Setting up a Google Ads search campaign with AI is a Workflow and Tech job: the AI writes the keywords, the negative keywords and the ad copy in a few passes, and you build it in Google Ads. Plan on an afternoon for one campaign, most of it spent in your Google Ads account, not in the chat. The AI writes and later reads the results. Google runs the auction, shows the ads and bills you. You decide what the campaign is for, what you will pay, and when to stop.
This page covers one search campaign for one service in one area. That is the right size for a first try, and for a day when you have AI credits left and want to finish something real.
- Shape
- WorkflowTech
- Sitting
- an afternoon
The shape: Workflow and Tech
It is a Workflow because no single prompt does it. Keywords come first, negatives are built from the keywords, ad copy is built from both, and the landing page check closes the loop. Each step feeds the next, so you run them in order in one chat and keep the earlier answers on screen.
It is Tech because, once built, the campaign runs inside Google Ads without you: it bids, shows the ads and bills every day whether you look or not. Google Ads has character limits, match types, location settings and conversion tracking. The AI can draft to those rules, but it cannot click the buttons, and a wrong setting costs money quietly. That means two kinds of attention this afternoon: a writer's attention for the copy, and a careful operator's attention for the settings.
What that means for you: give the AI the material, let it do the drafting in passes, and save your own focus for the setup screens.
What you give the AI
The quality of the campaign depends on these inputs more than on the prompt. Gather them before you open the chat.
- The one service you want calls for. Not "home services." Say "water heater replacement" or "tax prep for sole proprietors."
- Where you work. The towns, zip codes or radius you actually serve, and any you refuse to drive to.
- The jobs you do not take. Repairs on brands you do not service, rentals, commercial work, free estimates if you charge for them. This list becomes your negatives.
- Your landing page text. Copy the full text of the page the ad will send people to. If you do not have a page for this one service, note that; it matters more than the ads.
- How customers describe the problem. Phrases from calls, emails, reviews or intake forms, in their words, not yours. The customer pain points generator helps if you are starting cold.
- What makes you the right call. Licensed, same owner for twenty years, evening appointments, a written guarantee. Only things that are true and that you can show.
- Your offer and any limits on it. What a first visit costs, if you will say it, and what you will never promise in an ad.
- A starter keyword list, if you have one. Searches from Google Search Console, or from the free Google Ads Keyword Planner, or from our buyer intent keyword generator.
Leave out your budget and your competitors' ads for now. The AI does not need either to write good keywords, and both pull it toward generic advice.
What comes back
Run these four passes in one chat, in order. Paste the first one with your inputs filled in.
You are helping a small local business set up one Google Ads search campaign.
Business: [one line on what the business does]
The one service this campaign sells: [service]
Area served: [towns, zip codes or radius]
Jobs we do not take: [list]
How customers describe the problem, in their words: [paste phrases]
Why customers pick us (true and provable only): [list]
Our offer and what we never promise in an ad: [list]
Starter keywords, if any: [paste list]
Landing page text: [paste the full page]
Step 1. Write 20 to 40 keywords someone would type when they are ready to hire for this service in this area.
Group them into three to five tight themes.
For each keyword, mark phrase match or exact match, and say in five words why a buyer types it.
Leave out research searches (how to, DIY, what is) and anything outside our area.
Do not invent services, places or claims that are not in the inputs above.Then send the next three, one at a time, after you have read each answer.
Step 2. From the keywords and the jobs we do not take, write a negative keyword list.
Group it as: jobs we do not do, people looking for work, people looking for free or DIY help, places we do not serve, and anything else that wastes a click.
Mark each one broad, phrase or exact.
Step 3. For each keyword theme, write one responsive search ad: 15 headlines of 30 characters or fewer and 4 descriptions of 90 characters or fewer.
Show the character count after each line.
Use only claims from the inputs.
At least three headlines name the service and two name the area.
Step 4. Read the landing page text against the ads.
List every promise in the ads that the page does not support, and every question a caller would have that the page does not answer.
Suggest the smallest edits to the page, in plain language.
What comes back is four blocks of text: a grouped keyword list with match types, a grouped negative list, three to five ads with counted lines, and a short list of landing page fixes. That is everything you need to build the campaign.
Weeks later, the same chat can read the results. Download the search terms report and the asset report from Google Ads, paste them in, and ask which searches spent money without a call or form fill, which should become negatives, and which headlines rarely get shown.
How to judge it
You can reject a bad result in a minute if you know what it looks like.
A bad keyword list:
- Includes research searches like "how to fix a leaking water heater." Those people want a video, not a plumber.
- Includes towns you do not serve, or no place at all for a service that only works locally.
- Is mostly single broad words like "plumber" or "taxes," with no buying signal attached.
- Marks almost everything broad match. On a small budget, broad match spends on searches you never meant to buy.
A bad negative list:
- Is short and generic, with nothing from your own "jobs we do not take" list.
- Blocks words your buyers actually use, like "cost" or "near me." Read every negative against your keyword list for collisions.
A bad ad:
- Could belong to any business in your trade. Swap in a competitor's name; if it still reads fine, it says nothing.
- Makes a claim you did not give it: "best in town," "same-day service," a price, a rating, a number of years.
- Uses a headline over 30 characters or a description over 90. Check the counts yourself; AI counts are often off by a few.
- Repeats one idea in ten wordings. Google mixes headlines, so each one has to stand on its own and say something different.
A bad landing page check:
- Says the page is fine. Most pages written before the ad leave gaps; push the AI to find them.
When a pass comes back weak, the fix is nearly always a better input, not a cleverer prompt. Add the missing fact and run that step again.
What stays with you
The AI writes and reads. Everything below is yours, and none of it is optional.
- The account and the money. Billing, the daily budget, and the decision to turn the campaign on are yours. Read every setting screen before you save it. Turn off any network or audience expansion you did not choose, and set location targeting to people in or regularly in your area, not people only searching about it.
- Conversion tracking. Without it, Google cannot tell a call from a bounce, and neither can the AI reading your results later. Set up tracking for calls and form fills before launch, and test it with one real call or form fill of your own.
- The claims. Every line in the ads is a promise made in your name. Licensed trades, finance, health and legal work have advertising rules; check them yourself. The AI does not know which claims you can prove.
- The landing page edits. The AI suggests them; you or whoever runs your website makes them, and checks the page on a phone.
- The first two weeks. Look at the search terms report every few days, add negatives, and pause anything that spends without results. The AI can help you read it; it cannot see the calls you took or the jobs those calls became.
- The phone. The ad brings the call. Answering it fast, and in a way that books the job, is the part no tool does.
An editorial example
This is an invented business, used only to show the shape of the work.
Say you run a two-person garage door repair company that serves three suburbs and does not install new doors. Your inputs would name "garage door spring repair" as the one service, the three suburbs by name, and "new door installation," "openers we do not service" and "jobs" as things you do not take. Your customer phrases might be "door won't open," "loud bang from the garage" and "spring snapped."
Pass one would group keywords into themes like broken spring, door off track and emergency repair, each with the suburb names attached. Pass two would turn "new door installation" into negatives such as install, new door and replacement door, plus job seekers and DIY searches. Pass three would write an ad per theme, with headlines that name the spring and the suburb and a description that says what happens when someone calls. Pass four might notice the landing page mentions new door installation, which you do not offer, and suggest cutting that section and adding a line about spring repair.
The business owner then builds one campaign with three ad groups, sets the area to the three suburbs, connects call tracking, and turns it on.
Workflow at a glance
| Step | Who does it | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Gather inputs | You | A notes file |
| Keywords, negatives, ads, page check | The AI | Your chat |
| Check counts, claims and collisions | You | Your chat |
| Build the campaign, budget, location, tracking | You | Google Ads |
| Run the auction and show the ads | Google Ads | |
| Read the search terms report | The AI, with you | Your chat |
| Decide what to pause and what to keep | You | Google Ads |
The middle of the table is the AI's share. The ends are yours, and that is where the money is decided.
For the bigger list of jobs you can finish with the AI you already pay for, start at DIY marketing with AI.
Of every job on this list, social media is the one that comes back every week, and Boomp is software that does that one for you. See ten posts made from your website, free
