How to Run Google Ads: A Detailed Guide From A to Z

Today, Google advertising is an essential tool for any business that wants to expand its visibility and reach its target customers effectively. However, setting up and managing a Google Ads campaign is not always easy, especially for beginners. In this article, MONA Media will a detailed guide on how to run Google Ads to help help your ad campaign actually deliver results.

What is Google Ads? 

Google Ads is an online advertising platform developed by Google. It lets businesses reach their target customers at the moment they are interested in a product or service. It is an important tool for promoting a brand, growing sales and expanding your customer base through many ad formats. Ads can appear in Google search results, on YouTube, in Gmail and on websites in the display network, giving wide and effective reach.

With Google Ads, you can:

• Reach the right target customers based on keywords, location, behavior and other criteria

• Run many ad formats: search, display, shopping, video and mobile app

• Control your budget flexibly with pricing models such as CPC, CPM, CPA and CPV

• Use artificial intelligence (AI) to optimize bids, targeting and ad formats

• Show ads when users search for related keywords or visit websites in the Google network

• Measure and track performance through metrics such as clicks, impressions and conversion rate to optimize campaigns

Here is a concrete example of what happens when you run Google Ads: 

≫Further reading: what is GDN? How to run Google Display Network ads

Benefits of running Google Ads for your business

Google is one of the TOP search engines in the world, with over 100 billion searches per month. With such a huge user base, Google is a very important marketing channel, and running ads on the Google platform has brought undeniable benefits to businesses, as follows. 

Your ads reach customers who ALREADY HAVE A NEED

One of the biggest benefits of running Google Ads is reaching users who already have a specific need. By using precise keywords and clearly defined target audiences, your ads appear in front of people who are searching for the products and services you offer. This raises your chances of converting, because these users already intend to buy and are willing to learn more about what you offer.

Google Ads is a form of marketing where you put your products or services directly in front of people who already have a need. All you have to do is have a quality landing page, a good product or service, and attentive customer care, and “say yes”.

• The MONA Marketing team

You only pay when someone clicks your ado

The payment model based on CPC (Cost-Per-Click) in Google Ads gives businesses flexibility. Specifically, you only pay when a user clicks your Google Ads ad, and you do not pay for the ad being shown. This helps you control your Google advertising costs effectively, because you only pay when a customer takes a specific action. 

Better control of your ad budget

You can set a daily, weekly or monthly budget, and adjust it at any time depending on how the campaign performs. This keeps you from overspending and saves on ad costs.

At MONA, when you use our Google advertising service, a team plans your budget in detail and optimizes your ads as well as possible.

Track your advertising strategy effectively

Google Ads provides in-depth analytics and tracking tools so you can evaluate your campaign performance in detail. You can follow the number of clicks, conversion rate, user engagement and many other metrics. This helps you understand how users respond to your ads and adjust your strategy to get better results.

From this we can see the whole picture, from reaching the right customers and controlling budget to tracking and optimizing campaign performance. A well-run Google advertising approach will create great opportunities to grow your business and strengthen your relationship with customers. MONA believes that, given how popular and convenient Google Ads is, it is one of the ad types most businesses use right now.

≫ Read more: Google Ads extensions that increase conversions

Key factors that decide your Google Ads position and performance 

The factors that affect ad position, cost and performance in Google Ads, and that help you optimize your campaign as effectively as possible, include:

Bid

A bid is the amount you are willing to pay for each click on your ad in Google Ads. According to a WordStream study, in the US market the average cost per click on Google Ads is about 5.26 dollars (2025). 

Martin Roettgerding, co-founder of bloofusion Germany, also said: “The right bid can raise the chance of your ad showing high on the search results page, but you do not always need to race for the highest bid.”

Based on experience from MONA projects, to choose the right bid when running Google Ads, you need to:

• Check the average bid in Google Keyword Planner: Enter the keywords you plan to run Google Ads on into the tool. The results show the average bid for each keyword, plus the lowest and highest bids needed for your campaign to appear on Google.
• Set your ad budget: Your bid also depends on the total campaign budget. For example, if the expected average bid for a keyword is too high but your budget is too small, you cannot run that campaign. To avoid burning budget without getting the results you want, research keywords with low bids but a high chance of converting. Based on the average bid, set a slightly higher bid ceiling and your campaign is likely to appear.
• ROI (Return on Investment): When running Google Ads, we usually start with test campaigns to check how effective the campaign is. During the test phase, if bids are high but bring in lots of leads and engagement, that can be a suitable strategy.

Quality Score

Quality Score measures how well your ad, landing page and chosen keywords match. According to Google, Quality Score is calculated by measuring click-through rate (CTR), ad quality and landing page experience.

A study from AdEspresso found that ads with a Quality Score above 7 usually have an average bid that is 80% lower.

Another reference comes from Brad Geddes, a leading expert in Google Ads, who said: “Improving Quality Score is one of the most effective ways to cut costs when running Google Ads. A higher Quality Score not only lets your campaign appear in a better position but also lowers the average cost per click.“

So the right mix of bid and Quality Score decides your ad's position and performance on Google Ads. Optimizing both helps businesses save money and get the best results from their ad campaigns.

The most common Google Ads formats today

The most common ways to advertise on Google today include

• Search ads (Google Search): This type of Google Ads appears right on the Google search results page when users search for keywords related to your products or services. It focuses on delivering your message to users who are searching with a specific need.

• Shopping ads (Google Shopping): This format shows products, including images, prices and product names, on the Google search results page and the Google Shopping page. If your business wants to showcase products and attract online shoppers, this is the most effective and easiest way to advertise on Google. 

• Display ads (Google Display Network): Ads shown across Google's partner network of websites, mobile apps, YouTube videos and more. This type focuses on building brand awareness and getting users' attention.

• YouTube video ads: Video ads shown before, during and after videos users watch on YouTube, or in YouTube search results or the sidebar. This is an effective way to advertise on Google to deliver your message and introduce products and services to customers.

• Universal app campaigns: Used to promote your mobile app on both the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store. App ads usually run across several Google platforms such as: Search, Google Play, YouTube and Google's partner websites. This puts your app in front of the right target audience, increases downloads and raises awareness of your service or product among users.

• Discovery ads: A format that mainly appears on Google Discover, YouTube and Gmail. It is an effective way to put your products, services or content in front of users who are likely to be interested, without them searching for it directly.

• Local campaign ads: This type of Google ad is designed to help local businesses reach customers in a specific geographic area. It is seen as a smart and very effective strategy for attracting potential customers to take actions like visiting your store, ordering online or contacting your business directly.

Each way of running Google Ads yourself has its own strengths and uses, and suits each business's goals and strategy. Choosing the right ad format helps you optimize performance and reach your business goals. It also helps you save much more money.

What are the requirements for running Google Ads?

To get how to run Google ads successfully, you need to meet a few conditions:

• A quality landing page: A website or a landing page both work, but at minimum it must be good (meaning user-friendly, easy to use and so on) to host your ad. This is the landing page, where users arrive after clicking your ad. Make sure the page content accurately reflects your product or service and that users can find information easily.
• Understand your target customers correctly: Define clearly the customers you want to reach. This helps you choose the right keywords and write much more appealing ad copy. 
• Set your ad budget from the start: Decide how much you are willing to spend on the campaign. This affects the reach and performance of your ads.

Having a quality landing page, understanding your target customers and planning your ad budget clearly from the start will save you a lot of ad spend and help you stay within the budget you set. 

What should you prepare before running Google Ads? 

Before running Google Ads, there are two things you must have: Google Ads account and set up an ad billing account. If you have not prepared them or do not know how to register and set up, do not worry. MONA will guide you in detail below: 

Register a Google Ads account

Step 1: Go to the Google Ads sign-up page by opening your web browser and visiting the official Google Ads site at ads.google.com.

Step 2: To start signing up, click the “Start Now” or “Sign Up Now” button to begin registering your Google Ads account.

Step 3: Enter your personal or business information into your Google account

Fill in the required details for your account, such as:

• Username: Choose a username you want to use for your Google Ads account.
• Email address: Enter the email address you want to link to the account.
• Password: For good security, MONA suggests creating a strong enough password to protect your account.
• Other information (if any): Provide your country, language and contact details.

Step 4: Read and accept the Google Ads terms and conditions by ticking the box “Iaccept the terms and conditions“.

Step 5: After filling in everything, click the “Sign Up” or “Create Account” button to finish registration.

Set up an ad billing account

Step 1: Choose a payment method type

After registering, you need to choose a payment method for your Google Ads account. Google supports several payment methods such as credit card, debit card, bank transfer or promo code.

Follow the on-screen steps and enter the details of the payment method you want to use. Then confirm and check your billing information

Step 2: Set a daily or monthly spending limit to keep your ad costs within your budget.

Step 3: Once you have completed the billing information and spending limit, click “Save” or “Done” to finish the payment setup.

Guide to running Google Ads and setting up your account

Once all the required elements are ready to run ads on Google, here are the most detailed steps to run Google Ads yourself to help you launch an effective campaign: 

Step 1: Set up search for your Google Ads

1. Create your first Google campaign

Click “+” and choose new campaign

2. Choose a goal for your ad campaign

Choosing a goal for your Google Ads campaign is very important, because it guides how you run it and how you measure results. 

For example, for this campaign I chose the goal “Website traffic“

3. Choose the campaign type

Next, choose the campaign type “Search” to reach as many target customers with buying intent as possible on Google Search. 

4. Choose how you want to reach your goal

Next, enter the landing page you want to run Google ads for.

Name your campaign (we suggest naming each campaign so it is easy to remember).

Step 2: Set your bid

Set a bid for each goal of your ad campaign

Step 3: Configure the ad campaign

1. Choose the network type for your campaign

Your ads can usually appear through 2 types:

• Search network: Effective for users with high buying intent, because they are searching for specific information. It focuses on attracting users who are ready to shop
• Display Network: Good for building brand awareness and showing products or services to the audience you care about. It can reach a very large number of users.

Most advertisers prefer the “Search Network” because it reaches the right potential customers and controls costs more effectively.

2. Choose the location and targeting where your ads can appear

Simply put, you set the locations where your ads will appear on Google. Choose all countries and territories if you want to advertise your products or services worldwide. 

Choose Vietnam if you want your ads to appear only in the Vietnamese market. If you only want to advertise in a specific area, choose “enter another location” and fill in the location you want to run ads in. 

For targeting, you can pick one of these two options: 

• Presence or interest: People who are in, or are interested in, the location you are advertising to.
• Presence: People who are in, or regularly in, the location where you place your ads

3. Choose the language customers use to search

MONA usually sets this to Vietnamese. But if you want to extend your ads to other countries, you can add secondary languages.

Step 4: Set up keywords and ads

1. Set up keywords

Enter a keyword or keyword phrase to match your ad with the phrases users are searching for.

For example, in this guide MONA entered the keyword: “Google Ads services”

* A quick note on match types in advertising:

• Broad match: Keywords do not need to match exactly. Your ad appears when a user searches for any keyword on your keyword list. For example: “google ad costs“, “google advertising steps” and many other related phrases can all trigger ads for “google ads service“.
• Phrase match: The keyword is placed in quotation marks. Your ad appears when a user types the exact keyword phrase, or the phrase with extra words before or after the main keyword. For example: “quality MONA.Media google ads advertising” triggers an ad for “MONA.Media google ads advertising“.
• Exact match: The keyword is placed in square brackets. Your ad appears only when a user types the exact keyword. For example: [Google Ads advertising service] only triggers the ad when typed 100% exactly.

This setting Google Ads keywords is quite important if you need to run ads for your business. Instead of spending time on your own research and getting weak results, CONTACT US Work with MONA Media through hotline 1900 636 648, and our team of specialists will give you the most Google Ads management services effective and highest-quality results!

2. Write the ad copy

Fill in all the information the ad template asks for.

Step 5: Set your budget

Setting the budget is a very important step. You can use the amount Google recommends or set a custom budget for your ad campaign.

Step 6: Add extensions and launch your ads

These extensions make your ads stand out more to users. 

To set up extensions, go to ads and assets, choose “assets” and pick the ones that fit your campaign, such as: price, location, description, sitelinks and more.

Step 7: Track and adjust

After setting up your ads, you should monitor them regularly and adjust to optimize your campaigns. With MONA's Google Ads management service, we optimize and adjust the campaign for you, and we also analyze and suggest ways to improve your next campaign.

Follow these steps for advertising on Google and you have successfully set up a Google Ads campaign.

Common mistakes when running Google Ads

If you have run Google Ads before but still get no orders or targeted the wrong audience, check whether you are making any of these mistakes when running Google Ads .

Running Google Ads will surely bring orders

Google advertising helps your products and services reach many customers, but conversion from a campaign depends on many factors. For example:

• The quality of your products and services
• Is your business brand trustworthy?
• How are your products and services priced?
• Is your ad copy a good fit?

A basic mistake many new businesses make is expecting Google ads to bring orders right away. In reality, building an effective campaign that attracts customers takes time and effort. Do not be discouraged if you do not see results in the first few days. If the issues above are covered, orders will not be far off for your business.

Choosing keywords that do not match user search intent

A common mistake when running Google Ads is choosing keywords that do not reflect what users are actually looking for. Research the keywords your target audience commonly uses and make sure they match their intent.

At MONA, we have the infrastructure, experience and a professional team that understands every field, especially customer psychology, and knows what your customers need, so we can build a Google Ads campaign that matches user search intent as closely as possible. 

No landing page, or a landing page that is not good enough

Your landing page matters just as much as the ad campaign. If it is not appealing, not good quality or lacks the information people need, conversion drops sharply. If your current landing page or website is still very basic or not optimized for users, do not worry. MONA currently offers landing page design services that are high quality and meet SEO standards, to help you present your products or services to customers and run Google Ads. 

No secondary keywords, or inaccurate secondary keywords 

Secondary keywords can be an effective way to target more specific customers. But if they are inaccurate, they can burn budget without results. Make sure you research and choose secondary keywords that fit your content and the product or service you advertise.

≫See also: Adwords negative keywords – Detailed user guide

That covers everything we wanted to share about how to run Google ads effectively. We hope this newly shared MONA Media article helps you advertise on Google in the right direction and get real results. And do not forget: if you need anything related to Google Ads, Facebook Ads, or even SEO, website design, or ad video production, contact MONA right away!

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