With the advent of automation and all new formats, Google Ads has evolved a lot and has become simpler. Creating an account structure that suits your business becomes essential to avoid falling into the trap of any one campaignLimiting sight on the details of its performance and therefore without potential optimization…
In this article, we give you advice that will help you formulate your thoughts as well as some answers on your account structure and best practices to make the most of this essential SEA leverage.
Understand the different levels of Google Ads
The Google Ads advertising platform is divided into 4 main tiers:
- admin account : It allows grouping of multiple accounts at the same time, formerly called multiaccount center (CM or MCC);
- advertising account : This is where we can find your employees’ billing information and access levels;
- Rural areas :They allow you to define on which network you want to broadcast (search, display, purchase..) and with what purpose (traffic, sales, store visits..). They are like the backbone of the account;
- ad group : The last level where ads, extensions, and keywords are located.
Structure your account according to your challenges, not the organization of your website,
1 – Distinguish the brand
The question of whether to buy or not to buy your brand often comes up among advertisers. Buying it allows you to appear at the top of the search engine results page when your SEO results appear below the paid ads shown by your competitors.
If you decide to buy your brand name, it is imperative to differentiate it from the rest of the purchased keywords And so to create separate campaigns. There are 2 main reasons for this:
- For Identify and differentiate those who already know you and to be able to read these displays clearly;
- For optimize its handling and maximize the portion of the voice, Keeping costs as low as possible.
So the most common solution is to create a campaign to differentiate the “pure” brand. This campaign will target the query containing your brand name only. You’ll then need to create two ad groups for the different types of matches:
- one for”accuratewhich aims to maximize the share of the voice;
- one forexact phrase“To identify and capture the most consistent combinations of your brand.
Based on your activity, it’s also possible to create a second buy campaign link between your brand and the search term, for example:
- Your brand + the name of a city;
- Your brand + a product.
Worth noting: Don’t forget to exclude all keywords related to your brand from other campaigns!
2 – Have a business approach in the segmentation of non-branded campaigns (search and purchase)
off-brand search campaigns
There are as many ways to structure your account as there are companies. The most important thing is to adapt it to your business objectives. In fact, following the architecture of your site is not always the best solution.
An effective method for off-brand search is: Create campaigns based on your preferences, For example, if you’re looking for return on investment, you may very well divide your offers in order of profit. Because of which By managing your campaigns to target ROAS, you will be able to achieve growth while controlling spending on these products and monitoring the ROI of these campaigns.
In order to be able to more easily manage and analyze your off-brand campaigns, we recommend you to create different ad groups according to the type of your keyword (accurate and precise expression).,
Some account structure methods like Hagakure Method Recommend extensive use of DSA (Dynamic Search Ads) to save time.
DSAs are dynamic campaigns or groups of ads intended to allow Google itself to search your site for keywords that seem relevant to it. So DSA will automatically process all requests that are not addressed in classic campaigns. Practical, because being quick to set up, they will allow you to promote pages on your site that have little added value.
You have to be careful not to abuse them, as they can quickly cost a lot of budget. DSAs can also create overlap with other operations, and if not monitored closely. This is the type of campaign that can quickly become a “black box”.
Prefer using this type of targeting at the campaign level rather than the ad group level to make it easier to read and manage, Remember to exclude previously targeted keywords and search terms brand and non-brand from this campaign or this group of ads.
Google Shopping Campaigns
Like off-brand search, there are different ways to structure shopping campaigns. However, it is recommended that Split your inventory into multiple campaigns to be able to analyze and manage them more efficiently.
If you use Classic ShoppingOne way is to segment your products into different campaigns based on their performance. For example, create a first campaign that groups your top products (high volume, high margin). This will guarantee good performance which should be maximized. and a second campaign that will address other products identified as priorities for the brand. Be careful to exclude products from the first campaign from the second. This method makes it possible to have the same indicators, but a differentiated management between your top campaigns and secondary campaigns.
If you use Smart Shopping, the arrival of PMX makes Merchant Center even more strategic to your advertising account. You should question your existing structure and integrate your flow segmentation into your thinking, always with a single goal: your business objectives and not necessarily the typology of your products.
Be careful, as these “smart” campaigns are broadcast not only on the Shopping Network, but on all Google networks (Display, YouTube, Gmail, etc.) and although they are easy to set up, they are very “black box”. remain. They probably also use remarketing and do not allow in-depth analysis.
3- Change your account structure
A structure is likely to evolve along with your offer, according to the observed performance and the new functionalities that Google offers., When you want to change your structure, you must do it in a systematic way where everything has to be thought out and predictable. In the case of Account Architecture, Test and Learn and A/B Test are the sole judges of the peace to make decisions.
Your structure should also evolve according to the KPIs you want to follow, but also the offline data you have (profitability, all-channel performance, etc.)
As you must have understood, your account structure needs to be adapted to your objectives and new developments are constantly evolving and never ending. You should always think about objectives before thinking structure.,
About the Author
An expert in search and buying, Simon Laureate is the Media and SEA Consultant at Convertio. He joined the firm in 2021 where he supports advertisers in the strategy and optimization of their campaigns.