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One campaign, not a showcase of options

Set up a campaign with one area, one goal, and your phone number in plain sight, and leave everything else off until you have data to decide.

By Yodai · Published on September 6, 2026 · Updated on October 12, 2026

5 min read

You open the screen to create your campaign in Google Ads and a pile of checkboxes shows up: display network, search partner network, devices, ad scheduling, several kinds of extensions (Google Ads calls them assets now), automatic bidding for conversions from day one. The temptation is to check them all: after all, the more options you turn on, the more people you'll reach. It's exactly the opposite. Every box you check without knowing what it does is a hole where the budget you decided had to last through the test leaks away.

The rule that saves you a lot of headaches is simple, and it runs a little against intuition: build one campaign, not a showcase of options. One area, one goal, one phone number in plain sight. Everything else stays off until you have a specific reason to turn it on.

Before this step, you should already have settled on the budget that'll carry the test and the exact phrase you're going to pay for, not the general topic of your business. And the click can't land on the homepage: it has to land on the page that answers that exact phrase. With that decided, what's left is the mechanical part, the actual campaign screen in Google Ads: what you check and what you leave blank.

That's where a lot of people get lost, because Google Ads is built for a marketing department with a big budget, not for someone running a hair salon, a bookkeeping office, or a repair shop who just wants the phone to ring. You don't need every extension type or fine-tuned time-of-day scheduling. You need whoever searches your phrase in your neighborhood to find you, and calling you to be the first thing they see next to the ad.

How you build the campaign, in order
  1. 1The goal
    Calls, if your business closes deals by phone, like a plumber or a consulting firm. Page visits, if the customer can book or buy on their own. If you're torn between the two, choose the page, but with the call button visible from the first second.
  2. 2The area
    A radius around your business, or your neighborhood and the ones next to it, wherever you actually work. Not the whole city if you only drive twenty minutes, and not the whole county if your van doesn't reach that far.
  3. 3Turn off the Display Network and the Search Partner Network
    Both come checked by default when you create the campaign. Uncheck them: you only want to show up in Google's search results, not on recipe sites, news pages, or other sites' search engines.
  4. 4Just one extension: the phone
    Have the number or the call button show up right in the ad, before anyone even clicks: in Google Ads that's the call asset. Sitelinks, promotions, ratings: all of that waits until you have data telling you if it's worth it.
  5. 5One ad group, one ad, the phrase
    No five groups for five variations of the service. One single ad that answers the exact phrase you decided to pay for, with the bare minimum Google asks for (three headlines and two descriptions), and that's what you launch with.
The ad, exactly as you write it
Headline 1: Emergency plumber in your area Headline 2: Fixed price before we come out Headline 3: Leaks and clogs, same day Description 1: Leaks, clogs, and faucet repair. We give you the price over the phone, no surprises when we're done. Description 2: Call us now and we'll tell you what time we can come by. Phone: visible right in the ad, not just on the page.
The hole nobody looks at: the display network
The Display Network and the Search Partner Network come turned on by default when you create a search campaign in Google Ads. Display spreads your ad across recipe sites, forums, or newspapers, with clicks from people who weren't searching for what you sell but were just reading something else; the partner network puts it in other sites' search engines that work with Google. If you leave those two boxes checked, part of the budget you calculated to carry the test gets spent on clicks that never call or write in. You turn them off when you build the campaign, not after you've already spent half the budget finding out.
The showcase of options versus just one campaign
The showcase
  • Search Network and Display Network turned on at the same time
  • All the extensions at once: phone, sitelinks, promotions, location
  • Automatic bidding for conversions from day one
  • Several ad groups, one for each service or variation
Just one campaign
  • Just the Search Network
  • Just the phone extension
  • Manual bidding or a max cost-per-click
  • One ad group, one ad, the phrase you decided on

Which one do I pick: Always start with the single campaign. Automatic bidding needs conversion history to get it right, and on day one you don't have any; splitting into several groups only makes sense once you already know which phrase brings in customers and which one brings in nothing. The showcase gets built later, once you have data in front of you. Before that, it's just wishful thinking.

With this set up, the campaign does exactly one thing: it puts your business in front of whoever's searching your phrase in your area, and puts your phone number one click away. Nothing more, and that's exactly what you need for the test to come out clean. If it works, you'll know from the calls coming in, not because you turned on ten boxes at once and can no longer tell which one did anything.

The campaign is built and ready to turn on. Before you hit the button, you still need to set the date and the number of contacts that will decide whether it's working, so you don't end up checking Google Ads six times a day without knowing what you're looking for.

What you walk away with
  • One campaign with one goal (calls or page visits), one area, and the phone number visible in the ad
  • Display network and search partner network, turned off from day one
  • Just the phone extension; the rest of the extensions wait until you have data
  • Manual bidding or a cost cap, not automatic, until you have a history of conversions
  • One ad group, one ad, the exact phrase you decided to pay for
NextThe date to judge the campaign gets set before you turn it on