Google SEM campaign: how to build, launch and read a search campaign

A Google SEM campaign is a Search campaign in Google Ads: you bid on the words people type, and you pay when somebody clicks. Build it in this order. Set up conversion tracking first, then one campaign per budget and market, then ad groups of tightly related keywords, then phrase and exact match keywords with a negative list from day one, then responsive search ads pointed at a landing page that matches the search, and start on Maximise Clicks with a cap before moving to a conversion based bid strategy once you have conversion data.

The order is the point. Campaigns that start with automated bidding and no conversion tracking spend their first month teaching the system nothing, and campaigns with no negative keyword list spend it buying searches that were never going to buy.

Step one: conversion tracking, before anything else

Define what a conversion is in your business, in money, and set it up before the first click. A form submission, a phone call over a minimum duration, a booking, a purchase with its value passed through. Import them from Analytics or set them up directly in Google Ads, mark the one that matters as primary and leave the rest as secondary.

Two things follow from doing this first. Your optimisation can target outcomes rather than clicks, and your reporting answers the question the business actually asks, which is what each enquiry cost.

Step two: the account structure

Keep it simple and let the structure mean something:

• Campaign is where budget, location, language, bid strategy and schedule live. So create a separate campaign wherever you need a separate budget, a separate country, or a materially different bid strategy. One campaign per service line and market is usually right.
• Ad group is where keywords and ads live together. Each one should hold a set of keywords that could all be answered by the same ad and the same landing page. If you find yourself writing a vague headline so it covers everything in the group, the group needs splitting.
• Keywords go in at phrase and exact match. Broad match with a conversion based bid strategy can work well once there is data, and it is an expensive way to start.
• Ads. Two or three responsive search ads per ad group. Give Google plenty of headlines and descriptions, and pin the ones that must always appear, such as your brand name or a regulated phrase.

Resist the urge to build forty ad groups on day one. Three to five well built ad groups generate data faster, because budget is concentrated rather than spread.

Step three: match types and negatives

Match type decides how far Google can travel from your keyword. Broad match reaches the widest set of related searches, phrase match requires the meaning of your phrase to be present, and exact match requires the same meaning as your term. Google documents the current behaviour in its note on keyword matching options, and it is worth rereading because the definitions have changed over the years.

Build the negative keyword list on day one, as a shared list applied to every campaign. Start with the obvious categories and add to it weekly from the search terms report:

• Free, cheap, DIY, how to, and the other words that signal somebody who will not buy
• Jobs, salary, career, internship, course, training
• Competitor brand names, unless you are deliberately bidding on them
• Locations you do not serve
• Products and services you do not sell

The search terms report is the single most valuable screen in the account. Read it weekly, move what converts into its own keyword, and add what wastes money as a negative. Most accounts can be improved more by this one habit than by anything else.

Step four: bidding

Strategy	Use it when
Manual CPC or Maximise Clicks with a bid cap	New account, no conversion history. Gather data cheaply.
Maximise Conversions	You have steady conversions and want volume within a fixed budget.
Target CPA	You know what an enquiry is worth and want to hold a cost per acquisition.
Target ROAS	Ecommerce with reliable revenue values passed back into the account.
Maximise Conversion Value	Varied order values and a desire to bias towards the larger ones.

Move up this table as conversion volume allows, change one thing at a time, and give each change a fortnight before judging it. Automated strategies need a period to settle after every edit, so an account edited daily never shows what it can do.

Step five: ads and the landing page

Write the search into the ad and the ad into the page. If somebody searched for emergency plumber in a named city, the headline should contain that, and the page they land on should open with it rather than with a company history. The three parts of Quality Score are expected click through rate, ad relevance and landing page experience, and Google's own guidance on using Quality Score treats landing page experience as a first class part of the auction rather than an afterthought.

Add the assets, which used to be called extensions, because they take up more of the screen and give people more reasons to click: sitelinks, callouts, structured snippets, call, location and lead forms where appropriate. Fill in all of them at setup; they are free and they move click through rate.

What to read in the first month

• Search terms report, weekly. Negatives out, winners promoted.
• Cost per conversion by ad group, not by keyword, until volume justifies going deeper.
• Impression share lost to budget and to rank. The first says add money, the second says fix relevance or raise bids.
• Conversion rate by landing page. Often the fastest improvement available anywhere in the account.
• Device and location splits. Mobile and desktop frequently want different bids and different pages.

This page covers building and reading a search campaign. For what the clicks will cost see Google Ads PPC cost, for ongoing management see PPC management done properly, and for how paid and organic divide the work see Google Ads against SEO and the difference between SEO and SEM.

What people ask about Google SEM campaign

What is a SEM campaign in Google?

Search engine marketing usually means paid search, so a Google SEM campaign is a Search campaign in Google Ads. Some definitions include organic search under the same term, which is why briefs occasionally talk past each other. Agree which one you mean at the start of any conversation about SEM budget.

How much budget does a search campaign need to start?

Enough to buy a usable number of clicks per day in your category rather than a round number. Work it out from the cost per click your keywords show in Keyword Planner: a campaign needs enough daily clicks to accumulate conversions within a few weeks. Starting with too little across too many keywords produces no data and no result.

Should I use Performance Max instead?

Performance Max covers all of Google's inventory with a single campaign and works well for ecommerce with a strong feed and good conversion data. A Search campaign gives you keyword level visibility and control, which is what you want while you are learning the account and building negatives. Many advertisers run Search first and add Performance Max later.

How long before a campaign works?

Expect the first two weeks to be data gathering, with weekly negative keyword work, and the account to settle into a reliable cost per conversion by the end of the second month. Automated bid strategies need conversion history, so the sequence of manual first and automated second usually gets there faster than starting automated.

Can I run SEM without a dedicated landing page?

You can, and a page that matches the search makes a large difference to both conversion rate and cost per click, because landing page experience is part of the auction. If building pages is slow, start with your two highest spending ad groups and give those a matched page each.

A search result you cannot bid on

You can bid on the search ad and the keyword. An answer inside an assistant or AI Overview has no auction, and the names in it are chosen from sources.

Before you raise the budget, see what the answer says for the terms you pay for. If it already names you, spend can be lower. If it names a competitor, the click you buy may be competing with a recommendation the buyer already read. That belongs in the first month of campaign review. Those keyword questions go to the assistants through AI Knows Us, which shows who is named and why.