Google Ads Campaign Structure Method: SKAGs

Structuring your account is one of the fundamental parts of any Google Ads campaign.

As with anything in life, there is no 'one size fits all' structure, and the more effort you put into structuring something, the easier it is retrospectively to break down and analyse.

Be Specific With Your Google Ads Campaigns

Getting granular with your Google Ads Campaigns is important for optimisation.

When creating your campaign, Google offers to fill your ad groups with hundreds of broad matched keywords. Resist the temptation to allow Google to autofill your ad groups with “relevant keywords”. The reason being that typically Google Ads campaigns follow the Pareto Principle. This being that 20% of your keywords will produce 80% of your conversions. The result is that the majority of these keyword suggestions will be either partially or not relevant at all.

The psychology of search engine users in 2018 is typically that Google or Bing will be right most of the time and if they don’t see the result they want on the first page, then it was an error on their part.

As a result, if someone types in “online real estate course”, they will expect to see search engine results showing online real estate courses.

If you have an Ad Group containing all of the keywords "real estate course", "real estate training", "real estate study", you can’t possibly create an ad that will be highly relevant to all of those queries. The result will be a lower click-through rate and the potential for a lower quality score. This quick and easy method will be detrimental to your campaign in the long run.

The reason being that quality score is determined by:

Click-through rate

Landing page experience

Ad relevance.

Therefore, 66% of your ads' Quality Score (ranking) in Google’s eyes is solely dependant on making your ad hyper-relevant.

The Solution

Create SKAGs - Single Keyword Ad Groups

You create each Ad Group with a single keyword in mind such as: 'Real Estate Course'. You then create three keyword types: Exact, Phrase and Broad Match Modified. What this enables you to do is put your keyword in the headline of your ad, the description and display URL. Not only will the user's eyes naturally gravitate to the words they just typed, but Google will also bold your keywords in the display URL’s and description of their ads. This is a massive advantage and your click-through rates will increase as a result of this.

What this enables you to do is get very precise information relating to keywords. Your Search Terms Report should show variations of your keyword. You will know exactly what keywords are and aren’t working without having to delve into Search Terms Reports.

Procedure:

Adgroup: Online Real Estate Course

Keywords:

+Online +Real +Estate +Course
“Online Real Estate Course”
[Online Real Estate Course]

Example of an Ad:

As you can see above, the keyword ‘real estate course’ is prominent in Headline 1, Display URL and in the description. Headline 2 is used as a call to action. It is not uncommon for SKAGs to drastically increase your CTR due to the hyper-relevance of the ad. Higher CTR over time and hyper ad relevance will result in a higher quality score over time.

SKAG's result in a cheaper Cost Per Click

Which for your converting keywords, will mean a lower cost per conversion.

As the campaign matures, you will need to curate your search queries. From here, keyword refinement will allow you to break out these SKAGs even further, getting even granular with your targeting.

With time, you will have identified your converting keywords and have them exact matched in their own campaign, however, that is for another tip.