How to run Google Ads: 7 decisions before you spend the first euro

Running Google Ads takes half an hour: create the account, build a campaign, add payment details, publish. Whether the money pays off afterwards is decided before that, at seven points the setup wizard barely asks about. I’ll go through them in order and, at the end, tell you honestly when to do this yourself and when to pay someone for it.

1. How to run Google Ads: goal, budget and tracking come before the campaign

Decision 1: What counts as success?

When you create a campaign, Google first asks for your objective: Sales, Leads or Website traffic. For a Search campaign Google requires at least one conversion goal, even if you create the campaign without a goal’s guidance. The real question nobody answers for you is this one: which action on your site is worth money to you?

• For a trades business, it’s the form enquiry and the phone call.
• For a shop, it’s the purchase, with its order value.
• A click on “Contact” or a page view is not. If Google counts that as a conversion, the campaign optimises for people who click around.

Google separates primary conversion actions, which bidding uses, from secondary ones, which are only observed. Make primary only what you would actually pay for. Everything else goes into the second group.

Decision 2: How much budget, and what does it buy?

Google sets no minimum spend. What a click costs depends on your industry. My benchmark data for Search in the German-speaking market puts the click price between €0.90 (e-commerce) and €5.50 (lawyers), and an enquiry at between €25 and €120 on average (DACH, 2026). The industry-by-industry picture is in Google Ads costs in Germany.

Those numbers turn into a budget in three steps. A worked example with €2 per click and a 5% conversion rate:

1. One enquiry takes 1 ÷ 0.05 = 20 clicks.
2. So one enquiry costs €2 ÷ 0.05 = €40.
3. Two enquiries a day need a daily budget of €80.

The daily budget is an average. For most campaigns Google may spend up to twice that on a single day, and up to 30.4 times it in a month. So €80 a day can become up to roughly €2,430 a month. Plan in monthly budgets.

My free Google Ads benchmarks show where your industry sits, with click price, click-through rate, conversion rate and cost per enquiry for 15 industries side by side. Before you start, work out what an enquiry is worth to you. If that number is well below the industry average, no setup will save you.

Decision 3: Tracking before launch, not after

A campaign without working conversion tracking spends money and learns nothing. Google’s bid strategies learn from conversions, and according to Google adjusting to a new goal can take up to about 50 conversions or three conversion cycles. Every day without clean measurement stretches that time.

So set up conversions before you publish:

1. In Google Ads, go to Goals → Summary → + Create conversion action.
2. Enter your domain and select Scan. Google looks for an existing Google tag or a Google Analytics property.
3. Pick the method. A thank-you page view can be tracked without code through a URL rule. Button clicks and dynamic values need a code snippet through the Google tag or Google Tag Manager.
4. Check the “Status” column under Goals → Summary.

In Germany, consent comes on top. Your tags may only read or store anything once the visitor has agreed, and Google Ads needs the consent signals from Consent Mode. How to do it properly is in the Consent Mode v2 setup guide. My clearest piece of advice at this point: test the measurement once with a real test enquiry before the first euro goes out. The conversion tracking health check shows how to go about it systematically.

2. How to create a Google Ads campaign: keywords, negatives and landing page

Smart campaign or your own Search campaign

According to Google, Smart campaigns only exist in Smart Mode. There you pick keyword themes instead of individual keywords. Google shows the ads on Search, Maps, YouTube, partner sites and the Display Network, and tests its own ad variations built from your business details and your website. That’s convenient, but it leaves you little control over what you pay for.

For a Search campaign with your own keywords you need an account outside Smart Mode. According to Google, you can skip all campaign suggestions when you create the account and set up an account without a campaign first. That’s what I would do while the conversion tracking isn’t in place yet.

How creating a Search campaign works

1. In the left menu, click Campaigns, then use the plus icon to create a new campaign.
2. Pick the objective (Sales, Leads or Website traffic) and Search as the campaign type.
3. Set the bid strategy.
4. Under networks, untick Include Google search partners and Display Network. Your ads then run on Google Search only, and you see cleanly what Search brings in.
5. Set locations and languages. Under location options, “Presence or interest” is Google’s default. If you only serve your own region, I would switch to “Presence”, so someone in Hamburg doesn’t get your ad for Cologne.
6. Create ad groups with keywords, then write the ads: final URL, headlines, descriptions.
7. Enter the budget, fix the issues Google flags and click Publish.

Google then reviews your ads. According to Google, most are reviewed within one business day.

Decision 4: Which match types?

Google assigns broad match to new keywords by default and recommends it together with Smart Bidding. But Smart Bidding learns from conversions, and those are exactly what a new account lacks. To start, I would take a small set of keywords with clear buying intent, as phrase match in quotation marks and exact match in square brackets. A bathroom fitter in Cologne would start with [badsanierung köln] and "badsanierung kosten", for example (bathroom renovation Cologne and bathroom renovation cost, in German because the customers search in German). Broad match is worth testing later, once enough conversions are in.

Decision 5: Negative keywords from day one

Every click on “… DIY”, “… salary” or “… apprenticeship” costs money and earns nothing. Add those terms as negative keywords before the campaign goes live. One detail many people miss: according to Google, negative keywords don’t match close variants. You have to add singular, plural and synonyms yourself. You can store them in a campaign, in a list shared by several campaigns, or in a list for the whole account.

After the first week, read the search terms report. It shows what people actually typed, and every term that doesn’t fit goes on the list.

Decision 6: Where does the ad lead?

The ad wins the click; the page wins the enquiry. In the worked example above, the cost per enquiry falls from €40 to €25 when the conversion rate rises from 5% to 8%. A better page is often cheaper than a lower bid. Don’t send every click to the homepage. Send it to a page that answers exactly what was searched for. On a phone, the number and the form belong on the first screen.

3. Who runs the ads: you, a freelancer or an agency?

The seventh decision is about paying for the work on the account. Count on two separate items: the ad budget goes straight to Google, the fee goes to whoever runs the account.

Doing it yourself

This fits when your budget is small, your offer is clear and you set aside an hour every week for the search terms. You pay only the ad budget and your time. The price is the lessons you pay for in the first months. With a small budget, a one-off setup plus running it yourself is often the most honest route; I describe it in Google Ads freelancer for small budgets.

A freelancer

With a freelancer you work with the person who also makes the changes in the account. With me there are three routes, and they do different jobs:

• Clarity Session: from €390, a 60-minute video call on one specific decision, such as whether to launch yourself, with what budget, or whether to hand it over. You get a clear recommendation with the reasoning and the next steps in the right order. It isn’t a look into every corner of your account.
• Google Ads audit: from €1,900, if your account is already running and you want a full, independent check: search terms, account structure, bidding, wasted spend, conversion goals, consent and the path to the saved enquiry. Findings arrive within 7 working days.
• Ongoing management: from €900 a month, no minimum term, if the account should be run continuously.

The limit is part of the deal: as one person I have limited capacity and no team to cover for me. And the ad budget should clearly exceed the fee. At €800 of budget and €800 of management, the management would have to double performance just to pay for itself.

An agency

An agency is often the better fit if you run many channels across several countries and need fixed cover arrangements. Before you sign, ask who will actually work on your account, who owns the account and how long the contract runs. When an agency pays off is covered in Is a Google Ads agency worth it?.

The bottom line

• Before the first campaign, decide which action counts as a conversion, and measure it before you publish.
• Work out your budget from click price and conversion rate, and plan in months, not days.
• Start with a pure Search campaign, without search partners or the Display Network.
• Begin with a few keywords as phrase and exact match, and keep the negatives up to date from day one.
• Send the clicks to a page that answers exactly that search.
• Doing it yourself pays with a small budget and some time. Management pays only once the budget clearly exceeds the fee.

Want to run Google Ads and not sure whether to do it yourself? That’s exactly the kind of decision the Clarity Session is for: from €390, a 60-minute video call with your offer, budget and website on the table. Afterwards you know whether Google Ads fits, who should run it and what to do first. Whether the session suits your question is something you can check first in a free intro call. Book a free intro call.

FAQ

How much does it cost to run Google Ads?

Two items: the ad budget paid to Google and, if you don’t do the work yourself, the fee. On Search a click costs between €0.90 and €5.50 depending on the industry, an enquiry between €25 and €120 on average (DACH benchmarks, 2026). With me, a Clarity Session costs from €390, a full audit from €1,900, and ongoing management from €900 a month, with no minimum term.

How long until Google Ads brings results?

Google reviews most ads within one business day, and the first clicks follow. Reliable results need conversions: according to Google, a bid strategy’s learning period can take up to about 50 conversions or three conversion cycles. At €80 a day the worked example brings in roughly 60 enquiries a month, at €20 a day roughly 15. The same amount of data then takes four times as long.

Is there a minimum budget for Google Ads?

No. Google sets no minimum spend. A sensible budget buys enough clicks for a few enquiries a month. If an enquiry in your industry costs €60, €300 a month buys a handful at most, and neither Google nor you learn much from that.

Is the Google Ads welcome credit worth it?

Take it, but don’t plan around it. Google sometimes offers ad credit to new advertisers. The account must be no older than 14 days when you redeem it, the business must never have advertised on Google Ads before, and you have to spend an amount named in the offer within a set period. Google then reviews eligibility for up to 35 days. The credit only covers future ad costs, and there’s no cash payout. Credit doesn’t make a badly set up account better; it just burns someone else’s money for longer.