Total addressable market (TAM) is an estimation of how much you could earn if you could sell your product or service to every possible customer in your market.

The basic formula for calculating TAM is:

TAM = (Total Number of Potential Customers) × (Average Annual Revenue per Customer)

Understanding TAM helps you figure out the size of your market and the amount of money you could make if you captured all of it.

TAM is also a key metric for startup investors. It shows whether a business idea has a big enough opportunity. Investors often look for a TAM that is “just right” — not too big or too small. A TAM that’s too large might mean the market is crowded with tough competition, while a TAM that’s too small could mean limited room for growth.

In this guide, you’ll learn how to estimate TAM using three methods, where people often make mistakes, and how to refine your estimations to make them plausible to investors or stakeholders and actionable for your business.

1. Top-down approach

How to use

Example

2. Bottom-up approach

The bottom-up approach builds the TAM by starting with specific, individual data related to your business and scaling it up.

This method is great when you have detailed knowledge of your customer base and pricing. As far as I know, investors prefer this method, which offers the most accurate and actionable TAM estimation.

 

A few birds in the hand is worth billions in the TAM. Early-stage (pre-Series-B) startups shouldn’t worry too much about calculating a precise TAM. As long as it’s in the right ballpark for their thesis, investors care a lot more about the traction you can show with paying customers. That’s why bottom-up is far more convincing than hand-wavy top-down methods that only rely on finding a big enough pie to claim as your market. 

How to use

Example

3. Value theory approach

The value theory approach estimates TAM based on the value your product provides to customers and how much they might be willing to pay for it.

This approach is especially useful if you’re introducing a product or service that disrupts existing markets; traditional market size calculations may not accurately reflect the potential.

How to use

Example

TAM is typically used to make a compelling story about the potential for growth, so it’s easy to be over-optimistic and make mistakes that could make your TAM look better.

Here’s an example. I used a tool that calculates TAM automatically based on a URL to find the market size for netflix.com. The tool told me that there are 7B people who “need it (…) even if they’re not willing or able to make a purchase” and 6.3B ready to make a purchase. Something that I find hard to believe since there are an estimated 5.3B people with internet access worldwide.

Also, the way that the tool defines my potential customers doesn’t sound convincing to me, either, let alone logical.

Other mistakes you should avoid:

• Falling into the “everything trap”. This is when businesses assume that their product or service could appeal to everyone in the market, leading them to calculate TAM based on an overly broad audience.
• Sizing the problem instead of the market. This happens when businesses focus on the total number of people who might benefit from their solution without considering how many are realistically willing to pay for it.
• Overlooking market trends and dynamics. The market can grow or contract, consumer preferences can change, government regulations can influence the market, etc.

The basic data sources for TAM calculations are industry reports you can find on platforms like Statista and census data (like the US census data). However, there are other places where you can look for more detailed data.

Explore the market using search data

Search data is information about what people are looking for online. It can help you understand what customers want, where interest is growing, and what regions are most active.

Google Trends provides some of that data for free. For example, you can check if interest in a plant-based diet is still strong and where in the US you could find the most customers.

But that’s how far this tool goes. You don’t know what terms are “inside” the topic or how popular a keyword is (the numbers in Google Trends are relative). Also, sometimes Google won’t have the data, just like for the term “baby food subscription”.

Alternatively, you can use Ahrefs. I’m sure you’ll find more search terms there and a lot more data points. Let me take you through three examples.

Gauge demand with search volume

For example, while Google Trends didn’t have any data on “baby food subscription”, Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer shows that there are an estimated 1.2K searches per month in the US of that term. Plus, it shows you the forecast for that keyword.

If you’d be planning to start a new business in this niche, you’d need compelling arguments to justify a high TAM estimate, because the current demand for this type of service appears to be relatively low.

Learn what people want and how they look for it

Keyword research can tell you what people want in which countries. All you need to know is a few broad terms related to your product.

For example, for plant-based products, you could just type in “plant-based, vegan” and then go to the Matching terms report to see the popularity of certain types of products. You can also see if the demand for these products has grown or fallen over the last three months.

So, if you find that the demand for most vegan products has increased, you could assume that your TAM is going to expand in the near future because more people seem to be interested.

You can also use the tool to automatically translate these keywords and see what search terms people use to find the same products around the world and how popular they are.

And if you’re unsure what keywords people could use to find a product or service like yours, just use the AI suggestion feature.

Learn from your competitors

For example, say you’re a SaaS company offering a project management tool. If you used Ahrefs’ Site Explorer, you would find that one of your competitors ranks for terms like “engineering project management software”. This could indicate a niche market with unique needs, where there’s considerable demand but less competition.

While you’re at it, go to the Organic Competitors tab to see who else competes for the same audience. Chances are, you may find some new potential competitors.

Use S-1 filings and quarterly reports from public companies

Public companies’ quarterly reports (10-Q) and S-1/F-1 filings offer rich data for estimating TAM. They provide detailed breakdowns of revenue by product line, geographic region, and market segment, along with insights into market share and growth potential.

For example, if a company generates $500 million from a particular service and claims 10% of the market, you can estimate the TAM at $5 billion.

Both reports can also provide guidance on future growth trends, helping forecast your TAM’s evolution.

You can use AI like ChatGPT to analyze the documents for you (they can be quite complex). Here’s a sample analysis of an over 500-page F-1 filing by an Esports company.

Interview potential customers

Use PitchBook for investment and market data

PitchBook offers broader market data and investment trends. It provides reliable information on market valuations, funding rounds, and industry growth, which helps you gauge the overall size and growth potential of a market.

PitchBook also helps identify key players, making it easier to estimate how much of the market is currently being captured and what remains untapped.

For example, based on Stripe’s post-valuation of $152 billion and an assumed 30% market share, Stripe’s TAM would be approximately $506.67 billion (TAM = valuation/market share).

Other tools for SaaS companies

If you’re in SaaS, there are a couple more sources of data you may find especially useful: BuiltWith and Latka SaaS Database.

BuiltWith is a tool that shows you what technologies websites are using. This tool is great for identifying your ideal customer because you can see which companies use certain tools or platforms that align with your product.

Enter a competitor into BuiltWith, and look for the list of their customers. For example, here are some of the sites that use Salesforce. You can sort the list by employees or traffic to find the size of the company you think you could get on board. 

The next one is Latka SaaS Database. If you can’t find a SaaS company on PitchBook or BuiltWith, there’s a chance you will find it on Latka. It’s a SaaS-specific database that tracks metrics like revenue, customer growth, churn rates, and funding for thousands of companies.

Knowing your competitors’ revenue and the number of customers they serve can help you better estimate the size of your potential market.

• Use competitors’ ARPU or ACV (Annual Contract Value) to estimate your own future metrics.
• Use the competitor’s revenue or valuation and apply a market share estimation to calculate TAM.

Final thoughts

Got questions or comments? Find me on LinkedIn.

From Barbie-themed ketchup to exploding owl butts, these PR campaign examples prove that with the right data, timing, and a bit of creativity, you can win coverage and drive real, measurable results. 

In this post, you’ll see the data behind nine successful PR campaigns, and hopefully get some inspiration for your next press idea.

9 popular PR campaign examples

Back in August 2023, when Barbiecore was all the rage, Heinz teased a mockup of two Barbie themed sauces: Kenchup and Barbiecue sauce.

Eight months later, for Barbie’s 65th anniversary in April 2024, Heinz and Mattel dropped the official Barbiecue special edition sauce.

Heinz first conceived of the PR stunt to build intrigue around the product months before it hit the shelves, then used public response as a litmus test for its success.

According to their submission in the Shorty Awards, they carefully coordinated their initial “teaser” drop to coincide with an uptick in audience discussions, following the film’s release.

To date, the Barbiecue PR campaign has earned Heinz 118 relevant mentions in top-tier media outlets like Bloomberg, Yahoo, CBS News, and The Standard, according to Content Explorer.

With zero dollars in paid promotion, it also generated 38 million organic social impressions and doubled average engagement rates.

Campaign 🛀	Saltbomb
Brand 🏷️	Lush
Links earned 🔗	142
Campaign type 📰	Newjacking/product release
Global search volume 🔎	1.3K for “lush saltburn bath bomb”
Search growth (YoY) 📈	37K% for “lush saltburn bath bomb”

This is another great PR example of a brand capitalizing on a film, and waiting for post-event discussion to pick up before newsjacking.

Following a veerryy controversial bath scene in the film Saltburn, UK cosmetics retailer, Lush, jumped on the opportunity to insert their brand into a cultural moment.

In February 2024, three months after the film’s release, they released the “Saltbomb”, a special edition, Saltburn-themed bath bomb.

Parodying some of the film’s most risqué moments, Lush didn’t hold back with their product marketing.

And we loved it.

The campaign led to 135 links, many coming from high DR (Domain Rating) publications, driving real, tangible organic traffic – including Global News, New York Times, Pop Sugar, and BBC.

Press coverage actually went above and beyond this, because Lush’s products are part of a few publisher affiliate programs – but affiliate links are a little trickier to track.

Here’s an example of what I mean.

The site Allure wrote up a feature piece on the Lush bath bomb, but their affiliate link navigates to a third-party platform before redirecting to Lush’s product page.

For that reason, the link doesn’t show up in Ahrefs’ Backlinks Report.

Instead, I found it by monitoring campaign-specific keywords in Content Explorer.

Beyond press and affiliate publicity, the Lush PR campaign was a winner on social media.

The photography and product descriptions made it perfect for meme-ification, which added thousands of views and impressions.

It also won big in search, with global keyword volume reaching 1.3K…

And the product landing page earned up to 800 monthly organic visits in its first month.

Traffic has remained steady since, averaging between 500 – 600 monthly visits, despite the product having been archived – pretty good going for a bit of trendjacking.

Quick learnings

• Scout for affiliate links – you won’t always know when a publisher plans to use an affiliate link, so searching for mentions of campaign keywords can help you find any affiliate coverage that has flown under the radar.
• Think about how your brand and its tangential topics can tie into cultural moments. 

Posting on Pinterest For Business (the company’s commercial arm), they categorize related high-growth searches, and assign them novel trend names like “Eclectic grandpa”, “Bow stacking” or “Cafe core”.

I took a look at the Site Structure report, and found that Pinterest’s most linked trend was in fact the “Eclectic Grandpa” which – in Pinterest’s words – is all about:

“Embracing ‘grandpa core’ and bringing eccentric and expressive elements for the ages to wardrobes. Think retro streetwear, chic cardigans and customised clothing. Because the coastal grandma aesthetic is so last year.”

To date, the trend has earned citations from 98 separate domains.

A look at the Backlinks report revealed coverage from Vogue, Elle, Who What Wear, New York Post, and Business Insider.

And it didn’t end there. The “Eclectic Grandpa” gets about a bit, cropping up 340 times in the articles I discovered via Content Explorer.

A considerable number of those DR 50+ mentions (150, to be precise) went unlinked based on Ahrefs’ Unlinked Mentions filter/export – links which could still be claimed by the Pinterest team.

Given the far reaching coverage, searches for “Eclectic Grandpa” keywords have shot up in the last year, growing to 4.8K global search volume (GSV).

By creating link magnet content, Pinterest has managed to drum up huge publicity – whether they pitched for it or not – making it a great example of a successful PR campaign.

Real estate marketplace, Zillow, surveyed 1,815 homeowners and found that those with lower mortgage rates are twice as likely to stay put vs selling their home.

By creating firsthand research tackling an issue close to their audience’s heart, Zillow earned 235 backlinks from the likes of Bloomberg, Yahoo, FoxBusiness, and Money.com.

Sites referenced the survey for multiple reasons; not just quoting one stat, but a whole variety, as evidenced in the anchor text of their backlinks.

Quick learnings

• Conduct your own surveys, asking questions which address a key problem in your industry, then quantitatively analyze the responses.
• Tease out multiple hard hitting stats to drive more coverage and link variety.

Campaign 🔮👨‍💻	Future of Work
Brand 🏷️	LinkedIn
Links earned 🔗	383
Campaign type 📑	Report
Global search volume 🔎	300 for “LinkedIn report”

LinkedIn tends to keep their data under lock and key, but in their Future of Work report they released proprietary insights on the growth of AI conversations on the platform, plus the impact of AI on careers.

A great example of exclusive PR, LinkedIn’s report made a splash, landing 383 links in Forbes, Microsoft, Harvard Business Review, and CNET.

Quick learnings

• Think about what unseen or underground data you can harvest to generate exclusive research for your next PR campaign.
• If you have internal data, analyze patterns and trends to carve out a totally unique angle..

Tip

Look at your internal site search data in GA4 (thanks to Mark Williams-Cook and Julius Fedorovicius for the tip!) or any other firsthand information at your disposal, to mine insights. If you can’t make use of primary data, tap into third-party sources. PR expert, Matt Seabridge, routinely shares some great data sources and PR campaign examples on LinkedIn – I really recommend giving him a follow.

Personal finance company, WalletHub, compared the 150 largest metropolitan statistical areas, or MSAs, across 11 key metrics.

Combining primary data with third-party sources like the U.S. Census Bureau, GreatSchools.org, and Yelp, WalletHub created an interactive study ranking the most and least educated cities in America.

This is an example of a PR campaign that doubles as great content marketing.

It snagged 604 unique backlinks from heavy hitters like Wikipedia, Forbes, Business Insider, Bloomberg, and Yahoo – as well as tons of state publications.

Location based PR campaigns are an especially powerful form of PR, since they have both local and national appeal.

Here’s Tom Chivers, PR Expert and Founder of Sabot, explaining why localization really works for public relations campaigns – with a great additional point made by Co-Founder of Journo Finder, Veronica Fletcher.

Campaign 🍩	“Go USA” and “Passport to Paris” doughnuts
Brand(s) 🏷️	Krispy Kreme
Links earned 🔗	95
Campaign type 📰	Newjacking/brand collab/product release
Global search volume 🔎	45K for “Olympics Krispy Kreme Doughnuts”
Search growth (YoY) 📈	4.4M% for “Olympics Krispy Kreme Doughnuts”

Krispy Kreme rode the wave of Olympic interest this year by developing two special edition doughnuts: “Go USA” and “Passport to Paris”.

As we’ve seen already, popular PR campaigns don’t always neatly track back to the sources you’d expect them to.

Krispy Kreme earned only 11 links to their USA doughnut press release, and 20 to their Paris doughnut launch announcement. Not exactly groundbreaking.

But when you filter for mentions of campaign keywords (e.g. “Go USA” and “Paris”) at the domain-level, you find a whole lot more coverage; 95 links, to be precise, from major publications like Yahoo, USA Today, People, and the Food Network.

The special edition doughnuts also drive a cool 45K monthly searches, according to the Matching Terms report in Keywords Explorer.

Quick learnings

• Capitalize on high demand around recurring events.
• For campaigns that can’t be neatly tracked (e.g. no specific landing page, or product page) pay closer attention to homepage or domain-level links through clever filtering.

Campaign 🍟👞	McDonald’s + Crocs Collaboration
Brand(s) 🏷️	Crocs + McDonald’s
Links earned 🔗	516
Campaign type 📰	Brand collab/product release
Global search volume 🔎	18K for “mcdonalds crocs”
Search growth (YoY) 📈	838% for “mcdonalds crocs”

This next PR example is a campaign of multiple parts. It began with a pair of McDonald’s themed Crocs, and has extended to a full blown footwear collection…

And a novelty product: McDonald’s happy meal mini-crocs keyring.

The coordinated PR campaign has generated huge awareness for both brands, but tracking all the fragmented assets is no mean feat.

To get a better idea of overall brand awareness, I opted instead to search for co-citations at the domain level.

Searching in the Backlinks report, I applied filters for each brand name in the other’s backlink profile.

McDonald’s earned 260 links for “Crocs” related content, but Crocs was the real winner, landing 416 links for “McDonald’s” related press from media goliaths like Business Insider, Fast Company, and Entrepreneur.

From studying the campaign’s individual assets, I noticed something interesting: social posts have the ability to attract links.

Take for instance, this UGC post by Instagram food account, Snackolater. It landed 24 backlinks after sharing news of the happy meal mini-croc launch.

It had never occurred to me to track social media posts for links, but you can never tell how a journalist is going to reference your campaign, so it’s worthwhile setting up a backlink alert for all your assets just in case!

The growth of brand searches is a real testament to the success of a PR campaign, and this collaboration definitely delivers on that front.

Audiences are searching for relevant McDonald’s + Croc based keywords a total of 37K times a month on average, based on data in Keywords Explorer.

Campaign ❎🍑	Do your lesson, no buts
Brand(s) 🏷️	Duo Lingo
Links earned 🔗	130
Campaign type 📽️	Advert
Global search volume 🔎	250 for “Duolingo commercial”
Search growth (YoY) 📈	376% for “Duolingo commercial”

Duolingo leaned into their weird yet wonderful brand of marketing with a hilarious superbowl ad featuring Duo, the brand’s menacing owl character.

In 5 (wild) seconds, we witness the explosion of Duo’s butt, and the growth of a mini Duo in its place, accompanied by a reminder to do our Duo Lingo lesson.

The ad creative was repurposed from a widget design that went semi-viral – Duo Lingo knew it worked, so they built on it.

And in a stroke of coordinated PR genius, they simultaneously sent out a push-notification to app users as soon as the ad went live.

 

“We decided to pair the ad with a coordinated push notification, which would hit learners’ phones right after the commercial aired, reinforcing the idea that Duo is always watching 👀.”

The YouTube commercial has earned 5M views and 130 links from Gizmodo, Lifehacker, and Indy100.

Plus 24M plays on TikTok.

The Duolingo team have written up a seriously funny play-by-play of the PR campaign here – they talk about everything from the lengths they went to to get the right “shine” on Duo’s buttocks, to carefully selecting the perfect fart sound effect. I recommend reading it, for a giggle if nothing else.

How I found these PR campaign examples (and you can too)

Final thoughts

Paid search advertising is a powerful way to drive traffic and conversions for your brand.

However, setting up your first campaign can feel overwhelming if you’re new to the game. Even if you’re a PPC pro, it can be hard to keep up with all the changes in the interfaces, making it easy to miss key settings that can make or break performance.

In this guide, you’ll find the essential steps to set up a successful paid search campaign, ensuring you’re equipped with the knowledge to make informed decisions that lead to positive results.

Step 1: Define Your Conversions & Goals

Establishing clear goals and understanding what constitutes a conversion is the foundation of a successful paid search campaign.

This clarity ensures that every aspect of your campaign is aligned with your business objectives.

Identify Your Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

In order to identify those KPIs, it’s crucial to understand the overarching business objectives. Begin by mapping out your broader business goals.

Ask yourself, “Am I aiming to increase sales, generate leads, boost website traffic, or enhance brand awareness?”

From there, you can define specific KPIs for each objective. Some examples include:

• Sales: Number of transactions, revenue generated.
• Leads: Number of form submissions, phone calls, appointments created.
• Traffic: Click-through rate (CTR), number of sessions.
• Brand Awareness: Impressions, reach.

Set Up Conversion Tracking

Knowing your goals is one thing, but being able to accurately measure them is a completely different ballgame.

Both Google and Microsoft Ads have dedicated conversion tags that can be added to your website for proper tracking.

Additionally, Google Analytics is a popular tool to track conversions.

Choose what conversion tags you need to add to your website and ensure they’re added to the proper pages.

In this example, we’ll use Google Ads.

To set up conversion tracking using a Google Ads tag, click the “+” button on the left-hand side of Google Ads, then choose Conversion action.

You’ll choose from the following conversions to add:

• Website.
• App.
• Phone calls.
• Import (from Google Analytics, third party, etc.).

After choosing, Google Ads can scan your website to recommend conversions to add, or you have the option to create a conversion manually:

Screenshot from Google Ads, September 2024

During this step, it’s essential to assign value(s) to conversions being created, as well as the proper attribution model that best represents your customer journey.

Most PPC campaigns are now using the data-driven model attribution, as opposed to a more traditional “last click” attribution model. Data-driven attribution is especially helpful for more top-of-funnel campaigns like YouTube or Demand Gen campaign types.

After the conversion has been created, Google provides the necessary code and instructions to add to the website.

Screenshot from Google Ads, September 2024

Enable Auto-Tagging

Setting up auto-tagging from the get-go eliminates the need to append UTM parameters to each individual ad, saving you time during setup.

It also allows for seamless data import into Google Analytics, enabling detailed performance analysis within that platform.

To enable auto-tagging at the account level, navigate to Admin > Account settings.

Find the box for auto-tagging and check the box to tag ad URLs, then click Save.

Screenshot from Google Ads, September 2024

Step 2: Link Any Relevant Accounts

Linking various accounts and tools enhances your campaign’s effectiveness by providing deeper insights and seamless data flow.

Now, this step may come sooner if you plan to import conversions from Google Analytics into Google Ads, as the accounts will have to be linked prior to importing conversions.

To link accounts, navigate to Tools > Data manager.

Screenshot from Google Ads, September 2024

You can link accounts such as:

• Google Analytics.
• YouTube channel(s).
• Third-party analytics.
• Search Console.
• CRM tools (Salesforce, Zapier, etc.).
• Ecommerce platforms (Shopify, WooCommerce, etc.).
• Tag Manager.
• And more.

Step 3: Conduct Keyword Research & Structure Your Campaign

Now that you’ve got the foundations of goals and conversions covered, it’s time to complete some keyword research.

A robust keyword strategy ensures your ads reach the right audience, driving qualified traffic to your site.

Start With A Seed List

Not sure where to start? Don’t sweat it!

Start by listing out fundamental terms related to your products or services. Consider what your customers would type into a search engine to find you.

Doing keyword research into search engines in real-time can help discover additional popular ways that potential customers are already searching, which can uncover more possibilities.

Additionally, use common language and phrases that customers use to ensure relevance.

Use Keyword Research Tools

The Google Ads platform has a free tool built right into it, so be sure to utilize it when planning your keyword strategy.

The Google Keyword Planner gives you access to items like:

• Search volume data.
• Competition levels.
• Keyword suggestions.
• Average CPC.

All these insights help not only determine what keywords to bid on but also help form the ideal budget needed to go after those coveted keywords.

When researching keywords, try to identify long-tail keywords (typically, these are phrases with more than three words). Long-tail keywords may have lower search volume but have higher intent and purchase considerations.

Lastly, there are many paid third-party tools that can offer additional keyword insights like:

These tools are particularly helpful in identifying what competitors are bidding on, as well as finding gaps or opportunities that they are missing or underserving.

Group Keywords Into Thematic Ad Groups

Once you have your core keywords identified, it’s time to group them together into tightly-knit ad groups.

The reason for organizing them tightly is to increase the ad relevance as much as possible. Each ad group should focus on a single theme or product category.

As a good rule of thumb, I typically use anywhere from five to 20 keywords per ad group.

Another item to keep in mind is which match types to use for keyword bidding. See the example below from Google on the three keyword match types available:

Image credit: support.google.com, September 2024

Create A Hierarchical Campaign Structure

Once your ad groups have been segmented, it’s time to build the campaign structure(s).

You’ll want to divide your account into campaigns based on broader categories, such as:

• Product lines.
• Geographic regions.
• Marketing goals.
• Search volume.

For example, you can create one campaign for “Running Shoes.” Within that campaign, you create three ad groups:

• Men’s running shoes.
• Women’s running shoes.
• Trail running shoes.

Now, there may be times when you have a keyword with an abnormally higher search volume than other keywords within a particular category.

Depending on your budget, it may be worth segmenting those high-volume search term(s) into its own campaign solely for better budget optimization.

If a high-volume keyword is grouped into ad groups with low-volume keywords, it’s likely that most of the ads served will be for the high-volume keyword.

This then inhibits the other low-volume keywords from showing, and can wreak havoc on campaign performance.

Utilize Negative Keywords

Just as the keywords you bid on are crucial to success, so are the negative keywords you put into place.

Negative keywords can and should be added and maintained as ongoing optimization of any paid search campaign strategy.

The main benefit of negative keywords is the ability to exclude irrelevant traffic. They prevent your ads from showing on irrelevant searches, saving budget and improving CTR over time.

Negative keywords can be added at the ad group, campaign, or account level.

Step 4: Configure Campaign Settings

Now that you’ve got the campaign structure ready to go, it’s time to start building and configuring the campaign settings.

Campaign settings are crucial to get right in order to optimize performance towards your goals.

There’s something to be said with the phrase, “The success is in the settings.” And that certainly applies here!

Choose The Right Bidding Strategy

You’ll have the option to choose a manual cost-per-click (CPC) or an automated bid strategy. Below is a quick rundown of the different types of bid strategies.

• Manual CPC: Allows you to set bids for individual keywords, giving you maximum control. Suitable for those who prefer more hands-on management.
• Target Return on Ad Spend (ROAS): Optimizes bids to maximize revenue based on a target ROAS you set at the campaign level.
• Target Cost Per Acquisition (CPA): Optimizes bids to achieve conversions at the target CPA you set at the campaign level.
• Maximize Conversions: Sets bids to help get the most conversions for your budget.

Set Your Daily Budget Accordingly

Review your monthly paid search budget and calculate how much you can spend per day throughout the month.

Keep in mind that some months should be different to account for seasonality, market fluctuations, etc.

Additionally, be sure to allocate campaign budgets based on goals and priorities to maximize your return on investment.

You’ll also want to keep in mind the bid strategy selected.

For example, say you set a campaign bid strategy with a Target CPA of $30. You then go on to set your campaign daily budget of $50.

That $50 daily budget would likely not be enough to support the Target CPA of $30, because that would mean you’d get a maximum of two conversions per day, if that.

For bid strategies that require a higher CPA or higher ROAS, be sure to supplement those bid strategies with higher daily budgets to learn and optimize from the beginning.

Double-Check Location Settings

When choosing locations to target, be sure to look at the advanced settings to understand how you’re reaching those users.

For example, if you choose to target the United States, it’s not enough to enter “United States” and save it.

There are two options for location targeting that many fail to find:

• Presence or interest: People in, regularly in, or who’ve shown interest in your included locations.
• Presence: People in or regularly in your included locations.

Screenshot from Google Ads, September 2024

Google Ads defaults to the “presence or interest” setting, which I’ve seen time and time again where ads end up showing outside of the United States, in this example.

Again, the success is in the settings.

There are more settings to keep in mind when setting up your first paid search campaign, including:

• Ad scheduling.
• Audience targeting.
• Device targeting.
• And more.

Step 5: Write Compelling Ad Copy

Your ad copy is the gateway to attracting qualified customers.

Crafting the perfect mix of persuasion and relevancy into your ad copy can significantly impact your campaign’s success.

Create Attention-Grabbing Headlines

The headline is the most prominent part of the ad copy design on the search engine results page. Since each headline has a maximum character limit of 35 characters, it is important to make them count.

With Responsive Search Ads, you can create up to 15 different headlines, and Google will test different variations of them depending on the user, their search query, and multiple other factors to get that mix right.

Below are some tips for captivating a user’s attention:

• Use Primary Keywords: Include your main keywords in the headline to improve relevance and Quality Score.
• Highlight Unique Selling Points (USPs): Showcase what sets your product or service apart, such as free shipping, 24/7 support, or a unique feature.
• Incorporate Numbers and Statistics: Use numbers to catch attention, like “50% Off” or “Join 10,000+ Satisfied Customers.”
• Include a Strong Call-to-Action (CTA): Encourage immediate action with phrases like “Buy Now,” “Get a Free Quote,” or “Sign Up Today.”

Write Persuasive Descriptions

Description lines should complement the headline statements to create one cohesive ad.

Typically, two description lines are shown within any given ad. Each description line has a 90-character limit.

When creating a Responsive Search Ad, you can create four different descriptions, and then the algorithm will show variations of copy tailored to each individual user.

• Expand on Headlines: Provide additional details that complement your headline and reinforce your message.
• Address Pain Points: Highlight how your product or service solves specific problems your audience faces.
• Use Emotional Triggers: Appeal to emotions by emphasizing benefits like peace of mind, convenience, or excitement.
• Incorporate Keywords Naturally: Ensure the description flows naturally while including relevant keywords to maintain relevance.

Make Use Of Ad Assets (Formerly Extensions)

Because of the limited character count in ads, be sure to take advantage of the myriad of ad assets available as complements to headlines and descriptions.

Ad assets help provide the user with additional information about the brand, such as phone numbers to call, highlighting additional benefits, special offers, and more.

Some of the main ad assets used include:

• Sitelinks.
• Callouts.
• Structured Snippets.
• Calls.
• And more.

You can find a full list of available ad assets in Google Ads here.

Step 6: Ensure An Effective Landing Page Design

You’ve spent all this time crafting your paid search campaign strategy, down to the keyword and ad copy level.

Don’t stop there!

There’s one final step to think about before launching your first paid search campaign: The landing page.

Your landing page is where users land after clicking your ad. An optimized landing page is critical for converting traffic into valuable conversions and revenue.

Ensure Relevancy And Consistency

The content and message of your landing page should directly correspond to your ad copy. If your ad promotes a specific product or offer, the landing page should focus on that same product or offer.

Use similar language, fonts, and imagery on your landing page as in your ads to create a cohesive user experience.

Optimize For User Experience (UX)

If a user lands on a page and the promise of the ad is not delivered on that page, they will likely leave.

Having misalignment between ad copy and the landing page is one of the quickest ways to waste those precious advertising dollars.

When looking to create a user-friendly landing page, consider the following:

• Mobile-Friendly Design: Ensure your landing page is responsive and looks great on all devices, particularly mobile, as a significant portion of traffic comes from mobile users.
• Fast Loading Speed: Optimize images, leverage browser caching, and minimize code to ensure your landing page loads quickly. Slow pages can lead to high bounce rates.
• Clear and Compelling Headline: Just like your ad, your landing page should have a strong headline that immediately communicates the value proposition.
• Concise and Persuasive Content: Provide clear, concise information that guides users toward the desired action without overwhelming them with unnecessary details.
• Prominent Call-to-Action (CTA): Place your CTA above the fold and make it stand out with contrasting colors and actionable language. Ensure it’s easy to find and click.

Step 7: Launch Your Campaign

Once you’ve thoroughly completed these six steps, it’s time to launch your campaign!

But remember: Paid search campaigns are not a “set and forget” strategy. They must be continuously monitored and optimized to maximize performance and identify any shifts in strategy.

Create a regular optimization schedule to stay on top of any changes. This could look like:

• Weekly Reviews: Conduct weekly performance reviews to identify trends, spot issues, and make incremental improvements.
• Monthly Strategy Sessions: Hold monthly strategy sessions to assess overall campaign performance, adjust goals, and implement larger optimizations.
• Quarterly Assessments: Perform comprehensive quarterly assessments to evaluate long-term trends, budget allocations, and strategic shifts.

When it comes to optimizing your paid search campaign, make sure you’re optimizing based on data. This can include looking at:

• Pause Underperforming Keywords: Identify and pause keywords that are not driving conversions or are too costly.
• Increase Bids on High-Performing Keywords: Allocate more budget to keywords that are generating conversions at a favorable cost.
• Refine Ad Copy: Continuously test and refine ad copy based on performance data to enhance relevance and engagement.
• Enhance Landing Pages: Use insights from user behavior on landing pages to make data-driven improvements that boost conversion rates.

Final Thoughts

Setting up your first paid search campaign involves multiple detailed steps, each contributing to the overall effectiveness and success of your advertising efforts.

By carefully defining your goals, linking relevant accounts, conducting thorough keyword research, configuring precise campaign settings, crafting compelling ad copy, and optimizing your landing pages, you lay a strong foundation for your campaign.

Remember, the key to a successful paid search campaign is not just the initial setup but also ongoing monitoring, testing, and optimization.

Embrace a mindset of continuous improvement, leverage data-driven insights, and stay adaptable to maximize your campaign’s potential.

More resources: 

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