Setting up Google Ads takes about an hour, and most of the screens look harmless. A name for the campaign. A budget. A few checkboxes already filled in. Click Next a few times and the ads are live.
Those filled-in checkboxes are where a small budget leaks. Google's defaults are built to show your ads in as many places as possible, which suits an advertiser with money to spare. This chapter walks through the settings to change before a small account spends its first dollar, and the one setting where turning it off has a cost you need to plan for.
Search Partners Come Switched On, and Google Doesn't Name the Sites That Show Your Ads.
When you build a Search campaign, Google adds more than its own results page. Its help page says partner sites come bundled in from the start, that a Search campaign can answer searches on thousands of other websites, and that Google won't tell you which of those sites actually showed your ad.
So by default, part of your budget goes to sites you didn't choose and can't see. Some of that traffic may be fine. You just can't tell which part, and on a small budget every unexplained click is money you can't learn from.
That's why we turn search partners off on every new small account. Once the account has real conversions from Google's own results page, partners can be switched back on as a test, with the results compared side by side. Until then, a small budget should buy the clicks it can measure.
While you're on that screen, check the Display Network box as well. Google's own help page suggests checking your Display Network settings whenever performance looks off. For a Search campaign on a small budget, Display belongs off: in our view it puts ads in front of people browsing websites and apps, not people searching for you.
Clicks on Google's Own Results Page Usually Cost More Than Search Partner Clicks. They're Worth More, Too.
Here's the part most setup guides skip. Turning partners off changes your costs. David Smania, BrandRocket's founder, puts it bluntly in his account reviews: when you get off search partners, "your CPCs are going to go up... they're going to go up substantially." In our experience, partner clicks cost less and are worth less.
That matters most for the smallest budgets. In one account David reviewed, a business spending only a few dollars a day was getting traffic David didn't expect, and he found out why: "the bulk of your traffic is coming through search partners." His warning was direct: "If you unchecked for search partners and did nothing else, um, your ads probably would never show."
That isn't an argument for leaving partners on. It's an argument for doing the rest of the work at the same time. A budget that can only afford partner clicks needs a narrower target on Google itself, the way Chapter 3 described:
- fewer services, starting with the one that pays best
- a smaller area around you
- exact-match keywords only (Chapter 6), so the money goes to the few searches that matter
Then the budget can compete on Google's own results page, where you can see where each click came from and most of the searches behind it.
If, after narrowing, the ads still barely show, that's information too. It means the searches that matter cost more than the budget allows, and the choice is between a bigger budget and a narrower one, not between Google and the partner network. Chapter 3's math tells you which.
Google Builds New Search Campaigns With AI Max Already On. That's Broad Matching You Didn't Ask For.
The second default is newer, and Google's setup page is plain about it: AI Max starts out enabled. That one toggle hands Google three jobs you just did by hand in Chapters 4 through 8: deciding which searches count as a match, writing extra ad text from your site, and choosing which of your pages a click lands on.
By Google's own account, all three lean on automated bidding that learns from conversions. A new small account on manual bids, with exact-match keywords, has neither the bidding nor the conversions. So the first click on the AI Max screen is the off switch. Chapter 13 covers when, and whether, to turn it on later.
Once Auto-Apply Is On, Google Changes Your Bids and Keywords Without Asking First.
Google Ads makes recommendations constantly, and it offers to apply some of them for you automatically. Google's list of recommendations it can apply on its own includes adding broad match keywords, setting a target CPA and expanding to search partners, along with others that change ads, bidding and targeting.
Read that list again with this chapter in mind. Auto-apply can switch search partners back on, add the broad match you kept out, and change the bidding you set by hand. It's switched on or off for the whole account, any time, and Google says it won't raise your budget on its own.
Check it on day one: open Recommendations, then Auto-apply, and make sure nothing is ticked that you didn't choose. If you're taking over an existing account, check the change history too, since someone else may have opted in.
Optimization score measures suggestions, not results
The same page shows an optimization score, from 0% to 100%. It looks like a grade. It isn't one. Google calls it an estimate of how well the account is set up to perform, and says the score moves whether you apply a recommendation or reject it. Turning down a suggestion you've read raises the score just as accepting it does.
So read each recommendation, apply the ones that fit your plan, dismiss the rest, and judge the account by its conversions and cost per customer, not the score.
The recommendations themselves aren't the enemy. Some are useful: a keyword with no impressions, a conflicting negative keyword, an ad that was disapproved. The trouble is the ones that quietly widen the account, like broad match, partners or a raised target, before the account has the conversions to support them. Read the reason Google gives for each one, and ask whether it fits the stage the account is in.
The campaign goal screen doesn't change much
Early in setup, Google asks you to pick a goal, such as leads, sales or website traffic, and then suggests settings based on it. In our experience the goal you pick there mostly shapes which suggestions you see next; it isn't a setting the campaign keeps optimizing toward on its own. What the campaign actually optimizes toward is the conversions you set up in Chapter 1 and the bidding you choose in Chapter 7. Pick the goal that matches your business, then check every screen after it rather than accepting the suggestions as they come.
Two more defaults worth a look
Two smaller settings on the same screens deserve a glance. Google used to offer automatically created assets as a separate switch; for new campaigns that text-writing feature now lives under AI Max, so the one off switch handles both. And set ad rotation to Optimize, which Google says suits most advertisers; with responsive search ads (Chapter 8), Google already mixes headlines inside each ad.
None of these settings is permanent. Every one of them is worth a second look after a few good months. The point is to start narrow, measure, and widen on purpose, not to start wide by accident because a box was already ticked.
A Call at 2 a.m. or From Three States Away Is a Lead You Paid For and Can't Take.
The last settings decide when and where your ads appear.
The ad schedule controls the days and hours ads run. If calls are your main lead and nobody answers after 6 p.m., ads that run at night produce missed calls you still paid for. Set the schedule to the hours someone can pick up, and set the call button's hours to match. Online stores can run around the clock; a business that depends on the phone usually shouldn't.
The location setting controls who sees the ads. Pick the area you serve, then pick Google's option for people who are physically there or regularly there, not the one that also counts people who've only shown interest in the place. The Local Businesses guide goes into service areas and location settings in depth.
Location settings can also exclude places. If your ads keep reaching a neighboring city you don't serve, or a state where you aren't licensed, add it as an excluded location rather than shrinking your whole area.
Three smaller checks round it out. Turn on call reporting with your call asset, so ad calls show up as calls in your reports. Google says auto-tagging, which ties each click to your conversion data, is on by default for new accounts; confirm it's on, because Chapter 1's tracking depends on it. And keep your business name in its own small campaign, as Chapter 2 described, so it doesn't compete with everything else for budget.
Next: Google's Start Guide Steers New Advertisers Into Performance Max.
Your campaign settings now match a small budget. Up next, Chapter 10 takes on Performance Max, the campaign type Google's onboarding leans on hardest, and explains why a small account holds it back until conversions are flowing.
Every chapter so far, from tracking to budget, keywords, bidding and ad copy, is on the guide's home page.
When we take over an account through Google Ads management, the first hour goes to these settings, before a single keyword changes. Doing it yourself? Open your campaign settings tonight and look for the search partner checkbox. If it's ticked, you now know where some of last month's money went.
