After setting your bid strategy, you'll move into Campaign Settings. This is where you define where your ads appear, who sees them, and how Google targets your audience.

Let's walk through each section.

Network Settings 

Google will ask where you want your ads to show. You'll see two options—and both will be checked by default:

• Search Network (Include Google search partners)

• Display Network (Include Google Display Network)

Search Network – Google Search Partners

When this is checked, your ads can appear on other search engines and websites that partner with Google—like Yahoo, AOL, and various smaller search sites. The problem is you have very little visibility into which partner sites are showing your ads, and traffic quality from these sources is often lower than Google Search itself.

Our recommendation: Uncheck this. Keep your ads running on Google Search only.

Display Network

The Display Network places your ads on third-party websites—news sites, blogs, apps, and more. These are banner-style ads people see while browsing, not actively searching for a contractor. Click-through rates are lower, and leads are typically much colder.

Our recommendation: Uncheck this too. If you want to test Display later, run it as a separate campaign.

Contractor tip: Google checks both options by default because it expands their ad inventory—and your spend. For a new campaign, you want maximum control. Stick to Google Search only and experiment with these later once you're seeing consistent results.

Locations

This is where you define your service area—and it's one of the most important settings for contractors.

You can target by:

• City or town

• County or region

• Zip codes

• A radius around a specific address

Choose the option that best matches where you actually work. If you only serve a 30-mile radius around your shop, don't target the entire state.

Important setting: Click into "Location options" and change the targeting to "Presence: People in or regularly in your targeted locations."

The default—"Presence or interest"—shows your ads to people who are interested in your area but might not actually be there. That means you could pay for clicks from people three states away who were just researching your city. Not helpful when you need local jobs.

Languages

Set this to English—or add Spanish if you serve bilingual markets.

This setting tells Google to show your ads to users whose browser or Google account is set to that language. For most contractors, English is all you need.

Audiences

You can add audience segments to your campaign based on interests, demographics, or behaviors. Google offers options like "Homeowners," "Home improvement enthusiasts," and similar categories.

For Search campaigns, set these to Observation mode—not Targeting.

Here's the difference:

• Targeting = Your ads only show to people in that audience segment (limits your reach)

• Observation = Your ads show to everyone, but you can see how specific audiences perform (no limits)

Observation mode lets you gather data on which audiences convert best without cutting off potential leads. You can always tighten targeting later once you know what's working.

Ad Rotation 

Below Audience segments, you'll see Ad rotation settings. This tells Google how to handle multiple ads within an ad group.

The default—Optimize: Prefer best performing ads—lets Google prioritize ads getting the most clicks and conversions. Over time, your best-performing ads get shown more often.

There are reasons to choose "Do not optimize" and rotate ads evenly—like when you're running a controlled A/B test and want equal exposure across variations. But for contractors launching a new campaign, the default setting works well. Let Google do the heavy lifting while you focus on getting leads.

Ad Scheduling & Day Parting

Also under "More Settings," you'll find options to control when your ads run.

Start and End Dates

You can set a start date and an optional end date for your campaign. If you don't set an end date, your ads will run continuously until you pause them manually.

For most contractors, leave the end date blank. You want a steady flow of leads, not a one-time burst. The exception would be seasonal promotions or limited-time offers where you want the campaign to stop automatically.

Ad Schedule

Ad scheduling (also called day parting) lets you choose specific days and times for your ads to run.

This matters for contractors. If you can't return calls quickly after hours, consider running ads only during business hours. A lead that calls at 9 PM and doesn't get a callback often moves on to the next contractor by morning.

On the other hand, if you have someone answering calls or a system to capture after-hours leads, running ads around the clock can work in your favor—less competition at night often means cheaper clicks.

Contractor tip: Be honest with yourself about your response time. If leads sit untouched until the next morning, tighten your schedule and save your budget for hours when you can pick up the phone.

A Note on AI Max and Keyword & Asset Generation

As you go through the setup, you'll notice sections for AI Max and Keyword and asset generation. These are newer features where Google uses AI to automatically generate keywords, headlines, and other assets for your campaign.

Our recommendation: Skip these for now.

If you're a contractor setting up your first campaign, you want full control over your keywords and ad copy. Letting Google auto-generate these can lead to irrelevant traffic and messaging that doesn't match your services.

Once you're more comfortable with Google Ads and have conversion data to work with, you can experiment with these features. But for now, keep things manual so you know exactly what's running and why.