How This Course Works

A hands-on course for go-to-market teams who need Search ads that produce pipeline, not just clicks. It is built so you can have a small, properly tracked campaign live by the end of your first week, and learn the rest while it collects data.

At a glance

Set your LLM, budget band, conversion goal and region in the settings panel first. The advice and examples follow them. Follow Quick Start: Your First Week day by day and open the linked lesson only when you reach that step. Lessons marked later (Attribution, Performance Max and YouTube) wait until your campaign has a few weeks of data.

How to use this

Set the four options in the settings panel at the top of each lesson first (press Change). They change the advice:

Thresholds and bidding for your budget. Examples for your conversion goal. Privacy and trademark rules for your region. Prompts written for the LLM you use.

Your choices, checklist ticks and quiz scores are saved in this browser only.

Setting What it changes

LLM Every prompt and the feature names in the steps (Projects and Artifacts in Claude; Projects, Custom GPTs and Canvas in ChatGPT).

Budget band Starter is $5,000/month or less, Intermediate is up to $50,000/month, Advanced is above that. It sets how many campaigns to run, which bid strategy to use, how long to wait before judging and when to scale.

Conversion goal Free trial or demo request. It changes the conversion setup, landing page and ad copy examples, and what counts as a result.

Region Consent and privacy steps, trademark rules for competitor campaigns, currency in examples and the calculator, and the geo mistakes most relevant to you.

Right now you are set to ClaudeChatGPT, Starter budgetIntermediate budgetAdvanced budget, free trialdemo request as the goal, and US/CanadaEU/UKIndiaRest of APACLatin AmericaMiddle East/Africa as the region.

The shortest path Read the Quick start and follow it day by day. Each step links to the lesson that explains it, so you only read what you need for the decision in front of you. Lessons marked later are for once your campaign has a few weeks of data.

Lessons

Start HereQuick Start: Your First WeekA five-day plan to get a small, well-tracked Search campaign live. Start HereHow Google Ads WorksAuctions, keywords, match types, Quality Score and bidding: just enough to decide. Build the CampaignMessagingPick the buyer, the problem and the promise before you write a word of ad copy. Build the CampaignCreating AdsResponsive search ads that match intent, with assets that earn space. Build the CampaignLanding PagesOne page, one job. Build it in Astro and keep it consistent with the ad. Build the CampaignAdvertising Against CompetitorsWhat works, what gets you in trouble, and the trademark rules by region. Measure and ProtectAvoiding Fraud and Wasted SpendSearch Partners, Display, apps, invalid clicks and junk leads: detect and exclude. Measure and ProtectTrackingStage one live in a day; stage two sends CRM outcomes back to Google Ads. Measure and ProtectGeographic Targeting and BiddingPresence vs interest, exclusions, value per click by region and the bid calculator. Measure and ProtectBudget DecisionsWhen to scale, hold or stop, with thresholds for your budget band. Run and GrowMonitoring With an LLMWeekly review workflows, anomaly checks and search-term cleanup with your LLM. Run and Grow · laterAttributionOnce you have data: models, trade-offs and your own LLM-built analysis. Run and Grow · laterPerformance Max and YouTubeWhen Performance Max helps, when it hurts, and YouTube once Search works. ToolkitTemplates and ToolsUTM builder, negative keyword list, weekly review sheet and offline conversion template. ToolkitGlossaryEvery term used in the course, with the short definition the tooltips show.

Re-checked 3 November 2026 The fast-moving facts in this course were checked again on 3 November 2026. Still current:

The 17 August 2026 change that makes Target CPA and Target ROAS aim at the target in budget-limited campaigns (Budget Decisions). The September 2026 automatic upgrade to AI Max and the move of Dynamic Search Ads to AI Max from February 2027 (How Google Ads Works). How location options and bid adjustments work with Smart Bidding (Geographic Targeting and Bidding).

New: the June 2026 consent change for GA4 data shared with Google Ads, added to Tracking. Labels that say “As of October 2026” were confirmed, not changed.

What you need before you start

Admin or standard access to your company's Google Ads account, or permission to create one. Edit access to the Astro website repository, or someone who can merge your changes. A paid Claude or ChatGPT plan with file upload. Most workflows here involve uploading a CSV export and asking for analysis. An export from your CRM, even a rough one, showing leads by source and which became opportunities. The list of countries your company does not sell to. Ask legal or finance; it usually reflects sanctions and where you can invoice.

Templates and tools

The templates page has the UTM builder, a starter negative keyword list for B2B software, a weekly review sheet and an offline conversion upload template. The geo bid calculator lives in the Geographic targeting lesson.

Do this now

Settings panel set to your LLM, budget band, goal and region. Google Ads access and edit access to the Astro site repository confirmed. Do-not-sell country list requested from legal or finance. A rough CRM export of leads by source saved for later lessons.

Next: Quick Start: Your First Week