Choose what to target
Choose what to target is the first step of the campaign wizard. The second step has a different name for each campaign type:
- Choose keywords and budget on Search and Search retargeting.
- Choose themes and budget on Performance Max.
- Choose your audience and budget on Demand Gen.
The last step is Check your ad. Demand Gen retargeting has no second step. The steps show as tabs under the Create campaign title. To open a step that you finished, click its tab. A later step opens only when you get to it. The Check your ad tab is different: when the selected keyword cluster has ad copy, it opens from this step too. It shows the ad as you left it, with your edits. Each step opens at the top of the page.
When you go back to this step from the second step, the second step stays open with your clusters, budget, and Archive. A change of product, country, or search type closes it again until you click Find keywords.
On a screen narrower than 768 pixels, for example a phone, the tabs stay on one row. The steps that are not open show only their number or a check mark. The title of the open step can end in an ellipsis (…).
On this step, one sentence holds four choices: Show my ad for a product when people in a country search for a search term and send them to a landing page. Each part of the sentence starts on its own line. A long search term or a long URL continues on more lines, so all of it stays visible. Settings with a default show under the sentence: the campaign type, who sees your ad, and the search type. Some settings show only for some campaign types. These choices control the keywords, the budget, and the ad copy of the later steps. Make sure that they are correct before you continue.
If the wizard asks for your website first
If the product has no product context yet, Hero Marketer reads the home page and the pricing page of the product website before this step. This occurs for your first campaign after onboarding, because onboarding does not collect product context. You see Tell us about this product first, then Check what we found. The website read takes about 20 seconds and uses under half a credit. Your balance must be at least 0.5 credits. Click Save and create campaign to continue to Choose what to target. See Add your website.
If another product of the account already has product context, the Tell us about this product first screen also shows Pick another product. Click it to switch the campaign to the first product of the account that has product context, with the website of that product as the landing page. Hero Marketer does not read a website, so this uses no credits. The button does not show when no other product of the account has product context.
Pick a product
The product is the first choice in the sentence. Click the product name to see the products of your active Google Ads account. Then click the product that these ads promote.
A new campaign opens on the first product of the account that has product context. If no product of the account has product context, it opens on the first product of the account. If you need a new product, set it up first. See Add another product. Then return to the wizard.
The product sets the product context that Hero Marketer uses to find keywords and write ad copy. It also sets the landing page to the website of the product. If you change the product later, go back to this step and click Find keywords again. Hero Marketer then finds keyword clusters for the new product.
A change of product also resets these parts of the draft:
- The ad copy. Hero Marketer drops it, with your edits.
- The business name of a Performance Max or Demand Gen campaign. It changes to the name of the new product, or to empty when the name has more than 25 characters.
- The image selection. No image is selected for the new product.
- The sitelinks. They start again from the sitelinks of your account on the site of the new landing page.
This is true for each way to change the product: the product menu on this step, Pick another product, or a product that you deleted.
If Hero Marketer cannot load your products, the product menu shows Couldn't load products. If the draft has no product with product context, the page shows Couldn't load your products. Your keywords and ad are written from your product. with a Try again button in place of the wizard. Click Try again.
Choose a country
The country is the second choice in the sentence. Click the country and pick one country. The campaign shows ads to people who are in that country (Presence targeting). The language of the campaign is English.
The wizard cannot target a state, a region, a city, or more than one country. It cannot target a different language. To target another country, build a second campaign. To target a state, a city, or a different language, change the campaign in Google Ads after you publish.
Enter a search term
The search term is the third choice in the sentence. It is your seed keyword: a short phrase that a customer types into Google when they look for what you sell. Hero Marketer uses it to get keyword ideas from Google Keyword Planner on the next step.
Type one short phrase after search for. Do not type a list of phrases. Hero Marketer sends all of the text to Keyword Planner as one seed. A good search term is:
- Specific. "Project management for engineers" is better than "software".
- In customer language. Use the words a customer uses, not your internal language. "Alternative to Jira" beats "agile workflow optimization".
- Aligned with the search type. For Brand search, use your product name. For Competitor search, use the competitor's brand name. For Category search, use the category.
If you click Find keywords with no search term, the wizard shows Enter a search term. To try a different phrase later, go back to this step, change the search term, and click Find keywords again. The search term goes in the draft only when you click Find keywords. While you type, the later steps do not change. If you reload the page before you click Find keywords, the wizard shows the last search term that you submitted. If the second step shows few keyword clusters or none, the search term is almost always the cause. See No keyword clusters found.
Choose a campaign type
The campaign type is the first setting under the sentence. Click it to open the Campaign type menu. The menu has three types:
- Search. The default. The menu line is Text ads on Google search results.
- Performance Max. The menu line is Text and image ads on Search, YouTube, Gmail, Display, Discover and Maps. Google picks where each one shows.
- Demand Gen. The menu line is Image ads on YouTube, Gmail, Discover and Display, for people who search for your keywords or are on your lists.
Retargeting is not a type in the Campaign type menu. To show ads only to people on your lists, use the Audience type setting on Search or Demand Gen. See Audience type: everyone or only your lists.
Performance Max and Demand Gen use Category search only, so the Search type menu does not show for them. On Demand Gen, the sentence reads "Show my ad for product to people in country interested in search term." See Create a Performance Max campaign and Create a Demand Gen campaign.
Audience type: everyone or only your lists
On Search and Demand Gen, the second setting under the sentence sets who sees your ad. Its button shows the current choice: Everyone who searches on Search, New people on Demand Gen, or Only people on my lists. The button opens the Audience type menu, the same as the Campaign type and Search type menus. The menu has two choices:
- Everyone who searches, with the line A regular Search campaign. On Demand Gen, this choice is New people, with the line Google finds people who look for what you sell.
- Only people on my lists, with the line Retargeting: people who already know you. This choice makes a Search retargeting campaign or a Demand Gen retargeting campaign. Only people on your website visitor lists and customer lists see the ads.
When you select a choice, it applies and the menu closes. There is no Save button.
You do not pick the lists on this step. You pick the lists of a retargeting campaign on the Extras tab of the Check your ad step, in the Your lists box. See Pick the lists of a retargeting campaign.
If the account has no list that the campaign type can use, this step shows an alert under the sentence: None of your lists can run on this campaign type yet. The Find keywords or Write my ad button stays unavailable. See When none of your lists can run on this campaign type.
When you select a different type in the Campaign type menu, Only people on my lists stays on between Search and Demand Gen. For example, a Search retargeting campaign becomes a Demand Gen retargeting campaign. Performance Max has no Only people on my lists choice, so the Audience type setting does not show for Performance Max.
On Search retargeting, the sentence reads "Show my ad for product when people on my lists in country search for search term." On Demand Gen retargeting, it reads "Show my ad for product to people on my lists in country." Demand Gen retargeting has no search term, so the button reads Write my ad. See Create a retargeting campaign.
Choose a search type
The search type shows under the sentence on Search and Search retargeting only. Click it to open the Search type menu. The menu has Category search, Brand search, and Competitor search, each with a short explanation. Category search is the default. When you change Audience type, the search type stays. The search type changes how Hero Marketer filters keywords and writes ad copy. It also shows in the campaign name, with these names: Search | Non branded | … for Category search, Search | Branded | … for Brand search, and Search | Competitor | … for Competitor search.
- Category search. People with the problem who do not know you yet. They search the category, for example "project management software" or "best CRM for sales teams". Most B2B SaaS demand capture sits here.
- Brand search. People who search for you by name. The searcher already knows who you are, so the copy reinforces trust with brand anchored calls to action, for example "Try Linear free" or "Linear pricing". Use this when you have meaningful brand search volume that you want to capture before competitors do.
- Competitor search. People who search a competitor. Type the competitor's brand name as the search term. Hero Marketer uses the name in keywords with a buying word, such as "[competitor] pricing" or "[competitor] alternative", so your ads can show on those searches. It leaves out the bare name, such as "[competitor]" or "[competitor] login". See Competitor names in the keywords. The ad copy does not include the competitor's name (see the note below).
For a deeper comparison of the three types, see Campaign types in Hero Marketer.
What changes for each search type
| Category search | Brand search | Competitor search | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Keyword filter biases toward… | Generic category terms | Your brand + modifier | Competitor + modifier |
| Headlines lead with… | Category language and value props | Your brand name | Comparative angles, no competitor name |
| Example calls to action | "Try now", "Get demo", "Book a call" | "Try [you] free", "[you] pricing", "Get a demo" | "See how we compare", "Switch in minutes", "Free migration" |
Why Competitor search ads never name the competitor
You can bid on a competitor's brand name as a keyword. You cannot put that competitor's name in your headline or description, even in a comparative phrase, for example "Better than [Competitor]". Google's trademark policy restricts ad text to the trademark owner, authorized resellers, and informational sites. Comparative ads often pass automated approval. But the trademark owner can file a complaint at any time. Google then disapproves the ads and applies the restriction across your whole domain.
Hero Marketer treats this as a hard rule. For Competitor search, the wizard writes ad copy that positions your product as the alternative and does not name the competitor in headlines or descriptions. The competitor's name still drives targeting. It never appears in the ad text.
If you still want to name a competitor in copy, see Ad copy or sitelinks rejected by Google for what happens after someone files a complaint.
Competitor search and the competitor brief in Hero AI
Hero AI chat can also write a Competitor campaign brief from a competitor's page URL. That brief is a plan only. It does not create a campaign, and it does not fill in the wizard. To build the campaign, use Competitor search on this step.
Set the landing page
The landing page is where clicks send traffic. It is the last choice in the sentence, after and send them to. By default, it is the website of your product. To use a different page for this campaign:
- Click the landing page.
- Type the full URL of the page, with
https://.
The wizard keeps the URL as you type. If the URL does not start with http:// or https://, the wizard shows Enter a full URL that starts with https://. when you click outside the landing page. If the landing page is empty when you click Find keywords, the wizard shows Add the landing page that people go to from your ad. Common reasons to use a different page:
- A campaign that promotes a specific feature can link to that feature's page.
- A Competitor search campaign can link to a comparison or migration page.
- A campaign for a new release can link to a launch announcement.
- A campaign for one platform or one audience, for example WordPress sites or agencies, can link to your page about it.
Hero Marketer reads the landing page before it writes the ad copy, when the search term or the page is about one angle of your product. The ad then speaks to the problems of that angle, not only to the pitch of your homepage. When the landing page is your product website, Hero Marketer searches your website for a page about the angle. A Brand search campaign and a retargeting campaign do not read the landing page. See Ads for one angle of your product.
The landing page must be on a domain Google can crawl. Google rejects URLs longer than 2,048 characters.
Find keywords
Click Find keywords. Hero Marketer gets keyword ideas from Google and groups them into keyword clusters. This takes 15 to 30 seconds. Then the second step opens: Choose keywords and budget, Choose themes and budget, or Choose your audience and budget.
While Hero Marketer works, a wait shows a clock and the phases of the run. You can switch tabs. If the woof is on, Hero Marketer plays a woof when the run ends: when the clusters are ready, when saved clusters load, and when Google Ads ends the run with no keyword ideas or no keyword with 30 or more searches a month. The woof is off until you turn on Play a woof when it's ready on the wait. If you leave the page and come back while the run works, the clock and the phases continue from the start of the run. The waits for the ad copy and for publishing work the same way.
If Hero Marketer cannot read the keyword clusters that the AI wrote, it shows We couldn't read the keyword groups. Try again. Click Find keywords again.
On a retargeting campaign, Find keywords or Write my ad waits until your lists load. If the account has no list that the campaign can use, the button stays unavailable. See When none of your lists can run on this campaign type. If your lists loaded before and only a later refresh fails, the lists stay available, and the button stays available.
The AI steps of the wizard use credits. Each step checks your balance before it starts:
- Keyword clusters. Your balance must be at least 1 credit. A typical run costs about 0.1 credits.
- Ad copy. Your balance must be at least 0.5 credits. A typical run costs about 0.2 credits.
- Sitelinks from Write with AI. Your balance must be at least 0.3 credits.
The charge is for the actual AI usage, so the same step can cost different amounts. Publishing the campaign is free. See How credits work.
Where the campaign name, bidding, extensions, and audience are
These settings are not on this step:
- Campaign name and bidding. On the campaign card of the Check your ad step, next to the ad preview. See Check your ad.
- Sitelinks. On the Extras tab of the Check your ad step. See Add sitelinks.
- Callouts, structured snippets, and prices. On the Extras tab of the Check your ad step. See Add other extensions. Demand Gen takes no callouts, structured snippets, or prices.
- The audience signal of a Performance Max campaign. On the Extras tab of the Check your ad step. See Create a Performance Max campaign.
- The lists of a Demand Gen campaign. On the Extras tab of the Check your ad step, under Your lists · optional. See Create a Demand Gen campaign.
- The lists of a retargeting campaign. On the Extras tab of the Check your ad step, in the Your lists box. See Create a retargeting campaign.
On this step, the Audience type setting only selects a retargeting campaign. It does not pick lists.
For the settings of the campaign that the wizard publishes, see What the campaign wizard creates.