This lesson covers the minimum you need to set up a campaign without making expensive mistakes. Skim it now and come back to a section when the Quick start sends you here.
## Campaign types: which one whenGoogle Ads has several campaign types. For B2B software, three matter, and in a clear order.
| Type | Where ads show | Use it for | When to start |
|---|---|---|---|
| Search | Google search results (and optionally Search Partners) | Capturing people who search for your category, the problem you solve, or competitors | Week one |
| Performance Max | Search, YouTube, Display, Discover, Gmail, Maps, chosen by Google | Extra reach once conversion tracking reflects real pipeline, not just form fills | Only after Search works and offline conversions flow |
| YouTube (via Demand Gen or video campaigns) | YouTube, and with Demand Gen also Discover and Gmail | Awareness in a target segment and remarketing to site visitors | Once Search is producing steady leads |
The reason Search goes first is intent. Someone searching "SOC 2 compliance software" has a problem right now. Someone watching a YouTube video does not. With a small budget, you want to pay for the first person.
See Beyond Search for when the other types earn their place.
### How an account is organisedAn account contains campaigns, which hold budget, bidding, location and network settings. Campaigns contain ad groups, which hold a tight set of keywords plus the ads that show for them.
Keep each ad group to one theme so the ad can speak directly to the search. "Expense approval software" and "corporate card software" are two ad groups, not one.
## How the auction worksEach time someone searches, Google finds every ad whose keywords match, then ranks them. The ranking score is Ad Rank.
Google doesn't publish the exact formula, but the main inputs are your bid, the expected quality of your ad (how likely it is to be clicked and how relevant it is), the landing page experience, and context like device, location and time.
Two things follow from this. First, you can't simply buy the top spot with money if your ad is a poor match. Second, improving the ad and page lowers what you pay for the same position.
That's why ad groups stay tight and landing pages repeat the ad's promise.
Search ads are priced per click. Your actual CPC is roughly the minimum needed to keep your Ad Rank above the advertiser below you, so it's usually below your max bid.
With Smart Bidding, Google sets the bid for every auction and you control it indirectly through targets and budget.
Your ad can also fail to show at all if its Ad Rank is below a threshold, even with no competitors. That's one reason a very low bid on a niche keyword can get zero impressions.
Keywords are the searches you want to appear for. For B2B software, sort candidate keywords by intent and start at the top of this list:
Skip broad informational terms ("what is accounts payable") at launch. They bring traffic, rarely bring leads, and eat a small budget fast.
Starter budget: 10 to 25 keywords in one or two ad groups is plenty.
If Keyword Planner shows a keyword costing more than about a tenth of your daily budget per click, you'll get very few clicks a day from it; pick narrower, cheaper variants or accept a slow start.
Intermediate budget: 3 to 6 ad groups of 10 to 20 keywords each, one theme per ad group. Brand keywords go in a separate campaign.
Advanced budget: you'll likely run several themed campaigns (brand, category, problem, competitor) per region group. Keep themes consistent across regions so you can compare them.
A match type tells Google how loosely to interpret a keyword. All three now match on meaning, not exact wording, so even exact match catches close variants and synonyms.
| Match type | How you write it | Can match | Use it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Exact | [invoice approval software] |
"invoice approval software", "software for approving invoices" | Your best-converting terms; tightest control |
| Phrase | "invoice approval software" |
"best invoice approval software for SMB", "invoice approval software pricing" | Default at launch; captures useful variations |
| Broad | invoice approval software |
"AP automation", "accounts payable workflow", sometimes "invoice template free" | Later, with Smart Bidding and plenty of conversions |
Broad match isn't bad. It finds searches you'd never think of, and with good conversion data, Smart Bidding can filter out the poor ones.
Without that data, it spends on loosely related searches and you find out in the search terms report a week later. Hence: phrase and exact first, then test broad in one ad group once bidding has something to learn from.
AI Max and automatic upgrades
AI Max for Search is a setting on Search campaigns that expands matching beyond your keywords, rewrites ad text from your site and can send people to different landing pages.
Between 1 and 30 September 2026, Google automatically upgraded Search campaigns that used campaign-level broad match or automatically created assets to AI Max, unless the advertiser had switched those settings off first.
Upgraded campaigns that used automatically created assets got search term matching and text customisation turned on; broad match campaigns got search term matching only.
Dynamic Search Ads are due to move to AI Max from February 2027. If your account used either setting, open the campaign settings and check whether AI Max is now on. As of October 2026
For launch, check the campaign settings: AI Max off, automatically created assets off, campaign-level broad match off.
Treat AI Max as an experiment to run later, with a solid negative keyword list and conversion tracking based on qualified leads.
Quality Score is a 1 to 10 rating shown per keyword, built from three parts: expected click-through rate, ad relevance, and landing page experience. Each part is rated "below average", "average" or "above average".
Add the Quality Score columns in the Keywords view to see them.
Use it as a pointer to the problem, not a goal:
Don't chase a 10. A keyword with a Quality Score of 5 that produces qualified demos is worth more than a 9 that produces nothing.
## Bidding: which strategy for your budgetBidding decides how much you offer per auction. There are two families:
Maximize clicks also exists. It is useful for a few weeks to gather data cheaply if you set a max CPC cap, but it optimises for clicks, not leads, so don't leave it on.
Your band: Starter
Start on Manual CPC (or Maximize clicks with a max CPC cap). With fewer than 15 to 20 conversions a month, Smart Bidding has too little to learn from and swings wildly.
Set max CPCs from Keyword Planner's top-of-page range, then adjust weekly by keyword: lower bids on keywords that spend without converting, raise them slightly on ones that convert.
Once you reach roughly 15 or more conversions in 30 days, switch to Maximize conversions. Leave the target CPA empty for the first few weeks after switching.
Your band: Intermediate
Start on Maximize conversions without a target, provided conversion tracking is verified.
After two to four weeks with 30 or more conversions a month, add a Target CPA close to what you're actually getting, then tighten it in steps of 10 to 15%, waiting a week or two between changes.
If conversions are thin in one campaign, consider a shared portfolio strategy across campaigns so they learn together.
Your band: Advanced
Use Target CPA on qualified conversions from the start if the account has history, and plan the move to Target ROAS or Maximize conversion value once CRM outcomes with values flow back as offline conversions.
Value-based bidding is where B2B accounts at this spend make the most progress, because it stops Google treating a student sign-up and an enterprise demo as equal.
Use campaign experiments to test bid strategy changes rather than switching the whole campaign.
As of October 2026
Smart Bidding predicts the chance each auction leads to a conversion. With few conversions, its predictions are noisy, so bids swing.
After a big change (new strategy, target change over about 20%, new conversion action), Google shows the strategy as "Learning" for about a week while it recalibrates.
Results during learning are not a fair read, which is why you change one thing at a time and wait.
The common rule of thumb is about 30 conversions a month per campaign for Target CPA and more for Target ROAS. Google doesn't require that, but below it results are less stable.
Grouping campaigns into a portfolio strategy pools their data.
The conversion you bid on matters more than the strategy. If your primary conversion is "any form fill", Smart Bidding will find the cheapest form fills, which are often students and job seekers.
That's why Tracking pushes you to send qualified outcomes back from the CRM.
If your company has no Google Ads account yet, set one up properly before the first campaign.
Most problems people hit on day 1 come from three defaults: the Smart campaign flow, the wrong currency or time zone, and everyone sharing one login.
### Expert mode, not Smart modeThe sign-up flow starts by building a Smart campaign: Google writes the ads, picks the searches and shows them across its networks.
It is built for small local businesses and gives you almost none of the controls this course relies on (match types, negative keywords, location options, networks).
On the first screen choose Switch to Expert mode, then Create an account without a campaign.
If an account was already created in Smart mode, open the settings (gear) menu and choose Switch to Expert mode, then pause any Smart campaign it made.
The menu labels move around, so search the Google Ads help for "Switch to Expert Mode" if you can't find it. As of November 2026
### Billing and payment| Access level | What it can do | Give it to |
|---|---|---|
| Admin | Everything, including managing users, linking GA4 and other products, and manager account links | Two people at most, so access never depends on one person |
| Standard | Edit campaigns and billing, make payments, create conversions | The people who build and run campaigns, and agencies |
| Read only | See campaigns, tools and reports, no changes | Sales leadership, analysts, anyone reviewing results |
| Billing | Billing information, payments and billing reports | Finance |
| Email only | Notification emails and scheduled reports | People who only need the weekly report |
Invite people by their own work email in Admin, then Access and security. Never share one login: you lose the change history that tells you who changed what. As of November 2026
### When a manager account is worth itA manager account (formerly MCC) is a separate login that holds several Google Ads accounts. You do not need one for a single account. It is worth setting up when:
Keep your company as the owner of every account. If an agency creates the account under their manager account, ask for admin access for two of your own people on day one.