Blog
May 14, 2020
“We will focus on this ad group in our next campaign.” Do these words sound familiar? For many of us, these terms are thrown around without knowing the definition. A common question asked to Channable is how do I structure my account? This article will break down ad account terms and structure, explaining what each means and how they function. So you can make the best decision in any situation.
Ads account hierarchy is always the same for order and influence. Therefore, whatever level is above influences the level below e.g. what’s in the campaign level influences the ad groups. Ranking the hierarchy of an ad account’s structure is as follows:
Now that we have visualized an ads account structure, let's breakdown the structure of campaigns and ad groups further.
Your account’s campaigns are comprised of one or more ad groups. An ad group contains one or more ads, which share a set target of keywords and bids. The biggest difference is that ad groups are one level lower than campaigns in the account hierarchy. Campaigns then directly control the goal and budget, while Ad groups oversee the bids/CPC, audience/targeting, placement, and delivery options chosen to capture the audience.
First, you need to create a definition for the campaigns in your account. Most companies want to start with a search campaign, so let us use that as an example. Search campaigns can potentially create the most awareness, but display campaigns are also widely used or maybe a call-only campaign creates the business you need. Whatever you choose, the goal is to be found on all relevant searches directing them to your website and converting them to a sale/customer.
All campaigns are created with a goal, to sell something, increase brand awareness, etc. The campaign sets the budget, location, and targeting of that goal, so you can focus and get the results that you want. Other settings that are affected under the campaign hierarchy are the set of ad groups, ads, keywords, and bids to reach your goal.
Your account can have one or multiple campaigns running at the same time. For instance, you can create separate ad campaigns to run similar ads but in multiple locations using different budgets.
Tip
Once a strategy and a goal are chosen for your campaign, it is time to think about the settings:
- Target location
- Target language
- Budget
- Bid strategy - automatic (AI learning) or manual
Ad groups may contain one or more ads that have a similar target. It is up to you on how to organize an account, but often within ad groups, a separate ad is defined and created by the different types of services or products that are offered.
Ad groups contain and control the following functions:
How big should my ad group be?
There is, of course, no set limit but a few guidelines are:
At this level you have your actual ad, targeting potential customers with your chosen keywords.
As a company that functions in five languages, Channable knows the importance of search volume and choosing the right keywords. Make sure you use research to confirm the keywords you are choosing have search volume!
At this level, the information/keywords provided are connected directly to your product data feed. Target potential clients by using keywords with intent. In general, broad terms have low intent, e.g. sport shoes, and do not have a high click-through rate. Focused and specific words, also called long-tail keywords, usually have higher intent because the buyer knows more about what they want, e.g. Nike air max 270.
This may be preaching to the choir, but (search types) or match types are the ways keywords and phrases can be configured to match up to searches on your campaigns. There are four query match types recognized by Google and Microsoft Advertising:
A little side note, Google has begun restructuring what it considers an exact match. This now means that word order and function words like “the”, “for”, and “to” will be ignored. Along with plurals and close variants of the chosen word.
What does this change mean to your account strategy?
Google’s exact match modifications have meant that modified broad match has become the most popular choice for most campaigns. This is because it is strict enough to stay relevant, yet still offers enough flexibility to catch interested buyers.
If choosing this strategy it is useful to create 2-3 long-tail keywords and try to avoid single-term keywords. That being said, your campaign goals are always your own and a different strategy might yield better results to meet your needs.
Let’s talk about bids and choosing a max CPC (cost per click), starting with your quality score. Your quality score is made up of keywords, landing page quality, and relevant content. Keywords along with your max CPC help determine your ad rank. More specifically, your maximum CPC bid multiplied by your quality score helps determine your position and therefore, cost per click, bringing everything together.
There are two options when choosing your bidding strategy: manual or automatic.
With all this information you should be ready to tackle optimizing your ads account structure and getting those ads rolling. If handling all these campaigns and ad groups now sounds like a daunting task, there are data feed management and PPC tools to help manage your workflow. Channable is a tool that can combine your data feed directly to your text ads. Making automation and campaign management easy.