Tools and Strategies for Optimizing Campaigns and Ad Groups

Tools and Strategies for Optimizing Campaigns and Ad Groups

There are a number of ways to configure your campaigns and the ad groups within them. Here are some common ways to structure an account:

•Products and services: A good rule of thumb for creating an effective campaign structure is to mirror your website's structure. For example, a sporting goods store's website will likely have different sections for each type of product: possibly separate sections for women's and men's clothing with individual pages for women's pants, women's socks, and so on.

 This advertiser might set up one campaign for women's clothing and have ad groups for pants, socks, and other products, then a similar campaign for men's clothing. By creating campaigns and ad groups around a specific theme or product, you can create keywords that directly relate to the ad text, and ads that link directly to that product's page in your website.

•Performance and budgeting: One of the most common reasons to create separate campaigns in your account is to set different daily budgets. You may decide to devote more budget to some of your best-selling or most profitable products. By identifying your top performing keywords and placing these in separate campaigns, you can ensure that these keywords have sufficient budget to achieve the best results. This will also allow you to use your budget more strategically, preventing any high-traffic keywords from using all of your daily budget. Separate ad groups may be created whenever you'd like to set different maximum CPCs for keywords that may be highly competitive or that convert less often.

•Themes or functions: A company that provides only one or a few products or services may still want to set up separate campaigns or ad groups when the same product or service can appeal to a variety of needs. For example, a catering company may want to run separate campaigns or ad groups for weddings, corporate events, and birthdays. This way, the keywords and ad text can be highly specific and directly relevant to what a customer will be looking for.

•Websites: All ads in an ad group have to promote the same website. For advertisers promoting multiple companies and websites, such as affiliates or agencies, each company or website should have its own account.

•Geographic location: If your business serves several areas, you might create a separate campaign for each. For example, local businesses such as furniture stores, real estate developers, or car dealerships might create a campaign for each area and then a different ad group for each city or metropolitan area they cover. Similarly, international companies might create campaigns that target each country individually. For multi-country accounts, each campaign should be localized to the local language and should emphasize that services are available in that country. If you run a promotion in one specific city, you might decide to create a campaign that targets that city only.

•Targeting: You might want to create separate campaigns focused on the Display Network and on search. A separate Display Network campaign allows you to use settings that are more effective for the Display Network than for search, such as different bidding methods.

•Brand Names: A website that sells a variety of brand-name products may find that branded keywords convert better than generic product descriptions. To test this, the advertiser may want to designate separate ad groups or even separate campaigns for each brand, depending on the variety of products under a given brand label. Please note that the accepted use of branded keywords is different from country to country (see the trademark policy to learn more).

•Seasonal products and services: Products that are affected by seasonality should be organized into their own campaigns or ad groups so that these can be paused and resumed according to the season. For example, a flower delivery shop may run different campaigns or ad groups for Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, graduation season, and so forth.

By structuring your account effectively, you'll have more flexibility in managing your keywords and ad text, controlling budgets, and setting strategic bids. If you think your account structure could use some changes, you may want to test different configurations until you feel that your account is manageable and helps you achieve your advertising goals.