Accept the default settings when you open a Google Ads account and four things tend to happen. Your search ads start showing on random websites and apps. People abroad who once showed “interest” in Lagos start seeing ads for a service you only offer in Lekki. Google begins applying its own changes to your account, including higher budgets. And your keywords get matched to searches you’d never have chosen in a hundred years.
None of this is a conspiracy. The defaults are designed to spend your budget, and spending it well is your job.
Google Ads is still one of the few channels that can put you in front of someone at the exact moment they’re searching for what you sell. It’s also one of the quickest ways to lose money. This guide sets up a Search campaign properly, step by step, for a small or medium Nigerian business. It covers what to decide before you open the account, which defaults to change, how to structure campaigns and keywords, how to write ads, and how to run the first 90 days. It sticks to Search campaigns, where people are actively looking, because that’s where most businesses should start. For what clicks typically cost, read the Google Ads cost guide.
Google changes its interface often. If a menu name below has moved, search for the setting in your account.
Before You Open the Account
Check that search ads suit your business
Search ads work when people already search for what you sell. A plumber, an IELTS centre, a law firm or a private school benefits, because people type specific needs into Google. A brand-new product nobody knows to search for usually won’t, because there’s no search demand to capture, and awareness channels like social ads suit it better. The Google versus Meta guide explains the difference between capturing demand and creating it.
Know your numbers
Before you spend a naira, work out what a customer is worth to you and how much you can afford to pay for one. The naira ad ROI calculator does it in a minute. Without that number you can only tell whether a campaign is busy, never whether it’s working.
Make sure the landing page can convert
Ads buy attention. Your page has to turn it into an enquiry. Sending paid clicks to a slow homepage with no clear next step is the most common way businesses conclude that “Google Ads doesn’t work”. Build a dedicated page for each main service you advertise, with one clear action. The landing page guide covers what that page needs.
Set up conversion tracking before the first click
Google Ads needs to know which clicks became enquiries, so you can judge performance and so its automated bidding has something to learn from. Decide which actions count, such as form submissions, WhatsApp clicks, phone calls and purchases. You’ll configure them in a moment. The GA4 setup guide explains how to track WhatsApp and phone clicks, which matter enormously for Nigerian businesses.
Creating the Account
Skip the simplified setup
When you first sign up, Google may steer you into a simplified “Smart” campaign flow. It’s convenient, and it hides most of the controls this guide relies on. Look for the option to switch to Expert Mode, or to create an account without a campaign, and use that.
Pick the account currency carefully
You set the billing currency when you create the account, and you can’t change it later. Get it wrong and the only fix is a new account, which means losing your history. Check which currencies and payment methods are open to you, how your bank handles foreign-currency card payments, and how exchange rates affect your costs. The currency guide explains why dollar-billed spend needs tracking in both currencies.
Own the account
Create it under your business’s Google login, and give your agency or freelancer access as users. If an agency owns the account and you part ways, your campaign history, conversion data and learning leave with them.
Six Defaults to Change
When you create a Search campaign, go through these settings one at a time. Each default is chosen to maximise reach and spend, which is a different goal from maximising results.
In WALL-E, the humans on the Axiom have handed every decision to the ship’s autopilot and forgotten they were ever allowed to steer. Google’s defaults are the autopilot. You’re allowed to steer.
| Setting | Default behaviour | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Networks | Search ads can also show on the Display Network (websites and apps) | Untick the Display Network for search campaigns. Display traffic behaves completely differently and can absorb budget with little to show for it. Consider unticking Search Partners at first too, and test it later |
| Location options | Targets people in or interested in your location | Choose the option targeting people in, or regularly in, your targeted locations. Otherwise someone abroad searching about Lagos can see ads for a Lagos-only service |
| Locations | Often the whole country | Target only the areas you can actually serve. A business delivering only in Lagos shouldn’t pay for clicks from Kano |
| Auto-applied recommendations | Google can apply changes automatically, including adding keywords and raising budgets | Turn these off in the Recommendations section, and review suggestions manually instead |
| Broad match default | New campaigns may encourage broad match | Start with phrase and exact match (see the keywords section), and only expand once tracking proves what converts |
| Ad schedule | Ads run around the clock | If enquiries arriving at 3am go unanswered until morning, consider focusing budget on hours when someone can respond quickly |
Conversion tracking setup
In the Goals section of Google Ads, create a conversion action for each important action, or import key events from GA4 if it’s linked. Mark only genuine enquiries and sales as primary conversions. Page views and scrolling don’t count. Then test each one by completing the action yourself and confirming it registers, which can take several hours to show up.
A Structure That Fits a Small Budget
Google Ads works in layers. An account contains campaigns, which contain ad groups, which contain keywords and ads. Budget, locations and bidding are set per campaign, and keywords and ads live in ad groups.
For a small business, a clean structure looks like this.
- One campaign per major service or product line, so each gets its own budget and you can see which one pays. A school might run separate campaigns for admissions and for summer programmes.
- One ad group per tight theme within that service, so each ad can speak directly to the search. An IELTS centre might have ad groups for “IELTS registration,” “IELTS test dates” and “IELTS computer-delivered.”
- A separate campaign for searches of your own business name, if people search for you by name. It’s usually cheap, protects you from competitors bidding on your name, and keeps its strong results from flattering your other campaigns’ numbers.
Resist the urge to build lots of campaigns on a small budget. Every campaign needs enough budget and enough conversions to learn and to be judged fairly. Two or three focused campaigns almost always beat ten thin ones.
Keywords
Choose by intent
The best keywords describe someone ready to act. “IELTS registration Lagos” signals someone ready to book. “What is IELTS” signals someone still learning. Both have value, but the first belongs in your ad budget and the second usually belongs in your content. Start with the handful of searches closest to a purchase and expand from there.
Match types
| Match type | How you write it | What it matches | When to use it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Exact | [ielts registration lagos] | Searches with the same meaning | Your proven, highest-value terms |
| Phrase | “ielts registration” | Searches that include the meaning of your phrase | The default starting point for most keywords |
| Broad | ielts registration | Searches Google considers related, which can be very loosely connected | Only with solid conversion tracking and smart bidding, once you know what converts |
Negative keywords, the most underused control
Negative keywords stop your ads showing for searches you don’t want. Build a list before launch and add to it every week. Common negatives for Nigerian businesses include these.
- Job seekers. Jobs, vacancy, recruitment, salary, hiring, internship.
- Free-seekers (if you don’t offer anything free). Free, pdf, download.
- Learners (if you’re selling, not teaching). Course, tutorial, how to, meaning, definition.
- Locations you don’t serve.
- Competitor or unrelated brand names you don’t want to pay for.
After your ads have run for a few days, open the search terms report. It shows the actual searches that triggered your ads, and it’s usually an education. Add every irrelevant search as a negative. That one weekly habit is often the whole difference between a profitable account and a wasteful one.
Writing the Ads
Most search ads are now responsive search ads. You supply up to 15 headlines and 4 descriptions, and Google tests the combinations, so the quality of each piece matters.
- Match the search. Include the ad group’s main keyword in at least one or two headlines, so searchers see their own words reflected.
- Be specific. “IELTS Registration in Lagos, Book Online Today” beats “Quality Education Services.”
- Answer the buyer’s real question. Price, speed, location, trust. If you can show a starting price or a concrete benefit, do.
- Give a clear next step. “Book your test date,” “Get a quote on WhatsApp.”
- Write varied headlines. Fifteen versions of the same message give Google nothing to test. Cover benefits, proof, offers, features and calls to action.
- Stay honest. Claims in ads must be true and supported on the landing page. Exaggeration raises clicks and lowers conversions.
Add assets
Assets, which used to be called extensions, add extra information to your ads at no extra cost per impression. Add at least sitelinks (links to specific pages), callouts (short benefit phrases), a call asset (your phone number) and, where relevant, a location asset. They make your ads bigger and more useful, and they usually help performance.
Budgets and Bidding
Setting a starting budget
Your budget has to be big enough to produce meaningful data. If your cost per click means the daily budget buys only a handful of clicks, you’ll wait months to learn anything. Work backwards. Estimate how many conversions you need for a fair judgement (a couple of dozen over the test period is a sensible minimum), divide by your expected conversion rate to get clicks, then multiply by your cost per click. If the answer is more than you can afford, narrow your targeting to fewer, higher-intent keywords instead of spreading a small budget thin.
Choosing a bidding strategy
Google’s automated “smart” bidding strategies, like maximise conversions or target cost per acquisition, learn from your conversion data. With no conversion history, they have nothing to learn from. A common approach is to start with a strategy that controls cost per click while conversions build up, then move to conversion-based bidding once the account has a steady flow of tracked conversions. Change bidding strategies rarely. Each change resets the learning period, and performance often dips while the system adjusts.
The First 90 Days
| When | What to do |
|---|---|
| Daily, first week | Check spend is within budget, ads are approved and conversions are recording |
| Weekly | Review the search terms report and add negatives, pause keywords spending with no results, and check which ads perform |
| Week 2 to 4 | Compare cost per conversion against your break-even figure, and shift budget towards what converts |
| Month 2 | Refine ad copy based on what’s working, and test a new landing page variation for your biggest ad group |
| Month 3 | Decide whether to scale what’s profitable and fix or stop what isn’t. Consider conversion-based bidding if tracking is solid |
Judge the campaign against your own records as well as Google’s dashboard. Match the enquiries Google reports against the enquiries that actually arrived in your CRM, and against which of those became paying customers. That’s the number that decides whether to scale.
Ten Expensive Mistakes
- Leaving the Display Network switched on in a search campaign.
- Targeting people “interested in” your location instead of in it.
- Letting auto-applied recommendations change your account.
- Using broad match without conversion tracking or negatives.
- Never reading the search terms report.
- Sending all traffic to the homepage.
- Not tracking WhatsApp and phone enquiries, so Google can’t see most of your results.
- Spreading a small budget across too many campaigns.
- Changing bidding strategies every week, so nothing ever finishes learning.
- Judging success by clicks rather than by customers and cost per customer.
Before the First Naira Leaves Your Account
Write down what a customer is worth to you, and make sure WhatsApp clicks and calls are tracked as well as forms. Switch off the Display Network and auto-applied recommendations, and set your location to people actually in your area. Once the campaign is live, block out the same morning every week for the search terms report. For how paid search compares with organic, read the SEO versus ads guide.
Defaults Are Suggestions
Google is entitled to suggest how you spend your money. You’re entitled to say no. Every setting in this guide is a small no, and together they keep a lot of naira in your account.
If you’re already spending on Google Ads without knowing what it returns, start with the free 2-minute diagnostic. It shows which of your four walls is weakest. Paid search problems usually show up under Attract, with the fix often sitting in Convert.
P.S. If your monthly marketing spend is ₦1M or more, you also qualify for a free 30-minute Leak Check. We’ll start with your search terms report, if you’re brave enough to share it.
Google Ads features, menu names, defaults and policies change often, and this guide reflects the platform at the time of writing. Check payment options and currency availability for your own account. This is general information, not a guarantee of results.
This article covers one part of a bigger system. Our guide to digital marketing in Nigeria shows how the four walls fit together, and the order to build them in.
