Susan's sporting goods sell a variety of sports equipment and clothing. How should Susan set up her AdWords account?

Setting up a well-structured AdWords (now called Google Ads) account is vital for running effective campaigns. Susan can follow these steps to create a structured account:

1. **Understand the Campaign Structure**: Before setting up the AdWords account, Susan must understand that accounts are set up in a hierarchical manner – at the top is the account, under which there are campaigns, and within each campaign, there are ad groups.

2. **Campaign Level**: - Susan should start by creating separate campaigns for different types of products or services. For instance, one campaign for sports equipment and another for sports clothing. - Campaigns can also be separated based on geographic location if she is targeting different areas or based on different marketing goals (brand awareness, sales, etc.).

3. **Ad Groups**: - Within each campaign, Susan should organize ad groups around specific products or categories. For example, in the sports equipment campaign, she might have ad groups for 'basketball equipment', 'running shoes', and 'gym accessories'. - Each ad group should contain a set of tightly related keywords and associated ads.

4. **Keywords**: - Research and select keywords that are specific to the products in each ad group. Susan can use tools like Google's Keyword Planner. - Use a mix of broad, phrase, exact match, and negative keywords to balance reach and relevance.

5. **Creating Ads**: - For each ad group, create compelling and relevant ads that include the keywords. - Make sure the ads align with the landing pages customers will reach after clicking the ads.

4. **Keywords**: - Research and select keywords that are specific to the products in each ad group. Susan can use tools like Google's Keyword Planner. - Use a mix of broad, phrase, exact match, and negative keywords to balance reach and relevance.

5. **Creating Ads**: - For each ad group, create compelling and relevant ads that include the keywords. - Make sure the ads align with the landing pages customers will reach after clicking the ads.

6. **Setting a Budget and Bids**: - Set a daily budget for each campaign to control spending. - Decide on bid strategies (manual or automated) for keywords based on marketing objectives.

7. **Landing Pages**: - Create or optimize landing pages for the ads to ensure a high-quality experience for the visitors, which can lead to better conversion rates. - Each ad group should lead to a landing page that is directly relevant to the ads and keywords in that group.

8. **Conversion Tracking**: - Set up conversion tracking to measure the success of the ads in terms of sales, sign-ups, or other desired actions by customers.

9. **Review and Optimization**: - After the campaigns are live, regularly review the performance of each campaign, ad group, and keyword. - Optimize the account by adjusting bids, adding negative keywords, refining ad texts, and pause underperforming elements.

10. **Compliance with AdWords Policies**: - Lastly, Susan should familiarize herself with AdWords policies to avoid any violations that might lead to ads being rejected or the account being suspended.

Extra: Google Ads (formerly AdWords) is Google's advertising platform, where advertisers bid to display brief advertisements, service offerings, product listings, or videos to web users. It can place ads both in the results of search engines like Google Search and on non-search websites, mobile apps, and videos. The effective use of Google Ads involves not just setting up the account but also ongoing management to ensure that the ad spend yields the desired marketing results. This includes A/B testing different ad copies and landing pages, refining keyword lists, and making bid adjustments. Using Google Analytics in conjunction with Google Ads provides insight into user behavior after clicking ads, which can further aid in the optimization process. Understanding customer acquisition costs and customer lifetime value is also crucial in setting appropriate budgets and measuring the return on investment for advertising.