The top of the Manage Campaign Grid, you will find a link to “Add New Ad Group.” This link will launch a wizard that allows you to create a new ad group and the first ad for that ad group.
The first field to populate is the ad group name. Your ad group’s name should give some indication of the type of product and service you are selling, or the brand or concept you are trying to promote. For instance, you may want to create different ad groups for each of the products you sell (each of them named for the product) as well as ad groups with names such as “Brand (Misspellings)” where you will maintain common misspellings of your brand name.
Next, you will set a default bid for this ad group. The default bid for an ad group, or the default “Max CPC,” is the bid that will be assigned to every new keyword you add to the ad group, unless you specify a bid for that keyword. If you do not specify different bids for every keyword, then the maximum bid for all keywords in the ad group will be the default that you set. If you do specify a bid for a keyword, that bid will override the ad group default.
Next, you will create the first ad for your new ad group. When you create a new ad, you have to populate the five fields below. The allowed number of characters is indicated next to each field and counts down as you type.
• Headline
The headline is the first line of your ad, and will be the link most users click to go to your site. It should be closely related to the keywords in your ad group to help improve your quality score and achieve higher clicks.
• Description Lines 1 and 2
The description lines give more information about the product and services you offer. In general, the first line conveys more specific information about your offerings, and the second line, often referred to as the “Call to Action” line, tells the customer what to do (i.e., “buy …”, “sign-up for …”, “order now”). Yahoo provides one longer description line rather than two description lines
• Display URL
This is the URL that will appear at the bottom of your ad. The root of the URL needs to be the same as the landing page’s root, but the second part of the URL may be different.
• Destination URL
The destination URL is the actual URL that customers will be taken to if they click on your ad. As a best practice, the landing page customers arrive at should be a page that closely matches their search and your ad, rather than a homepage or a generic landing page.
To start the ad over, click the “Clear / Reset Ad” link at the bottom left.
SELECT THE FIRST PLACEMENT SITES FOR YOUR CAMPAIGN
This section of the wizard allows you to select the initial set of placement sites for your campaign. There are two methods for selecting placement sites: browsing by category or searching by topic. You can switch between these two by clicking on the “Browse Categories” and “Describe Topics” links at the top of the wizard.
Browse Categories
To browse by site category, simply click on the category name in the dialog box at the upper-left of the wizard. You can either click on a top level term to see all sites in that category, or click on the arrow to left of the term to display more targeted sub-categories.
Describe Topics
To search for placement sites by keyword, use the “Describe Topics” option. Enter a keyword into the field at the upper-left of the wizard, then click “Suggest” to display suggested placements for that keyword.
To add placement sites to your ad group, either click “Add All” to include all of the suggested placement sites, or select individual sites in the “Suggested Placements” dialog box and click the “Add” link to add them individually. (If you generate new suggestions after adding sites, your old selections will be saved.) You can also remove sites either by clicking the “Remove All” link to start over, or by selecting individual sites in the “Selected Placements” dialog box and clicking “Remove” to remove them individually.
Sites that you add will remain on your “Selected Placements” list even if you switch back and forth between the two methods.
Once you have made your selections, click on the “Next” button to review them. If you’re done making selections, click “Save.” To go back and add or remove sites, click “Back.”
Review and Save
Once you have completed the 4 steps to create your campaign, you will see a final review screen that lists all your selections. Click ‘Save!’ to save the new campaign and receive a confirmation screen, ‘Back’ to change a selection on a previous screen or ‘Cancel’ to cancel the new campaign creation process.