The way you set up your PPC campaigns is crucial because it acts as the backbone of your account, supporting its overall performance. Your PPC account structure, including campaigns, ad groups, keywords, and ad copy, plays a vital role in how well your advertising efforts succeed. While there are numerous ways to structure your account, it’s essential to follow specific criteria during the creation process.

What is PPC Account Structure?

A well-organized PPC account is your secret weapon for maximizing campaign success. Here’s how:

• Targeting the Right Audience: Group keywords and ads with a common theme, ensuring your ads reach genuinely interested people.
• Optimizing Bids and Performance: Track campaign and ad group performance to identify high-performing keywords and adjust bids strategically. This ensures you spend efficiently for each click.
• Measuring Results: Track conversions to understand your PPC campaign’s success and identify areas for improvement.

Imagine your PPC account as a pyramid with four key levels, each influencing your budget and ad performance:

• Campaign level. Each campaign should have its own budget and bidding strategy, serving as the highest level of organization in PPC account structuring.
• Ad group level. Ad groups are the next level of organization, containing closely related keywords and ads.
• Keyword level. Keywords trigger your ads to be shown and should have their own match type and bid.
• Ad level. Ads should be relevant to the triggered keywords and the landing page they lead to.

The number of campaigns you create depends on your offerings, platforms, targeted locations, and time constraints. More campaigns require more management, so finding the right balance is crucial.

How to Structure Your PPC Account

Creating a PPC account structure that is future-proof is crucial for any e-commerce business. This process is built upon seven core pillars that lay the foundation for a strong and adaptable structure. On the very top level, remember to do the following.

• To effectively organize a branded PPC campaign, it is important to create a separate campaign solely for your brand keywords. This guarantees that searches related to your brand name will trigger a distinct set of ads, enabling you to customize the messaging and budget allocation exclusively for branded searches.
• Arrange non-brand campaigns according to the stages of the sales funnel, the type of conversion action, the type of product or service, and other relevant factors that align with your objectives.
• Employ consistent and clear naming conventions for campaigns and ad groups to ensure easy management both now and in the future.

But there’s more. Let’s take a closer look at each component.

Budget Allocation

Properly allocating your budget is crucial for optimizing ad spend and achieving desired results. Follow these tips. 

• Evaluate campaign performance and strategically allocate budgets based on historical data and campaign objectives. 
• Segment keywords into themed groups to get better control over budget allocation. This prevents overspending on high-volume keywords and ensures a more balanced distribution.
• If there are multiple locations you wish to focus on, dividing your campaigns by region may prove advantageous. If you have specific budgets for different regions, breaking campaigns by region simplifies reporting. 
• When working with a limited budget, it may be necessary to focus on long-tail broad-match keywords, as they tend to result in lower cost per click. 
• It can be difficult to manage multiple ad groups using manual bidding, especially when there is not enough data available to accurately estimate bids. In such cases, a more effective strategy for structuring your PPC account would be to have a few main ad groups within a single campaign that utilizes one of Google’s automatic bidding strategies, which are driven by their machine learning technology.
• Set budgets at the campaign level, considering shared budgets if applicable. Estimate budgets using tools like the Keyword Planner in Microsoft Advertising and Google Ads, providing insights into potential click volume and CPC for selected keywords.
• Also, if your website has specific landing pages for different brands, organizing campaigns by brand name can be beneficial. 
• Additionally, it might be necessary to limit the number of campaigns created in order to avoid stretching the budget too thin.

Keyword Strategy and Negative Keywords

Coming up with an effective keyword strategy and implementing negative keywords the right way can help you refine targeting, ensuring that your ads do not appear for irrelevant searches or uninterested users. 

• Organize your keywords into tightly themed groups. Consider match types and maintain consistency in naming ad groups and campaigns for easy data retrieval. For instance, if you own a bakery, you might have separate ad groups for wedding cakes and birthday cakes, ensuring tailored ads for each.
• Regularly review search term reports and audience insights to identify and add negative keywords and audiences that improve campaign relevance.
• To make sure that all traffic related to your brand goes through your brand campaign, it is important to include your brand keywords as negative keywords in your non-brand campaigns.

Ad Copy Optimization

It is crucial to know your target audience when creating effective advertising campaigns. By identifying different audience segments, you can tailor your ad copy to resonate with their unique preferences, needs, and behaviors. This customization enhances the relevance of your ads and increases the likelihood of capturing the attention of specific consumer segments.

To implement this strategy, consider creating multiple ad groups for each audience subset. These groups contain tailored ad copies that speak directly to the characteristics and interests of individuals within that segment. This approach allows you to address the diverse facets of your customer base, ensuring that your messaging aligns with the varying motivations that drive different audience segments.

By organizing your campaigns in this manner, you gain the flexibility to adjust bidding strategies, allocate budgets, and monitor performance at a granular level. This level of precision empowers you to optimize your advertising efforts based on the distinct characteristics and response patterns of each audience, ultimately maximizing the impact of your ad spend.

In summary, identifying your audience and customizing ad copy accordingly is a strategic imperative in the realm of digital advertising. Creating multiple ad groups for each audience allows you to speak directly to the unique traits of different customer segments, fostering a more personalized and impactful connection with your audience.

Also, remember that Quality Score influences ad visibility. Grouping keywords into specific themes enables more relevant ad copy, improving Quality Score. Writing compelling ad copy is easier when it’s tailored to themed keyword groups.

Audience Targeting and Engagement

It is essential to adapt strategies to new trends, technologies, rules, and user behaviors. 

• Use Google Ads audiences to target or exclude traffic based on exhibited behaviors or predictive signs of future actions. Audiences can be applied at both campaign and ad group levels, and can also be incorporated into broad-match targeting. As keyword targeting progresses, search queries are interpreted less as just keywords and more as actual customer intent. This shift in focus amplifies the importance of audiences in the equation.
• Understanding your audience and where they engage online is crucial for optimizing ad placements and maximizing impact. Utilize audience insights to select the most effective platforms and ad placements that align with your target audience’s online behavior.
• Incorporate AI tools to fine-tune your audience targeting. Machine learning algorithms will help you analyze user behavior and preferences, allowing for dynamic adjustments in your audience targeting strategies. By leveraging AI tools, you can continuously optimize your campaigns to reach the most responsive and relevant audience for your content or products.
• Consider creating multiple ad groups for each audience subset. These groups contain tailored ad copies that speak directly to the characteristics and interests of individuals within that segment. This approach allows you to address the diverse facets of your customer base, ensuring that your messaging aligns with the varying motivations that drive different audience segments.
• Avoid targeting multiple networks in one campaign, especially in standard search campaigns. Newer campaign types like Smart, Local, and Discovery may serve ads across multiple properties automatically.
• Building trust with users is crucial for effective privacy management, while accurate conversion tracking offers valuable insights into campaign performance. It is important to stay informed about privacy regulations and take necessary steps to protect user data.
• Additionally, establishing reliable conversion tracking allows for measuring and analyzing the effectiveness of various conversion actions. And remember that, with the demise of third-party cookies, first-party data tracking will become a crucial component of this process.

Ad Extensions

Ad extensions (or also assets) such as sitelink, callout, structured snippet, call extension, location extension, and price extension have the ability to enhance the attractiveness and usefulness of digital advertisements. Here’s a list of ad extensions (assets) you should consider using.

Sitelink extensions allow users to click on links that direct them to specific pages on your website, while callout extensions highlight unique selling points, special offers, or key features. 

App extensions provide clickable links to your mobile app listing in the Google Play or Apple App Store.

Adding call extensions to your ad enables users to directly call your business from the ad. In case you haven’t set up a call extension, Google may display an automated one.

Structured snippet extensions showcase specific aspects or categories that are relevant to your products or services. 

Location extensions display your business address alongside the ad, providing users with information about your physical locations. 

Promotion extensions are clickable and can be used to highlight sales or offers. They include a price tag icon and can have up to two lines of text about the promotion.

Message extensions are exclusive to mobile devices that can send and receive text messages. Users can click on the extension to send a pre-populated message.

Price extensions showcase your product or service offerings along with their respective prices, ensuring transparency in pricing. 

Image extensions allow you to upload up to six images to display with their search ads, and each image can link to a specific landing page.

Affiliate location extensions help users find products at nearby retail locations. They are available for brands and manufacturers that sell products in retail chains.

Incorporate ad extensions to increase the chances of user engagement and enhance the overall effectiveness of your advertising efforts. It is a good practice to include your brand name in ad copy and utilize ad extensions, such as sitelinks, to highlight specific aspects of your brand, promotions, or key offerings.

Structuring of Performance Max Campaigns

In structuring Performance Max campaigns, it’s crucial to organize your PMax campaigns into logical groups that align with your business objectives.

Streamline these groups to avoid overly detailed structures. In some cases, you may need to exclude products from PMax campaigns. Prioritize profitable products by grouping them based on profit margin and performance. You may create multiple groups considering different profit margin percentages.

Additionally, consider grouping products based on stock levels and aligning with specific business objectives, such as focusing on high-stock items or tailoring campaigns for specific holidays or events. When aiming for new customer acquisition, adjust bids accordingly, keeping in mind that this strategy might not be optimal if customer retention takes precedence.

When grouping products, take into account both business attributes and product themes. Products sharing similar profit margins or performance might not necessarily have common themes. Ensure your campaigns yield a minimum of 30 conversions per month, although achieving this benchmark may be challenging for high-value products.

Implement asset groups within Performance Max campaigns to cluster similar products, with each campaign accommodating up to 100 asset groups. Leverage listing groups to organize listings based on attributes assigned in the Merchant Center. Note that recent Google updates suggest that feed-only campaigns for Performance Max may be less effective, as auto-generated ads may lack quality or positive performance.

Finally, plan and tailor your campaign structure to your business needs before actual implementation. 

Use of AI in PPC Account Structuring

Combining the power of artificial intelligence with manual oversight enhances campaign efficiency and performance. Embrace AI tools for automated bid adjustments, while also maintaining a hands-on approach for creative and strategic decisions.

Using AI in PPC account structuring provides a dynamic approach that combines automation and human expertise. This leads to improved campaign efficiency and performance. AI tools for advertising can quickly analyze large amounts of data, identifying patterns and trends that may be missed through manual analysis. Automated bid adjustments based on real-time data can optimize campaign spending, ensuring that bids align with conversion likelihood. This streamlines bid management and allows campaigns to adapt to market changes.

However, it’s important to maintain a balance by incorporating a manual approach into the overall strategy. While AI excels in data analysis and bid adjustments, human oversight is essential for creative and strategic decisions. Crafting compelling ad copy, aligning campaigns with business goals, and making nuanced adjustments based on a deep understanding of the target audience requires human intuition and experience.

By combining AI’s efficiency with human intuition, you can achieve a well-rounded PPC account structure. This collaborative approach allows campaigns to benefit from AI’s speed and precision while also incorporating the insights and decision-making abilities of human expertise. That is the approach that BrightBid has been successfully implementing.

How BrightBid Helps in PPC Account Structuring [Client Use Case]

Improving Advertising Efficiency in Engineering: The Omecon Case Study

Omecon, a leading provider of industrial product development services, faced a significant challenge when it came to advertising in the specialized engineering field. They realized that their in-house knowledge was not enough to navigate this complex industry, leading them to reevaluate their investments due to a lack of conversions.

About Omecon

Omecon specializes in helping both small and large companies bring innovative products to life. As a trusted engineering partner, they offer expertise in product development and technical project management. Omecon is committed to efficiently turning clients’ ideas into tangible, innovative products, covering everything from design and construction to prototyping and production.

Advertising Challenges in Engineering Services

Omecon encountered several challenges when it came to advertising in the engineering sector. They recognized the importance of specialized expertise in this industry, but their in-house knowledge fell short. Additionally, the lack of conversions raised concerns about the effectiveness of their advertising investments.

Revamping the Advertising Approach for Industrial Product Development

BrightBid took a strategic approach by focusing on restructuring Omecon’s advertising account. The existing setup lacked the necessary depth and precision for effective targeting. To address this, we meticulously reorganized Omecon’s range of services within a new, customized campaign structure. 

Our main objectives were clear: improve the click-through rate (CTR) with relevant ad copy, increase high-volume traffic, and ultimately generate more conversions from their search advertising efforts. This strategic adjustment resulted in a significant decrease in their cost per conversion, demonstrating the effectiveness of the refined approach.

Conclusion

An effective PPC account structure involves thoughtful organization, clear naming conventions, and adherence to best practices in campaign and ad group management. Regular monitoring, optimization, and adaptation to industry changes contribute to sustained success in paid search campaigns.