How to activate a coupon in Google Adwords?

Hi, everyone. Today I decided to write a guide to activating Google AdWords promo codes. To be honest, I took these screenshots quite a while ago. While cleaning up my desktop, I came across them, so it was time to write the post and publish it.

I tried to illustrate every step so you can look at the screenshots and understand what to do. It should also make it clear where to go and what to click. So far, I’ve helped activate several dozen coupons for my clients, friends, and myself, of course.

When I first ran into this, everything was confusing and unclear. Everyone had their own version, and some people warned that a coupon might not be activated (which is actually true—I’ll explain below). Worst of all, this information was presented as walls of text or scattered across forums, where you had to sift through a pile of junk to find what you needed.

That’s why I decided to write a simple, clear guide to activating Google coupons, so you can share it with your friends and clients.

Guide contents:

1. What a Google Adwords coupon looks like
2. Where can I get a coupon?
3. What should I know before activating a Google coupon?
4. Activating a Google Adwords coupon

What does a Google Adwords coupon look like?

A few years ago, many webmasters working with Google Adsense received a letter by mail containing free promo codes for Adwords.

Example of a 600 UAH coupon:

Do you remember letters like these? Everyone I knew received coupons back then, although the denominations were smaller.

A 1400 RUB coupon:

And, of course, don’t forget about digital coupons, which you can buy from people on forums or win in promotions. For example, hosting companies often run promotions: pay for a year of hosting and receive an Adwords coupon as a gift. It looks like an ordinary voucher for topping up a mobile account, for example:

V2AS-ILEN-KODO-TINF-O53

The letters shown in the photos above also contain this type of code. If you enter it in your Adwords account and complete a few steps, it will be activated successfully and the funds will be added to your account.

By the way, here’s an interesting fact that few people know:

Interesting fact! Coupons are available not only for Google Adwords, but also for Yandex.Direct, Mail.ru Targeting, and even FaceBook.

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Where can I get a coupon?

As I mentioned above, hosting companies often run promotions and give coupons away when you pay for their services. Other companies run promotions too. For example, I received coupons for buying articles for a certain amount and webmoney for renewing domains. I recommend checking the services you already use and looking for their promotions and special offers.

If there’s nothing available, or if you need to pay 3000 RUB for a year of hosting to get a 2000 RUB promo code, which isn’t cost-effective, I recommend checking SEO forums. Coupons are always being given away there. Pay close attention to buyer reviews and read the reviews on the last page so you don’t get scammed. At the time of writing, it’s summer, which means many students are running online scams. For example, I was scammed out of a website a few weeks ago, but that’s a topic for another post...

You can also buy a promo code from specialized coupon-selling websites. But read the reviews carefully there too, so you don’t get scammed. I won’t publish links to any specific services here because I don’t want to vouch for anyone.

Sometimes you can get coupons completely free—for example, when they have only 20 days left and you can’t use them, it’s better to pass them on to someone who can. I’ve given away coupons on Searchengines.ru without any problem, and I’ve seen other threads where people give them away for free. You might get lucky and pick one up for nothing 😉

As a last resort, if you need coupons but can’t find any or aren’t sure about a seller’s reputation, write to me and I’ll try to help and advise you on where it’s best to buy them today.

To sum up:

- Promotions and special offers from various services
- Searching SEO forums
- Specialized websites
- Getting one for free by monitoring forum threads.
- As a last resort, write to me.

What should I know before activating a Google coupon?

There are several things to pay attention to so you don’t run into problems later.

1. Your Google Adwords account must be no more than 14 days old. The ideal option is a new, clean account with no history.

2. To activate a coupon, you must first spend:

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In other words, the coupon won't be credited until you spend, for example, 200 UAH. And that's fair: you spend 200 UAH on advertising, and then Google gives you another 600 UAH as a gift. This is how Google filters out freeloaders who would use the same coupons multiple times.

I recommend paying in a little extra just in case. For example, if you need to make a payment of 200 UAH, pay 220 right away so the commission doesn't eat into it—and you'll feel more at ease.

3. Coupon I recommend activating it within the first few days, immediately after depositing the minimum activation amount. Here's what to do: register a new account, make the minimum payment (depending on the currency: RUB/UAH/usd), and enter the promo code as soon as the amount is credited to the account.

You have a total of 14 days, but if you delay activation, the promo code may not activate, as I mentioned above. That's why I recommend not dragging your feet and doing everything as soon as possible.

4. The minimum payment you need to deposit into the account must be spent within 30 days. Otherwise, the promo code won't be credited to the account. I also recommend not waiting until the last minute and spending the balance as soon as possible.

You can do this by increasing bids for keywords or adding more keywords. If you're very thrifty and can't spend the minimum payment, contact me, and I'll help optimize the campaign.

It would also be interesting for me to meet someone like that, since people's budgets are usually spent very quickly 😉

5. If you've done everything correctly, 1 RUB / 1 UAH will be credited to your balance. Only after the minimum payment has been spent, Attention the coupon will be activated within 3–10 days; sometimes it can take longer.

In other words, don't expect 2000 RUB or 600 UAH to appear in your balance right away! Log in to your account once a day and monitor the balance.

6. You can activate the promo code only once per account. If you opened a second account using the same payment details (or for the same website you're promoting) and repeated the entire coupon activation process, the account will most likely be banned, with no refund.

Use your head if you need to use more than one coupon! Or consult more experienced people!

Let's sum up:

- The Adwords account must be new!
- You need to make the minimum payment; the amount varies by country.
- Enter the promo code immediately after the minimum payment is credited.
- The minimum payment must be spent within 30 days, preferably sooner.
- If you've done everything correctly, 1 RUB / 1 UAH. will be credited to your balance.
- You can activate the coupon only ONCE per payment details and/or promoted website.
- If anything is unclear or you have questions, write to me.

Activate Google Adwords coupon

Now that you know the basics, we can move on to the most important part.

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1. Enter payment details:

Attach the card and look for the coupon code field at the bottom, but ignore it for now and leave it blank.

2. Enter the minimum payment amount and pay the invoice by card (clickable):

The funds will not appear in the account immediately. It usually takes several hours, although there have been cases when the funds took a day to arrive.

3. Once the funds have been credited to the account, go to the "Payment details settings" page and enter the promo code:

Then click the "Redeem".

4. If everything was done correctly, you should see the following message:

Next, go to the payment summary:

You should see that an service adjustment has been made, and in the Payments/credits column, you should see 1.00. This means that the coupon has been activated, and you now need to spend 200 UAH (the minimum payment) before the 600 UAH coupon credit is added to the balance.

Note that I did not activate the coupon on the first day. I activated it a few days later, after running the ads for a while.

5. After you have spent the minimum payment on advertising, the coupon should be credited to your balance:

As you can see, I activated it on the 17th, and the funds were credited to the main account on the 4th.

That's it! Add this page to your bookmarks and share it on social networks. Sooner or later, you will find it useful.

Thanks for your attention!