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Google Ads · Foundations
Build a Search campaign from a written plan, ready to switch on, without spending anything.
What you’ll end up with
One finished draft Search campaign. Settings, locations, bidding and budget from a written plan; three ad groups with their keywords in the match types the research asks for and the negatives that keep the groups apart; a responsive search ad in each with the lines that break a limit or a policy replaced; sitelinks and callouts; an account-level negative keyword list; and the review page read back as a checklist before the draft is renamed for approval — in an account that holds no money and has nothing published.
10½
hours in all — about 7 guided, 3½ on your own
6
sessions. Each designed to be completed in one sitting
Free
No payment and no card required.
Finishing gives you a completion record showing the work you built, and all three levels earn the Alongrail Certificate in Google Ads. See what you’ll build →
You don’t need prior experience with Google Ads. There’s no payment and no card required.
From six raw files to a finished campaign
01100 min
The way in, and an account that cannot spend
You have a Google Ads account of your own, made without a campaign, with bank transfer as its way of paying and nothing transferred, you can read on its billing page that it holds no funds, and Redmoor's campaign is started from the plan and saved as a draft.
02100 min
Where, how much, and how bidding works
Redmoor's draft has its bidding set to clicks with a ceiling on each one, its networks narrowed to Google Search, the places it shows in and the one it keeps out, and its daily budget — every value from the plan, and you can say what each one decides.
03115 min
Ad groups and the words they show for
Redmoor's draft has three ad groups, one per service, each with its keywords typed in the match type the research asks for and the negative keywords that keep the groups apart — and you can say what the same words mean typed bare.
04115 min
Ads people can read
Each of Redmoor's ad groups has a responsive search ad built from the copy file — its address, its display path, its headlines and descriptions — with the line that broke the limit shortened and the line that broke the policy rewritten, and you have read what the software thinks of each ad.
05100 min
Saying no, and saying more
The account has a negative keyword list of the searches that are not customers, built outside any campaign, and Redmoor's draft has its sitelinks and callouts — and you can tell the two kinds of asset apart and the two kinds of negative.
0695 min
The review, and the hand-off
You have read Redmoor's draft back whole on the review page and fixed what it flagged, worked out what the daily budget could cost in a month by Google's own rule, renamed the draft for the owner's approval, and read that the account still cannot spend — and nothing has been published.
What you need before you start
A laptop or desktop
Sessions need a laptop or desktop. If you’re on your phone now, that’s fine. Enrol now and we’ll email you a link so you can pick up when you’re at a computer. Google Ads runs in the browser, on Windows or a Mac.
Chrome or Edge
Alongrail runs in the browser too, in its own tab beside Google Ads.
The course files
Everything you work with is in the download.
What’s free
The whole course: every session, both parts, the files, and your record. Alongrail charges nothing for it. No payment, and no card at any point.
The software
Free, no money spent. In India the account opens with bank transfer chosen as the way of paying and nothing transferred; every campaign is kept as the draft Google Ads saves by itself and is never published, and Google's own page says no ad runs until billing is in place and paid. In some countries Google may ask for a payment method first; the course stops there rather than add one. Keyword Planner, which needs billing, is not used; the keyword research is a file the course ships.
The data you’ll work with
Every file is invented — the companies, the people and everything in them are made up for the course.
Before you start
The course covers Google Ads, in your browser.
- A computer with a current browser, such as Chrome, Edge, Firefox or Safari, and an internet connection. Nothing is installed.
- A Google account that has never had a Google Ads account in it. A personal one is fine. Session one makes the Google Ads account inside it; you do not need one before you start. If signing in at ads.google.com lands you in a Google Ads account that already exists, stop and use the something's-wrong control: an existing account may have billing, and this course needs one that has none.
- The course's data download, unzipped. The session gives you the link when it starts. It unzips to two folders: redmoor, holding redmoor-plan.csv, redmoor-locations.csv, redmoor-ad-groups.csv, redmoor-search-terms.csv, redmoor-ad-copy.csv and redmoor-assets.csv, and saltmarsh, holding the same six for the second firm. Each folder also holds a start file for every session after the first, which you only need if you rerun a session.
- Free, no money spent — read this before you start. The account is made without a campaign, and no session asks you for a card, a bank account or a promotional code. Google does ask, before it opens the account, how the account will be paid: in India you create a payments profile with your own name and address, choose bank transfer, and transfer nothing — the account opens with bank transfer as its way of paying and no money in it, and no ad can run without funds. Every campaign you build is the draft Google Ads saves by itself, and this course never uses the control that publishes one, so nothing can spend either way. In some countries Google may ask for a payment method first, or not offer bank transfer; if it does, stop there, enter nothing, and tell the session so with the something's-wrong control.
- One tool this course does not use. Google's Keyword Planner opens only once billing is set up, so the keyword research arrives as a file — the same kind of list a colleague or an agency would hand over. The course says what the tool is for and why it waits for a later level.
- Who can see what. Nothing you build is visible to anybody but you: a draft campaign shows to no one, and the account has no ads running. Every business, address and figure in the course is invented, and every website address is on example.com.
- Alongrail is not affiliated with, endorsed by or connected to Google. Google Ads is named here as the software the course teaches, and nothing more.
Alongrail teaches the software and gives you a record of what you built, with a link to the work itself. What happens with it afterwards is yours. We don’t place people and we take no part in anyone’s recruitment process.
Enrol free and start now.
Sign in, confirm the one thing the course needs, and session 1 opens. No payment, and no card at any point.
If something goes wrong on the way, press “Something’s wrong” in the panel, or write to hello@alongrail.com — we reply within one working day.
Frequently asked questions
What you build
You can take a written plan for a small firm and build it into a Google Search campaign that an owner could read, approve and switch on — the places it shows, the budget and the bid ceiling, the ad groups and the exact words each shows for, the searches it refuses, the ads and their links — in an account of your own that holds no money, without publishing a thing.
One draft Search campaign in a Google Ads account that holds no money and has nothing published: settings, locations, bidding and budget from a written plan; three ad groups with their keywords typed in the match types the research asks for and the negatives that keep the groups apart; a responsive search ad in each with the lines that break a limit or a policy replaced; sitelinks and callouts; an account-level negative keyword list; and a review page read back as a checklist before the draft is renamed for approval. Four hundred and ten guided minutes on the first firm, then two hundred and fifteen independent minutes building the same thing from a brief for a second, in the same account.
How a session works
- Open Google Ads
- Share your screen
- One instruction
- You do it
- It confirms it
- Next
You open Google Ads and share your screen. Alongrail reads what’s there and gives you one instruction. You do it. It confirms the step landed, then gives you the next one. If something doesn’t match what you see, one button gets you back on track.
Guided
In the Fields list, tick Region. The chart fills in.
One field on the axis, one measure as the value.
then
On your owna different company’s data
Same job, a different company's files. Alongrail stays quiet until you ask.
Guided, then on your own.
The second part of every session uses a different company’s data, with the same kind of mess in different places. Alongrail stays quiet until you ask. It’s the work your record points to.
About 10½ hours in all·about 7 guided·about 3½ on your own
What you earn — the record, the certificate and a sample
Completion record
- Name
- Your name
- Course
- Google Ads Foundations — build a Search campaign that is ready to switch on, without spending anything
- Completed
- The date you finish
- Project
- The campaign you built on your own →
- Skills demonstrated
- Making a Google Ads account without a campaign, on bank transfer with nothing transferred, and reading on its billing page that it holds no money · Starting a Search campaign from a written plan and telling a draft from a published campaign · Setting a campaign's bid basis and bid ceiling, narrowing its networks, targeting and excluding places, and setting its daily budget · Building ad groups round one theme each, from a plan · Typing keywords in the match type the research asks for, and knowing what the same words mean typed bare · Adding negative keywords to an ad group, and building an account-level negative keyword list · Writing a responsive search ad from a copy file, shortening a line that breaks the limit and rewriting one that breaks the policy · Reading an ad's strength and knowing what moves it · Adding sitelinks and callouts, and telling the two apart · Reading a campaign's review page as a checklist, working out a daily budget's monthly ceiling by the rule, and handing a draft over for approval without publishing it
What was built
One draft Search campaign in a Google Ads account that holds no money and has nothing published: settings, locations, bidding and budget from a written plan; three ad groups with their keywords typed in the match types the research asks for and the negatives that keep the groups apart; a responsive search ad in each with the lines that break a limit or a policy replaced; sitelinks and callouts; an account-level negative keyword list; and a review page read back as a checklist before the draft is renamed for approval. Four hundred and ten guided minutes on the first firm, then two hundred and fifteen independent minutes building the same thing from a brief for a second, in the same account.
The 6 sessions, and when each was completed on their own
Each session was completed twice: once with step-by-step guidance on one company’s data, then on a second company’s data from a brief, with guidance only when asked. Every check passed on both. Alongrail records the sessions, the checks and the dates; the dashboard itself is the learner’s own, hosted where they chose.
A completion record for Google Ads Foundations, now. It names the course, the date you finished, the skills you demonstrated, and links the campaign you built on your own. It’s private until you publish it, and you can unpublish it at any time.
The record is a description of work you did, not a claim about you. Anyone who opens it can see the work for themselves.
The Alongrail Certificate in Google Ads when all three levels are complete. Foundations is the first of three. Practitioner and Professional are in development, with no dates. See the track →
How this relates to a certification — covers the core skills assessed in the planning and building sections of Google's own Google Ads Search Certification, which is free and is not a part of this course
Your screen stays yours
It looks when you ask. Never otherwise. Images of your screen are not stored. What Alongrail sees →
Nothing you build is public until you publish it. Your record is private until you say so, and you can unpublish it at any time.
What’s Google Ads?
Google Ads is the software this course is built in. It runs in your browser.
You won’t learn it by watching hours of tutorials. You’ll learn it by building something real with it.
Who you’re building it for
Redmoor Plumbing and Heating is two engineers and a van, based in Nottingham, covering the towns around it. Work comes by word of mouth and from a listing that has gone quiet.
The owner asked an agency what it would cost to advertise on Google Search and was quoted a set-up fee for the build alone, before any money went to Google. She would rather understand what she is buying.
A friend who does this for a living has written her a plan: what the campaign should be called, where it should show, what it should pay for a click and spend in a day, which services get an ad group, which searches each should show for and which it should refuse, and the words the ads should say.
The plan is on paper. Nothing has been built, no account exists, and the owner does not want a penny to move until she has read the finished thing and said yes.
A second firm, Saltmarsh Driving School in Norfolk, has the same plan in a different shape, and it is the one you build on your own.
Your job is to build the campaign that answers it.
Do I need to know Google Ads already?
No. The course assumes you’ve never opened it.
What if I get stuck?
Press the button in the panel and say what you see. Alongrail works out where you actually are and picks the instruction back up.
Why 10½ hours, when other courses are 40?
Because the time is spent doing the work rather than watching it. About 7 hours is guided; the rest is you building the same thing again on your own.
What does Alongrail see on my screen?
Only the window you choose to share, and only when you ask it to look. Images of your screen are not stored by Alongrail. What Alongrail sees →
Can I use a Mac?
Yes. Google Ads runs in the browser.
What if I miss a week?
Nothing closes. The dates are there to help you keep moving, not to catch you out.
Does this prepare me for a certification exam?
Covers the core skills assessed in the planning and building sections of Google's own Google Ads Search Certification, which is free and is not a part of this course. Alongrail is not an exam provider.
What’s the “on your own” part?
The second half of every session: the same work on a different company’s data, with Alongrail quiet unless you ask. Both parts are needed for your completion record.
Is it really free?
Yes. No payment, and no card at any point.
Who can see what I build?
Nobody, until you say so. Your record is private until you publish it, and you can unpublish it at any time. What you build stays in your own files or account; where a step publishes something to the software’s own site, the step says so and says who can see it.
Where this course sits
Google Ads Foundations is Foundations in Google Ads. The track has three levels; each one you complete earns its own record, and all of them together earn the Alongrail Certificate in Google Ads. All the courses →