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Create your first campaign

Hero Marketer builds one Google Search campaign in three steps: Choose what to target, Choose keywords and budget, and Check your ad. The steps show as tabs under the Create campaign title. The wizard takes about ten minutes the first time. It takes less time after that. The website read (the first time), AI sitelinks, keyword clusters, and ad copy use credits, a variable amount based on token usage. The keyword step needs at least 1 credit in your balance. Creating the campaign in Google Ads is free.

The Campaign type setting on the Choose what to target step can also make the campaign a Performance Max or a Demand Gen campaign, with images from Create images or images that you upload. The Audience type setting can make it a retargeting campaign on Search or on Demand Gen. See Create a Performance Max campaign, Create a Demand Gen campaign, and Create a retargeting campaign. The wizard does not build Display, Shopping, Video, or App campaigns.

Before you start​

You will need:

  • A connected Google Ads account. If you have not done this yet, see Connect Google Ads.
  • A product with product context. If you have not built it yet, the wizard asks for your website first. See Add your website.
  • One country where you want ads to run.
  • One search term, your seed keyword, that describes what your customers search for.
  • At least 1 credit in your balance.

Step 1: Choose what to target​

One sentence holds three choices: Show my ad for a product when people in a country search for a search term.

  • Product. The product these ads will promote. Choose from the products on the active account.
  • Country. One country. The campaign targets people in that country, in English.
  • Search term. Your seed keyword: one short phrase that your customer types into Google when they look for what you sell. Use the words of the customer, not the words you use internally. "Project management tool" is a good search term. The search term goes in your draft when you click Find keywords.

Four settings with a default show under the sentence:

  • Campaign type. Search (the default) makes a Google Search campaign. Performance Max and Demand Gen make those campaign types. This guide is about a Search campaign. For the other types, see Create a Performance Max campaign and Create a Demand Gen campaign.
  • Audience type. Everyone who searches makes a regular Search campaign. Only people on my lists makes a Search retargeting campaign, for people on your website visitor lists and customer lists. You pick the lists later, on the Extras tab of the Check your ad step. See Create a retargeting campaign.
  • Search type. Category search (the default) targets searches for your category or problem. Brand search targets searches for your own brand. Competitor search targets searches for a competitor's brand. For Competitor search, type the competitor's brand name as the search term. Hero Marketer finds keywords that pair the name with a buying word, such as pricing, alternative, or vs, and keeps the name out of your ad text. Performance Max and Demand Gen use Category search only, so this menu does not show for them.
  • Landing page. Where clicks send traffic. By default, it is the website of your product. To use a more specific page, click the landing page. Type the full URL with https://, then click Save.

Click Find keywords.

Step 2: Choose keywords and budget​

The Keyword Research Agent gets Google Keyword Planner ideas for your search term and country. It keeps the ideas that fit your product and groups them into up to 3 keyword clusters of up to 10 keywords. Each keyword cluster is a tight group of keywords that share the same intent. The wizard calls a keyword cluster a keyword group. Each cluster is a card under Choose a keyword group, with its number of keywords and its monthly searches. The first card has the Suggested tag and is selected.

Pick the cluster that best matches the customer you want to reach. The Keywords table under the cards shows each keyword of that cluster with its searches, clicks, cost per click, and cost per month, and a total row. To archive a keyword that does not fit, click the archive button at the end of its row. The keyword moves to the Archive list. To put it back, click Undo in the message, or click Add to group on the keyword in the Archive. The Archive is one list for all of the clusters, so you can also add the keyword to a different cluster. In a Search campaign, you cannot type a new keyword. See Choose keywords and budget for how to read the clusters.

The Monthly budget bar is at the top of the step. It starts at the recommended monthly budget of the cluster that you pick, for example $500 a month. Next to the budget, the bar shows Expected clicks, the estimated clicks each month.

The recommended budget and the clicks are Hero Marketer's estimates, not a Google forecast. They assume that your ad shows for 80% of the searches and that 5% of those people click. They also assume that a click costs the middle of Google's low and high top of page bids.

To change the budget, click the minus or the plus button, or type an amount. The minus and plus buttons change the budget by 50 in the currency of your account. If you pick a different cluster, the budget changes to the recommended budget of that cluster. If you archive keywords, the recommended budget gets smaller, but a budget that you changed stays.

Below the recommended budget, the keywords follow the budget. The wizard keeps only the keywords that the budget can show your ad for on 80% of their searches. The other keywords move to the Over budget list, and they come back when you raise the budget. To run all of them again, click the button of the list, for example Cover all 10 for $500. Only the keywords that run go to Google Ads.

Google Ads gets the monthly budget as a daily budget: the monthly budget divided by 30.4, rounded down to the cent (or to a whole unit in currencies that Google Ads takes without cents, such as yen and won). For example, $500 a month becomes $16.44 a day. Google does not charge more than your monthly budget in one month. To change the budget after launch, ask Hero AI or edit it in Google Ads. See Set your monthly budget.

Click Write ad copy. After the selected cluster has ad copy, the Check your ad tab at the top of the wizard opens it again from the other steps, with your edits.

Step 3: Check your ad​

The Ad Copy Agent drafts responsive search ad copy: 15 headlines and 4 descriptions. It uses your product context, your proof and offers, and the keywords you picked. The ad preview shows the ad as Google shows it on a results page. To see a different combination of lines, click Show another version. Under the preview are three tabs:

  • Headlines. Three groups of headlines: Shown first, Shown second, and Shown third.
  • Descriptions. The descriptions of the ad.
  • Extras. Sitelinks, callouts, structured snippets, and prices. The launch needs 4 sitelinks. The other extras are optional.

Review the copy. Edit any headline or description in place. A line that is too long or empty turns red. You cannot add lines, change the order of lines, or generate the copy again in this step. Headlines can have up to 30 characters, and descriptions up to 90.

The ad copy needs no approval. Edits go into the ad when you click Launch.

Each tab shows a status icon before its name:

  • A green check. The part is done. On the Headlines and Descriptions tabs, every line is in Google's limits and is not empty.
  • An empty circle. Only on the Extras tab. The campaign has no extras, and this does not stop the launch.
  • An amber alert icon. You must fix the part before you launch, for example a red line.

Hero Marketer pins the Shown first headlines to position 1, the Shown second headlines to position 2, and the Shown third headlines to position 3.

On the Extras tab:

  • Sitelinks. 4 links under your ad. The launch needs all 4. To use sitelinks that already exist in your account, click Pick from your account. Or click Write with AI and add page URLs. AI writes the sitelinks. This uses credits. See Add sitelinks.
  • Callouts, structured snippets, and prices. You can pick the ones that already exist in your account. The ad copy also comes with up to 6 callouts that Hero Marketer writes from your proof and offers. To remove one, click the X on its chip. Hero Marketer does not write structured snippets or prices. See Add other extensions.

Write with AI adds the new sitelinks to your Google Ads account at once, at account level. They stay in the account even if you do not finish the wizard, and they can show on your other campaigns.

The campaign card next to the ad shows the monthly budget and the expected clicks, for example $500 a month and About 93 clicks a month. Each row that you can change is a button, with an arrow at its end. To change the budget, click the Monthly budget row. The card also shows the number of keywords that run, and holds two settings:

  • Bidding. The bidding strategy is Maximize clicks by default. To change it, click the Bidding row, then pick Maximize conversions. Both strategies set the bids for you, so the wizard does not ask for a bid. The wizard does not offer Target CPA, Target ROAS, Manual CPC, or Enhanced CPC.
  • Campaign name. Hero Marketer names the campaign automatically, for example Search | Non branded | Project management tool | Tools for engineering teams | US. The name has the search type, the search term, the keyword cluster, and the country code. It uses Non branded for Category search, Branded for Brand search, and Competitor for Competitor search. When the name of the keyword cluster is the same as the search term, the name leaves it out. To change the name, click the Campaign name row.

When you are happy, click Launch in the launch bar at the bottom of the step. The button shows your monthly budget, for example Launch at $500 a month. You cannot click it in these cases:

  • A line is red.
  • The monthly budget is empty.
  • Write with AI still writes sitelinks.

The launch bar lists what stops the launch. To open the tab where you fix a problem, click its line.

What happens when you click Launch​

When you click Launch, Hero Marketer takes 30 to 60 seconds to publish the campaign. Keep the tab open. Hero Marketer:

  1. Creates one Google Search campaign with one ad group, the keywords that your monthly budget covers (exact match), one responsive search ad, and your extensions. Its daily budget is your monthly budget divided by 30.4.
  2. Turns the campaign on. Ads start to serve after Google reviews and approves them.
  3. Opens your dashboard with a Campaign created message. The publishing wait stays on screen until the dashboard opens.

The campaign shows on Google Search only, with Search partners and Display off. It starts today and has no end date. If the publish step fails, Hero Marketer removes what it created. Anything that it cannot remove stays paused and does not spend. If Google's ad policies reject a keyword or a line of your ad, the error names it. For a line of your ad, edit the line, then click Launch again. For a keyword, remove the keyword on the Choose keywords and budget step. Removing a keyword drops the ad copy of the cluster and your edits to it. Click Write ad copy, which uses credits, check the new ad, then click Launch. See What the wizard creates.

A Performance Max or Demand Gen campaign takes one to two minutes to publish, because Hero Marketer also sends its images. See What the campaign wizard creates.

See After you launch for what to expect.

Save and resume a draft​

You can leave the wizard at any step. Hero Marketer saves your draft in this browser, one draft for each Google Ads account. When you come back on the same browser, the wizard picks up where you left off. Keyword clusters stay cached for 30 days. The draft does not move to another device.

If you open the wizard in two tabs on the same Google Ads account, a change in one tab shows in the other tab. After you launch, the other tabs show a new, empty draft. With two tabs on different Google Ads accounts, one tab can overwrite the draft changes of the other tab, so work on one account at a time.

Next​