Create a Google Ads account

Everything starts with a choice you only notice 3 months later.

Sign in first, before you open anything at all. A Gmail address is enough, and you almost certainly already have one.

⚠ Choose the right one. The Google Account you are signed in with becomes the owner of the advertising account. Use a company address, or at the very least the owner's address. It will stay with you whatever happens, including the day a member of staff leaves.

On a computer if possible. The billing screens are built for a large display, and those are precisely the ones that matter most. If all you have is a phone, open ads.google.com in your browser and ask for the desktop version before you start.

The direct address. ads.google.com. You will be redirected to your country's page, which is normal.

Before you click Start, scroll down the page. Google regularly offers an advertising credit to new accounts, along the lines of spend an amount, receive the same amount back, over the first 60 days.

Several tiers often exist side by side. Choose the one that matches what you are genuinely going to spend. Aiming too high costs nothing extra, but if you never reach the threshold you receive nothing.

⚠ Check that it is properly applied at the moment you confirm your account. It is shown at the top of the screen throughout the journey. A credit that was not applied cannot be claimed afterwards.

A word on wording. Google renames and reorganises this journey several times a year. If a button says Start on your screen and Get started now on an older screenshot, it is the same action. Trust the meaning rather than the exact word, because the order of the screens does not change.

This is the step where you need to hold out for 10 seconds, and everything else becomes simple.

Google does not offer to create an account, it offers to create a campaign. The whole journey is built for that. You are asked about your business, your website, what you sell, and you are walked towards a first advert.

Do not create it now. Look for the Skip button, often small and at the bottom of the screen, then confirm that you are leaving campaign creation.

Why this matters. A campaign created by that wizard starts with broad targeting and a budget you did not choose. It spends from day 1, with no measurement in place to tell you whether it works. Create the account first, the campaign afterwards, properly.

⚠ On some accounts, Google forces you through. If the Skip button appears nowhere, go to the end with a minimal budget, then pause the campaign immediately afterwards.

You arrive on the billing screen. Read it, because it is the only screen in the whole journey that really counts.

The time zone. It decides when your serving days start and end, and therefore your reports. An account set to the wrong time zone will produce shifted statistics forever.

The currency. It decides which currency you are billed in.

⚠ These 2 fields are permanent. The screen says so in small print, and almost nobody reads it. An account created in dollars by mistake cannot be corrected, you have to create another one and start again from scratch, history included.

The billing country matters too, because it decides which tax is applied. Google fills these in automatically based on where you are, and rarely gets it wrong, but check all 3 before you continue.

To check on screen BEFORE you click continue.

Billing country ........ United Kingdom
Time zone .............. (GMT+00:00) London
Currency ............... Pound sterling (GBP)
Welcome credit ......... shown at the top of the screen

Those first 3 fields can NEVER be changed afterwards.

This is a recent requirement. It is no longer possible to finish creating the account without saving a card. Google takes a small verification charge, the size of which varies by country, and refunds it within a few days.

You are not spending anything for all that. For as long as no campaign is active, your account does not use up a single penny.

How Google bills you afterwards. Either on the 1st of each month, or as soon as your balance reaches a certain threshold, whichever comes first. That threshold starts low then rises month after month, as Google sees that you pay. It is confusing at first, and it is perfectly normal.

The payment profile. You will be asked whether this is an organisation or an individual, along with the registered name and address. Make this information match your official documents, because that is what gets checked if there is ever a review.

The account exists. 3 things left to do, and the last one is the most important.

Link your business listing. This is what allows your adverts to appear in map results, when someone is looking for a local business near them. Without that link, that option is closed to you.

Link your audience measurement tool. It will tell you what visitors do after clicking. Without it, you will know how many clicks you paid for, without ever knowing what they produced.

Link your video channel if you have one, because its content can be used in several formats.

⚠ And turn on 2-Step Verification. This is the one action that protects your budget, and it takes 2 minutes from your Google Account security page. A well protected advertising account only ever spends for you.

Write down your customer ID, at the top of the screen, in the form 123-456-7890. That is the only piece of information you need to send us for what comes next.

You can now give us access, without ever sharing your password, see give access to your Google Ads account.