First a disclaimer: I have just started working with Google Adwords. It’s been about a week. This blog is my way of:
- organizing my thoughts on how it works,
- highlighting areas I need to dig into deep,
- expose my understanding so that it can be corrected.
I have some good friends that are mentoring me through this process. So this blog is like a quiz.
Basic Organization
A Google Adword account is organized as following:
Account –> Campaign –> Ad Groups –> Ads
The Account contains one or more campaigns.
Each Campaign contains one or more ad groups.
Each Ad Group contains one or more ads and a list of keywords.
Why The Break Outs
Here’s my thoughts on why the break outs are the way they are.
Why would you have more than one account?
An account is tied to a funding source — i.e. a credit card (or yay, a Google Grant). If your company has different funding sources, it might be necessary to create multiple accounts. Or, if for accounting reasons you have established separate check books and general ledgers for divisions of the company — then you might need multiple accounts. Whatever you do about multiple accounts, bottom line each account will be treated totally separately by Google Adwords — so basically any discussion need only concern itself with a single account.
Why would you have more than one campaign in an account?
At the moment, I see the following reasons for breaking out campaigns:
- adjusting budget limits
- mirroring committee structure
- mirroring organizational missions
- targeting different locations/languages
Adjusting Budget Limits
If you select an Ad Group in the Google Adwords tool and click on the “Settings” tab, you will see the following: “This ad group uses the settings from campaign ‘xxxxxx’. The campaign settings include budget, location and language targeting, and other settings that apply to all ad groups in the campaign.”
This means that you cannot adjust budget between ad groups. All Ad Groups pull from a shared/common set budget. This budget is set at the Campaign level. That means you can budget 80% of your promotion funds targeting US English speaking folks, and set a budget of 20% of your promotion funds targeting US Spanish speaking folks. (In the campaign settings this is set as $$$ not %.
Mirroring Committee Structure
A committee is formed as a means of organizing effort and communication. The notion is that folks in a committee will work together on a common goal established for that committee. Yes it is possible for individuals to serve on more than one committee. It is even possible for the make up of every committee to be the same. Even so the reason for the committee structure is to help organize effort, time management, record keeping, and communication.
Because different committees will not necessarily be in communication with each other on day to day operations it is important that they use separate Google Adwords campaigns. This allows for discussion and modification of campaign/ads/key words with full inclusion of all interested parties.
Mirroring Organizational Missions
If you felt it was necessary to create multiple corporate missions (subdivide you main corporate mission statement into separate areas) then you would be well served to mirror that structure in your campaigns.
This will respect the needs of each mission AND it will make for simpler reporting in the future. Here, I am anticipating that day when you are asked to demonstrate what efforts you have been making to carry out each of the individual missions.
Targeting Different Locations/Languages
This level of organization is brought about by the mechanics of how Google Adwords handles language and location settings.
Why would you have more than one ad group in a campaign?
Keywords, keywords, keywords.
All ads within an ad group share the same set of keywords. This is the Holy Grail of breaking out ad groups.
When some mysterious unknown personage does a Google search, they are typing in a set of keywords into the search box. Google takes these keywords and executes a search.
Part of the processing of this search is to look around for advertisers that have said “Yo, Google, if anyone searches for the following keywords I would like you to place my ad on that page. In fact, I will even pay you money if they click on my ad.”
Google matches up these keywords and selects an ad from the ad group containing said keywords. That means that one of the ads found in the ad group is served. Exactly which ad is grabbed from the ad group is determined by three witches standing around stirring a big cauldron on a hillside in Mountain View — or, it might be a program algorithm that I don’t understand yet. In any case, the point is: one of the ads from the ad group is selected. That means that any ad in the ad group is possible.
If you are running a free client offering pet neutering, it is very easy to see how you may have wildly divergent sets of keywords. Some keywords would target individuals that already understand they should neuter their pet. But, some keywords might be directed toward individuals that love their pets and want to do what’s good for them.
It is easy to imagine different ad text related to these different sets of keywords. One ad might say: “Spay and Neuter Clinic…..” another ad might say: “Hear what Bob Barker has to say about happy pets…”
If a hypothetical pet owner was searching for “neuter my dog” they do not particularly want to hear a message from Bob Barker. They are ready now to neuter the dog and want a clinic NOW! So, if the Bob Barker ad was pulled from the ad group it would not be as effective in getting that all important click through. (That is why we advertise isn’t it?)
If a different hypothetical pet owner was searching for “what I need to know about my pet” they may respond very well to the Bob Barker ad. But, could easily find the “Spay and Neuter Clinic…” ad either confusing or off putting.
This situation is easily handled by creating two ad groups. One centered around each of the two types of keywords.
This should give some idea of why/how ad groups are actually defined by their keywords.
Why have more than one ad in an ad group?
Ideally one would run the one best-est, greatest, single most effective ad and stick with that. However, things do not stay the same. People respond differently on different days of the week. People respond differently in the morning versus the afternoon or evening. People’s taste and interest change over time through the impact of various media.
All of these considerations mean, you might need to one or all of the following:
- Enable different ads based on changing criteria
- Search for new working ads
- Test shifting taste