Creating a solid PPC campaign structure will support different areas of your account and generally improve your digital marketing performance. There’s no doubt that how you form your structure is one of the most crucial steps in PPC – but there are many ways you can do it. We’ve created this how-to guide to give you some top tips and help you create the best structure for your PPC campaigns.
What do we mean by account structure?
Simply setting up an account, creating an ad and picking some keywords will not be enough to generate real results for your business. Your account structure includes how you set out and optimise your PPC campaign – including keywords, ad copy and landing pages. The number of campaigns you manage will depend on various factors such as the services or products you offer, the location you are targeting and the platforms you use (display, shopping, etc).
Google Ads allows you to create multiple digital marketing campaigns which means you can set different budget caps, target geo-targeted locations and bid on relevant keywords. Each campaign you have will be managed separately and they will have their own budgets – so the more campaigns you have, the more you’ll be adjusting and optimising. Within a campaign, you will find separate ad groups – which target the keywords you want to trigger a particular PPC ad.
How do you know how to organise your campaigns?
How you organise your campaigns will depend on a few different things; we’ve listed your main points of consideration below:
- Location -If you are targeting more than one location with specific budgets – then you’ll benefit from having separate campaigns for each region. Individual campaigns can make it much easier to keep on track with reporting and optimisation.
- Your site – If you’re going to be using multiple landing pages for different purposes, it makes sense to create individual campaigns. One example of this could be a large company who is advertising various brands and products.
- Your objectives and reporting – The way you choose to structure your account can help with the reporting process because you’ll gain individual stats for specific purposes. So, you should organise your campaigns depending on how you want to track performance. This is especially useful if you have different goals for your ads/keywords.
What are the benefits of a well-formed structure?
Splitting your campaigns, bidding on the right keywords and creating suitable ad groups will improve your overall performance. We’ve listed some of these pros below:
- Budgeting and optimisation – As we mentioned earlier, segmenting your keywords into separate campaigns will give you greater budget control. This is beneficial as you will avoid using all your budget on one keyword type by having suitable budget caps. When it’s easier to control your budget – you will find that it’s also easier to track your performance and make the right adjustments. If you want to learn more about how different keyword types perform – you can read our blog on PPC keywords.
- Improved ad copy and quality score – When your keywords are separated – you’ll find it easier to write effective ad copy as it will be highly relevant to a search. When your keywords, ad copy and landing page are all directly linked – it is likely you will rank higher on SERP and improve your quality score, leading to lower click costs. It’s more likely you’ll produce high-quality ad copy if you are writing for a themed group of keywords.
- Clear and organised reporting – It makes sense that having individual campaigns will make reporting more straightforward. We mentioned that you’ll be able to create separate reports depending on your campaign. This is because you can group together your most important stats and compare the performance between different campaigns – i.e. brand and non-brand. Also, if you’re bidding on different keyword types, you can see how they perform differently – allowing you to make relevant budget changes.
Components of your account structure
- Ad groups – Each campaign will have its own relevant ad groups. There is no exact recommended number of ad groups to have – but we suggest not going too overboard, especially if you are running on a lower budget. Ad groups contain keywords, which will trigger your ads (2-3 per ad group), and then lead to your most relevant landing page.
- Keywords – Keywords are a crucial part of controlling when your ad is triggered. The most important step is figuring out how to reach out to the right customers. When someone searches on Google, their query is matched with a keyword and triggers the suitable ad. It’s essential to conduct thorough keyword research to make sure your ad is seen by the right users. Google provides helpful keyword tools to help turn your ideas into a plan. For example, Google Keyword Planner provides insight into volume and bidding costs. You can read more about our favourite keywords planning tools here. It’s also good to remember to use negative keywords which ensure you’re not wasting your budget on irrelevant searches.
- Landing page – Your landing page is just as important as your ad because it is the first page a user will see. It needs to be highly relevant to your keywords and your ad copy – to ensure that users do not click straight back to the search engine results page (SERP) and look elsewhere.
Our final top tips
- Keep thinking about your goals while structuring your account and separating campaigns.
- Split your campaigns depending on how you want to report different statistics, such as location, brand vs non-brand and your platforms.
- Manage your time effectively – multiple campaigns work well when you have enough time to keep track of them all.
- Name your campaigns to make it easier for you when it comes to adjusting.
- Keep tracking your budget and make suitable adjustments.
- Set up negative keywords to avoid overspending.
- Make sure your landing page is highly relevant to your ad.
If you have any questions about your campaign structure and how to get the most out of your PPC marketing – please get in touch.