Last week I discussed the importance of the structure of your adwords account and some tips on how to think about structuring your campaigns. You can go back and read last week’s article here. This week I am going to talk about the roll that adgroups play in the structure of an account.
Ad groups are simply containers for keywords, negative keywords, and ads. That is the simplest definition that I can come up with.
Ad groups are exclusively organisational units in an adwords account. This is because their purpose is defined by what they contain or by what they are in, rather than by what they are. Unlike campaigns they don’t have a lot of targeting settings and unlike keywords or ads they are are not a forward facing part of the account that interacts with queries or searchers.
However, there is great power in using ad groups effectively that will make your life easier.
Ad groups make you life easier in the same way that a garage organizer helps you get your home projects done faster. Ad groups are like little bins for related things. Just like how in your garage you might put all of the screwdrivers in one place, the wrenches in another, and all the yard tools in another. Ad groups provide the same organization. So, when your next weekend project comes up you know where the tools that you need are. When you have a PPC project you know where the keywords and ads that you need to work with are, because you organized your ad groups correctly.
There is no surefire plan for ad groups that works for every account. There are many factors that should impact how you set up your adgroups. These are things like: Budget, number of keywords, and the scope of the campaign. So, here are some tips, tricks, and rules of thumb that we here at Get Found First have used.
Ad group level negative keywords allow you to have full control over your keywords. Different keywords competing for the same search query is a common problem in Adwords accounts. Separating those keywords into different ad groups and then using ad group level negative keywords to prevent the competition is a good way to get peek performance out of your keywords.
Making your ad groups granular and focused can highlight problems that are hard to diagnose. This may sound counter-intuitive. Making a lot of ad groups sounds like a lot more work. However, this provides control over your keywords in a way that you won’t have if they are all lumped into just a few ad groups.
It is okay to have ad groups with only one keyword. That can be a very effective way to manage important keywords.
Next week I will be writing about keywords and the roll that they play in determining account structure for your adwords account.
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