Google Ads is the platform that lets you appear, paid, in search results and across Google's ad network. The difference from SEO is speed: meaningful SEO results take 6–12 months, while Google Ads brings traffic from day one. In return you pay for every click — which is why a setup mistake means money lost directly.
Before you start: conversion tracking
There's one thing to do before opening a campaign: make sure conversions are being measured. Campaigns launched without this can't tell you which keyword brought in business, and the budget is spent blind.
The minimum setup:
- Google Tag Manager and GA4
- A conversion event for form submissions
- A separate conversion event for WhatsApp clicks
- A separate conversion event for phone clicks
- Importing these events into your Google Ads account
Because most enquiries in Turkey come through WhatsApp, setups that only measure form submissions miss most of the conversions.
Campaign types and when to use them
| Type | What it does | When |
|---|---|---|
| Search | Text ads in search results | When demand already exists — highest intent |
| Performance Max | Automated across all channels | After data has built up, for scale |
| Display | Image ads on websites | Remarketing |
| Video (YouTube) | Video ads | Awareness, product introduction |
| Shopping | With product image and price | E-commerce, product catalogues |
For service businesses, the starting point should almost always be a Search campaign. Performance Max is powerful, but when launched without data it spreads the budget to irrelevant places.
Keyword strategy
Match types
- Exact match: Highest control, lowest volume. For proven winning keywords.
- Phrase match: Balanced. The core of most campaigns.
- Broad match: For discovery. Shouldn't be used without a negative keyword list.
Separate by intent
Mixing different intents in the same campaign hurts performance:
- Commercial intent: "web design prices", "web design company across Turkey" → most valuable
- Informational intent: "what is a website", "how to do SEO" → gets clicks but doesn't convert
- Brand: Your own name → cheap, high conversion, defends against competitors
It's more economical to target informational keywords with blog content rather than ads.
Negative keywords
The setting that saves a campaign the most money. In the first week, open the search terms report every day and add irrelevant queries to the negative list. Typical negatives: "free", "job", "vacancy", "salary", "what is", "course", "training", "template", "ready-made".
Quality Score: doing the same job for less
Google doesn't set an ad's cost per click based on your bid alone. Quality Score has three components:
- Ad relevance: Does the ad text match the target keyword?
- Expected click-through rate: Will this ad be clicked?
- Landing page experience: Does the page deliver on the promise, is it fast, does it work on mobile?
A high Quality Score lets you get the same position at a lower cost per click. That's why work on the landing page pays off more than bid adjustments. Details: landing page design and optimization.
Budget: realistic numbers
In Turkey's service sector, cost per click ranges from 3 to 25 TL depending on the keyword. The minimum needed for meaningful data in a new account:
- Test period: 2–4 weeks, 300–600 TL per day
- Meaningful data threshold: At least 30–50 clicks per keyword
- First optimization: After week 2, based on the search terms report
With budgets under 5,000 TL a month, targeting one narrow campaign and one city works better than spreading the budget.
What to do in the first 30 days
- Days 1–3: Check the search terms report daily and add negatives
- End of week 1: Pause keywords that have brought no conversions
- Week 2: Add a second variation of your ad copy
- Week 3: Look at performance by device and hour, adjust bids
- Week 4: Calculate cost per conversion and compare it with your target
The deciding metric isn't cost per click but customer acquisition cost. A 15 TL click looks expensive, but if it brings in a 40,000 TL job, it's cheap.
Common mistakes
- Starting without conversion tracking
- Sending ads to the homepage
- Not keeping a negative keyword list
- Targeting all of Turkey and burning through a local budget
- Using broad match without control
- Launching the campaign and not looking at it for a month
- Not counting WhatsApp clicks as conversions
Google Ads or SEO?
The wrong question — they do different jobs:
- Google Ads: Immediate traffic, measurable, ends when you stop paying
- SEO: Slow but cumulative, no cost per click in the long run
The practical approach: use Ads to learn which keywords actually bring business, then grow the organic side by creating content for those keywords. This answers "where do we start with SEO?" with data. We explain the order in our SEO optimization guide.
Frequently Asked Questions
How soon will I see results?
Traffic arrives on day one. Meaningful optimization needs 3–4 weeks of data.
Can I manage it myself?
A simple search campaign can be managed. What matters is weekly monitoring; accounts that are set up and forgotten waste the budget.
Can I advertise on my competitors' brand names?
Technically possible, but if the brand is a registered trademark there's legal risk, and it ends up expensive because Quality Score is low.
When should I increase my budget?
When your cost per conversion is below target and the budget runs out early in the day.
For your campaign
Tell us your industry, your target region and your monthly budget; we'll put together a setup plan and a realistic expectations table for free. For the page your ad traffic will land on, see our landing page design page.
Phone / WhatsApp: +90 536 628 0007
Email: info@enextware.com
