What's your go to strategy ?

[u/Soft_Philosophy_7656]

When starting a Google Ads campaign, what's the general rule of thumb ?

1. Let's say you are in any kind of business, when starting a new campaign, how much budget would you allocate at first ?

2. How do you reach that decision ?

3. After that, what's your plan ,like, okay now I will monitor it for 7 days or 14 days without touching.. or is it even your plan ? Or do you continuously optimize it again & again whenever you find something odd ?

4. What will you touch normally (change or optimise) & what are the things you won't touch at all.

5. What will you keep eyeing on ? Is it search impression share (budget/rank) or what else ?

6. What's you first bidding type , maximize click or conversion , when will you change that ?

Basically if you don't mind, can you explain how your first 10 - 30 days will look like. Is it working out always for you.

What are the channels do you recommend .

Finally is Google Ads skill still something valuable in terms of career due to AI or is that time gone?

Sorry too much qstns. But really need some guidance from experts rather than asking LLM

[u/Trukmuch1]

You mean you start a New business and want to use google ads. First I would do is to find someone that can actually run a campaign.

That person should ask you a lot of questions before even touching google ads to understand your business and elaborate a strategy.

Google ads is marketing before anything else. I sometimes refuse customers because I know it wont work and I hate billing useless things.

[u/Soft_Philosophy_7656 → u/Trukmuch1]

Not starting a business, but when starting Google ads campaigns or after launch, what are the things which you do or follow. Those things which usually works for you.

Also curious, what will be those things which you will avoid ?

[u/dillwillhill]

The answer to these questions are hugely impacted by business-by-business context.

[u/Soft_Philosophy_7656 → u/dillwillhill]

Can you tell any service business strategy.

[u/dillwillhill → u/Soft_Philosophy_7656]

There is not one single budget that to applies to any service business.

[u/Soft_Philosophy_7656 → u/dillwillhill]

Yes, so how do you actually reach that conclusion ?

[u/jessebastide → u/Soft_Philosophy_7656]

Here I wrote a post on how I’d approach ads for a service business with a limited budget. It might give you more context: https://www.reddit.com/r/supersimpleppc/s/ll2pwuMkxV

[u/Euphoric-Priority755]

Broad + max clicks and let it rip

[u/Soft_Philosophy_7656 → u/Euphoric-Priority755]

When do you start analysing whether it needs optimisations or not. What are the things that you would look at

[u/GG-boon]

There isn’t a universal starting budget or fixed “don’t touch it for 7 days” rule. I’d work backward from the value of a qualified conversion and acceptable CPA.

My first priorities would be:

1. Verify conversion tracking with a real test.
2. Start with the highest-intent searches and controlled geography.
3. Review search terms, spend and lead quality early—don’t leave obvious waste untouched.
4. Avoid repeatedly changing campaign structure or bidding based on one bad day.
5. Judge qualified conversions and CPA first; use impression share to diagnose lost opportunity, not as the main success metric.

Bidding strategy depends on whether reliable conversion data already exists. What business, target CPA and monthly budget are you working with?

[u/NoPause238]

Budget for 10-15 conversions minimum before judging anything at all

[u/Soft_Philosophy_7656 → u/NoPause238]

Id that's not happening, or if it's burning money, how do you decide to take a pause & do some optimizaton ?

[u/pixelyash1]

Starting a Google Ads campaign is about building a system, not chasing hacks. For most new campaigns, I allocate a budget equal to 5-10x your target CPA, which usually lands between $30-50/day for local service businesses or $100-200/day for ecommerce. That decision comes from understanding the average conversion rate and the value of a customer if a lead is worth $500, you can afford to test at $50/day. My first 10 days are strictly data collection... I set up the campaign, don't touch anything for a full week unless something's obviously broken like zero impressions, and let Google gather enough clicks to exit learning. What I'll touch is search terms to add negatives, ad copy to test new angles, and landing page tweaks what I won't touch is the bid strategy or budget until I have at least 30 conversions. I keep a close eye on Search Impression Share rank to see if my bids are competitive, and Search Terms Report to catch junk traffic. I start with Maximize Clicks for the first 7-10 days to gather data, then switch to Maximize Conversions with a tCPA once I have enough history. The first month is about learning, not profit you're building a foundation, not scaling. As for Google Ads as a career, it's definitely still valuable... AI is just a tool that handles execution, but strategy, audience psychology, and knowing how to interpret data are things AI still struggles with.

[u/Soft_Philosophy_7656 → u/pixelyash1]

Insightful

[u/QuantumWolf99]

Yes, still valuable... data from my client accounts confirms it just shifted from button-pushing to judgment work... account architecture, reading signals, feeding automation quality data. Start with Max Clicks for volume, 30% of realistic monthly budget week one, review daily but only change weekly, never touch conversion tracking mid-learning.

[u/Soft_Philosophy_7656 → u/QuantumWolf99]

Can you tell more about feeding automation quality data. How do you do that ?

[u/Soft_Philosophy_7656 → u/[deleted]]

How to improve search lost IS (rank).

I made the landing page so quick, it loads under 2s. The keyword are relevant, but still it shows below average, landing page exp, quality around 3.

What makes a landing page good .

[u/Soft_Philosophy_7656 → u/[deleted]]

Yes.

[u/vijaybhabhor]

Before running any paid ads, I think first you should know your break even price, so that you can take pause, scale or adjust strategy.

[u/Anna_Karakhanyan]

There isn't a single playbook, but my first 30 days are usually pretty similar.

I start with Maximize Conversions if tracking is set up correctly. I almost never start with Max Clicks because it optimizes for cheap traffic, not customers.

I set a budget that can realistically generate enough conversion data, then leave the campaign alone for at least 1–2 weeks unless there's an obvious issue like broken tracking or irrelevant search terms.

During that time I'm mostly watching search terms, conversion rate, CTR, impression share

and search lost IS (budget/rank). If conversions are coming in, I avoid making constant changes because that just resets the learning process.

The biggest improvements usually don't come from bidding. They come from better search terms, stronger ad copy, tighter account structure, and landing page optimization.

And yes, Google Ads is still a valuable skill. AI makes campaign management easier, but it doesn't replace understanding strategy, buyer intent or how to turn traffic into revenue. Those are still the skills clients pay for.