PPC Money-Waster #3: Single Ad Group
What’s an Ad Group?
Put simply, an ad group is a collection of closely related keywords.
Why do we have ad groups?
Creating an individual ad group for each theme of keyword allows us to create ads that are highly relevant to the user’s search query. The more relevant your ad is to the user’s search query, the higher your clickthrough rate (percentage of the time your ad is clicked on) is. The higher your clickthrough rate is, the higher your Quality Score is. Check out our in-depth post on Quality Score. The higher your Quality Score is, ultimately, the lower your average cost per click is.
So to connect that all… A well-organized AdWords account with specific, granular ad groups results in an efficient account that minimizes your advertising costs.
The Problem
The problem with a single ad group is that you have a single ad (or single set of ads) that is served to your audience. This tends to be a rather generic ad, which for most businesses, can’t speak directly to every user’s individual search query.
The Solution
In short… Create multiple ad groups for different products/services. The ad that appears to the user should be relevant to what they’re searching for. You ideally want to be able to incorporate the keywords for which the user is searching into your ad copy. There are no hard & fast rules as to how to organize your account because it really does depend on the size of your account, and the type of business that you have. A quick example would be for a landscaper who also does snow removal. If a user is doing a search for snow removal, you don’t want an ad showing up about landscaping. Even lawn maintenance and landscaping, although they’re similar, ultimately describe different services, so they should be in their own separate ad groups.
Ultimately, proper account organization (and ongoing optimization of an account’s structure) is a topic all on its own. But as I mentioned, these blog posts are designed to help avoid some egregious paid search mistakes.
Next up… The Display Network
