An AI agent builds your whole search campaign by prompt — scaffold, ad group, keywords, responsive search ad, assets, targeting — each write landing in seconds, in one fixed order, then a review in the Google Ads UI and one final approved click that enables it. Every step below is a prompt you can paste. You stay in control the whole way: until the last step, nothing can spend a cent, because everything is built paused.
This walkthrough is for a standard search campaign through an AI agent with real write tools — the hosted MCP connector setup. Performance Max has a different build with asset groups: that walkthrough is here.
Write the brief before the first prompt
The agent builds exactly what you specify, so five minutes on the brief saves the session. You need six decisions:
- Offer and landing page — one URL the whole ad group points at
- Theme — the keyword cluster (one theme per ad group)
- Daily budget — a number you would defend
- Bidding — manual CPC or maximise conversions at launch; target CPA only if the account has conversion history to feed it
- Geography and hours — where and when it should serve
- Name — following whatever convention your account uses
One thing to decide now rather than later: bidding strategy is set when the campaign is created. The connector can switch it afterwards, as a proposed write like any other, but a switch resets the learning the campaign has done — so treat the launch choice as the one you live with for the first few weeks.
Step 1 — create the campaign, paused
In account <account>, create a search campaign:
- name: "Search - <theme> - <month>"
- daily budget: $20
- bidding: manual CPC
- status: paused — do not enable at any point in this build
Confirm the campaign ID when done.
Your client shows the campaign-creation call for approval — name, budget in micros, bidding, status PAUSED. Approve it. Paused is the default for campaigns created through the connector, but stating it in the prompt makes the constraint part of the instruction, not just the plumbing. This is the approval loop working at its lowest-stakes setting: approving the creation of something inert.
Step 2 — ad group and keywords
In that campaign, create an ad group "<theme>" with a default CPC bid of
$0.50. Then add these keywords in phrase match:
<paste 8–15 keywords>
If any of them would overlap or compete with each other, tell me before
adding.
Two approvals: the ad group, then the keywords, listing every keyword and match type. Phrase match is the sensible launch default — broad enough to gather search-term data, tight enough that week one is not a junk harvest. Start one theme, one ad group; add the second theme as its own ad group only after this one is fully built.
Step 3 — the responsive search ad, copy first
Draft a responsive search ad for ad group "<theme>", landing on <URL>.
- 12 headlines, each under 30 characters
- 4 descriptions, each under 90 characters
- Value proposition: <two sentences on the offer and the differentiator>
- Include the theme keyword in at least 3 headlines, and at least one
headline with a concrete number or a question.
Show me the copy in the chat for edits. Do not create the ad until I say
the copy is final.
The agent returns the set in the conversation; this is where the session's real time goes. Cut the weak headlines, fix the claims, then say "copy is final — create it". One ad-creation approval later, the ad exists in the paused campaign. Drafting in chat before the tool call is habit three from the prompt guidelines: evidence — here, the copy itself — before action.
Step 4 — sitelinks and callouts
Add assets to campaign "Search - <theme> - <month>":
- 4 sitelinks: <page 1>, <page 2>, <page 3>, <page 4>
- 6 callouts drawn from: <paste bullet list of proof points>
Draft all text for my review first, then create and link them on my
approval.
Assets are created and then linked to the campaign, so expect a short chain of approvals. Ads with a full set of assets occupy more of the results page at no extra cost per click — this is the cheapest win in the build.
Step 5 — geography and hours
On the same campaign:
- geo target: <cities/regions>
- exclude: <any places inside those to leave out>
- ad schedule: Monday–Saturday 9:00–21:00, off Sunday
Restate both in plain words before applying.
Two approvals — geo targets, then ad schedule — and the restatement catches the classic error class: right idea, wrong entity. The connector adds location targets and location exclusions, so name any place the brief rules out in the same prompt. Skipping this step means the account defaults decide where and when your budget serves, which is how launch-day money ends up in places the brief never mentioned.
Step 6 — review the draft where you can see everything
Open the campaign in the Google Ads UI and walk it like a reviewer, not a builder:
- Budget and bidding match the brief
- Keywords: right match type, no duplicates, nothing embarrassing
- RSA preview reads properly — combinations, not just individual lines
- Sitelinks resolve to the right pages
- Geo and schedule are what you approved
- Status column: everything paused
Ask the agent for a self-check too — Summarise everything you created in this build, with IDs and settings — and diff its answer against what you
see. The UI review catches what approval prompts cannot: the gestalt of
a campaign, how the pieces read together.
Step 7 — enable it
Everything checks out. Enable campaign "Search - <theme> - <month>".
One status-change approval — the only spend-affecting click in the entire build. From this moment the campaign serves.
Then close the loop over the first days:
It's been 48 hours. Show search terms, spend and impressions by keyword
for the new campaign. Anything junk already matching? Propose negatives
if so.
The first search-term sweep on a new campaign nearly always finds something worth blocking, and blocking it in week one — rather than at month end — is the difference between a launch that tightens and one that drifts. From here the campaign joins your weekly routine like everything else in the account.
The fastest way to try the whole sequence: Start free, connect your account, and run Step 1 with a small budget. Twenty minutes later you will have a complete draft campaign to judge — built by prompt, reviewed by you, and spending nothing until you say so.