need to create it. Make sure it's linked to your Google Merchant Center account—this is something we covered in Tutorial 1.

2. Click on “New Campaign” Once you’re in, click on the “Campaigns” tab on the left-hand side of the dashboard. You’ll see a blue plus sign that says “New Campaign.” Click on that.

3. Choose Your Campaign Type You’ll be asked to choose a campaign type. Since we’re focusing on Google Shopping, select “Shopping.” Make sure the right Merchant Center account is selected (if you have more than one), as this is where Google will pull your product information from.

4. Select Campaign Subtype: Standard or Smart Shopping You’ll now be asked to choose between two types of Shopping campaigns: Standard and Smart.

   • Standard Shopping Campaign: This gives you more control over targeting, bidding, and reporting, but requires a bit more manual setup.
   • Smart Shopping Campaign: This is more automated and uses machine learning to optimize for conversions. It’s a good option for beginners or those who don’t want to spend a lot of time tweaking their campaigns.

   My personal recommendation? If you’re just starting out and don’t have much time to manage your campaign, go with Smart Shopping. Google will take care of most of the heavy lifting, like adjusting bids and showing your ads to the right audience. But if you’re more of a hands-on type and want more control, choose Standard Shopping.

5. Set Your Campaign Name Give your campaign a name that makes sense for your business. Something like “Fall 2024 Product Launch” or “Main Product Line Campaign” will make it easier to track later.

6. Choose Your Bid Strategy (Manual or Automated) We’ll dive into bid strategies in more detail a little later, but for now, just know that you can either set your bids manually or let Google automate them based on your campaign goals.

7. Define Your Target Audience and Location Set your targeting preferences based on where you want your ads to be shown. We’ll discuss this in depth in Step 5, but for now, just choose the countries, regions, or cities where your customers are most likely to be.

8. Set a Budget This is where you’ll define how much you want to spend each day on your ads. We’ll cover budgeting in the next section, so for now, just keep it in mind as something to revisit.

9. Launch Your Campaign After setting up all these basics, click “Save and Continue,” and your first Google Shopping campaign is live! Don’t worry if it doesn’t start delivering results immediately; Google needs a bit of time to review your campaign and begin showing your ads.

Step 2: Choosing a Budget That Works

Setting a budget is a tricky but essential part of running a successful Google Shopping campaign, especially if you’re a small or new e-commerce store. You don’t want to set the budget too high, as you could blow through your ad spend without seeing returns. On the other hand, if your budget is too low, you may not generate enough data to see what’s working and what isn’t.

So, what’s the sweet spot?

Key Considerations When Setting Your Budget:

1. Daily Budget vs. Total Budget When setting your budget, Google Ads will ask if you want to use a daily budget or a total budget. For beginners, I recommend using a daily budget. This gives you more control and prevents you from overspending too quickly.

2. How Much Should You Spend Daily? For smaller stores, a good rule of thumb is to start with a daily budget that’s manageable for your finances. I recommend starting small—anywhere from $5 to $15 a day, depending on your margins and how many products you’re advertising. As your campaigns start to gain traction, you can always adjust this upwards.

3. Factor in Your CPC (Cost-Per-Click) In Shopping campaigns, you pay every time someone clicks on your ad, so your daily budget will determine how many clicks you can afford. If your cost-per-click (CPC) averages around $1, then a daily budget of $10 will buy you 10 clicks a day. Keep an eye on how these clicks convert into sales—if they’re bringing in more revenue than they cost, consider increasing your budget.

4. Budget Blunders When I first started running ads, I set my daily budget too high because I was eager to get results quickly. That backfired. My ads blew through the budget in a few hours, and I didn’t get enough sales to make up for the expense. The key is patience. Don’t rush. Start small and scale up as you begin to see positive results.

Step 3: Setting Campaign Goals

Setting clear campaign goals is essential because it helps you measure success and guides how you set up your campaign. Do you want to generate sales, increase website traffic, or boost brand awareness? Each of these goals will influence how you set up your campaign and what metrics you’ll focus on.

Here’s how to break down your goals:

1. Driving Sales: If your main goal is to generate sales, then everything you do—your bidding, targeting, and ad copy—should be optimized to push customers toward making a purchase. You’ll want to focus on products with high-profit margins and track conversions closely. Google Ads has conversion tracking tools that can help you see which ads are driving actual sales.

2. Increasing Website Traffic: Maybe you’re not too concerned about making sales right off the bat, and instead, you just want more people visiting your site. This is a good strategy if you’re trying to build brand recognition or if you’re running a promotion that could lead to sales later down the road. In this case, you’d focus on getting as many clicks as possible at the lowest cost.

3. Boosting Brand Awareness: If you’re a brand-new store, you may just want to get your name out there. You can optimize for impressions—how many times your ad is shown—even if people don’t click. This strategy is useful if you’re launching a new product or entering a new market and want people to start recognizing your brand.

Setting Realistic Goals When I first started out, I aimed too high. I wanted to drive sales, increase traffic, and boost brand awareness all at the same time. Bad idea. It’s better to focus on one main goal at a time. Pick what’s most important for your business right now and stick with it.

Step 4: Selecting Bidding Strategies

Now that you’ve set your goals, let’s talk about bidding strategies. Bidding is where a lot of people get tripped up because there’s a lot of jargon involved, and it can be confusing to know what will work best for your store. But don’t worry—we’ll simplify it.

There are two main types of bidding strategies for Shopping campaigns: manual bidding and automated bidding.

Manual Bidding: With manual bidding, you set your bids yourself. This gives you more control but also requires more monitoring and adjustments. Manual bidding is a good option if you want to have tight control over how much you’re paying for each click and where your money is going.

• Pros: More control, can optimize for specific products or keywords.
• Cons: Time-consuming and requires constant attention.

Automated Bidding: Automated bidding is the opposite. You let Google’s algorithms set your bids based on your campaign goals. For example, if your goal is to drive sales, Google will automatically adjust your bids to prioritize conversions.

• Pros: Hands-off, optimized for your goals, easier for beginners.
• Cons: Less control, might overspend if not monitored closely.

Which Should You Choose? If you’re just starting out and don’t have a lot of experience, I recommend automated bidding. Google’s algorithms are pretty smart, and they’ll optimize your bids to get you the best results based on your campaign goals. As you gain more experience and start to see what works, you can switch to manual bidding for more control.

Bidding Missteps When I first ran Shopping campaigns, I jumped straight into manual bidding because I thought I could outsmart Google’s algorithms. Boy, was I wrong. I ended up either underbidding, which meant my ads weren’t showing enough, or overbidding, which drained my budget without getting enough sales. If I could go back, I’d definitely start with automated bidding until I had more data to work with.

Step 5: Geotargeting and Ad Scheduling

One of the most powerful tools in Google Ads is the ability to control who sees your ads and when they see them. This is where geotargeting and ad scheduling come into play.

Geotargeting: Geotargeting allows you to specify which regions, countries, or even cities you want your ads to appear in. If you’re a small store, you may want to focus only on areas where you know your customers are located. For example, if you sell locally made crafts, you might only want to target shoppers within your state or region.

Ad Scheduling: Ad scheduling lets you control when your ads appear. If you know that your customers are most active in the evenings or on weekends, you can schedule your ads to only run during those times. This prevents you from wasting money showing ads when no one’s around to see them.

The Importance of Targeting One of my biggest mistakes when starting out was not using geotargeting effectively. I was showing ads all over the place—even in countries where I didn’t ship! That was a costly lesson. Now, I focus on only targeting the regions where my customers are, which has helped me stretch my budget further.

Final Thoughts

By the end of this tutorial, you should have a clear understanding of how to set up your first Google Shopping campaign, from creating the campaign itself to setting your budget, goals, bidding strategy, and targeting preferences. While it might feel like a lot to digest at first, don’t worry—like anything else, the more you do it, the easier it gets.

In the next tutorial, we’ll focus on optimizing your Shopping campaigns for better performance. You’ll learn how to fine-tune your product listings, analyze your data, and make adjustments to improve your results over time.