How to run Meta ads
Objectives, audiences, creative, and testing on Facebook and Instagram.
Read the guideGuide/ Paid media
How to run
Google Ads.
Google Ads works because you reach people at the moment they are looking for what you sell. It wastes money when it is left on defaults, and the defaults are designed to spend.
Set up conversion tracking first
Do this before spending anything. Without conversion tracking you are optimising toward clicks, and clicks are not the point.
Track what actually matters — form submissions, calls, bookings, purchases — not page views. If you can, feed back which of those leads became revenue, because otherwise you will optimise toward cheap leads rather than good ones.
Understand what you are bidding on
You bid on searches, and Google decides which ads to show based on bid, expected click-through, ad relevance and landing page experience — together roughly your Quality Score.
This means a more relevant ad and a better landing page can beat a higher bid. Improving relevance is usually cheaper than raising bids.
Structure campaigns around intent, not products
Group keywords by what the searcher wants, so ads and landing pages can match tightly. Someone searching "emergency drain unblocking" and someone searching "bathroom renovation cost" need different ads and different pages.
Keep ad groups small and tight. Large grab-bag ad groups force generic ad copy, which lowers relevance and raises cost.
Send traffic to the page matching the ad, never the homepage. Homepage traffic from a specific search converts poorly because the visitor has to find their own way to the answer.
Match types decide how much you waste
Exact shows for that search and close variants — tightest control, lowest waste.
Phrase shows for searches containing your term's meaning — a reasonable middle ground.
Broad shows for anything Google considers related, which can be very loosely related indeed. Broad without strong conversion data and aggressive negatives is the fastest way to burn budget.
Start tighter than feels necessary and widen once you have data.
Negative keywords are the real work
Check the search terms report weekly and add anything irrelevant as a negative. This one habit separates campaigns that improve from campaigns that quietly bleed.
Standard negatives for most businesses: "free", "cheap", "jobs", "salary", "course", "diy", "how to" — unless those are genuinely your market.
Write ads that qualify, not just attract
Include price ranges, minimums, or service areas if they filter out people who will not buy. A lower click-through rate with better-qualified clicks is usually the cheaper outcome.
Use the assets available — sitelinks, callouts, structured snippets, call and location extensions. They cost nothing extra, take up more space, and generally improve click-through.
Common ways budget gets wasted
Leaving Search Partners and the Display Network on in a Search campaign without checking whether they perform.
Running location targeting on "presence or interest" rather than presence, so you pay for clicks from other regions.
Sending all traffic to the homepage.
Ignoring the search terms report.
Changing bids daily. Give changes enough data before judging them.
FAQ/ Before you ask
Common questions
What is a reasonable starting budget?
Enough to gather data in a reasonable time. If your cost per click is $5 and you need roughly 30 conversions to judge anything, work backwards from your conversion rate. Spreading a tiny budget over many keywords learns nothing — better to start narrow.
How long before Google Ads works?
You will get traffic immediately and useful data in two to four weeks. Campaigns usually need a few weeks of negatives and bid adjustment before performance settles. Judging week one is judging noise.
Should I use Performance Max?
It can work well with strong conversion data and good creative assets, but it gives you far less visibility and control. Most businesses are better served starting with Search, where you can see what you are paying for, then testing PMax once the fundamentals work.
Do I need a separate landing page?
Usually yes. A page matching the ad's specific promise, with one clear action, consistently outperforms a general service page — often by enough to change whether the campaign is profitable.
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