It’s an unfortunate, but all too common, reality: you create a great ad…but it gets delivered to the wrong audience.

This is especially true in Paid Search, where well-crafted ads often fail to drive qualified traffic and conversions because accounts aren’t set up correctly. Remember, your ad copy and creative is what grabs searchers’ attention, brings them to your site and (hopefully) results in a desired conversion.

That’s why it’s imperative that you check and double-check your accounts to ensure everything is configured for optimal return and response.

1. Ad Groups
In the Google account structure hierarchy, ad groups are used to match keywords to specific ads. It might sound simple, but don’t overlook this step. I can’t emphasize enough how often a less than efficient account structure ends up hurting overall PPC performance.


Start by categorizing all of your keywords into tight themes. Then, go through and target your ads to the most relevant themes possible.


Skipping this step –and instead putting all of your keywords into one ad group – can lead to wasted impressions. Take a look at the ad below, which showed up in a search for “nike shoes”:




In this case, the advertisement clearly highlights women’s shoes – which doesn’t apply to me – even though I didn’t search for that term. As a result, I quickly disregarded the ad.

A better strategy would have been for the advertiser to set up multiple groups, targeting specific sub-segments, such as general (all audiences), men’s shoes, women’s shoes, etc. Doing so would have helped deliver a more relevant ad, which would have led to higher CTRs and, over time, better quality scores and lower CPCs.

2. Negatives
Great ad copy means nothing if the wrong audience sees it. Negative match types, however, can be one of the most effective ways to make sure your ad reaches the intended end user.

For example, the following ad displayed when I did a search for “nike air jordans”:



Most likely, users searching for shoes aren’t trying to book a flight somewhere (I know I wasn’t). But this is another great example of how poorly structured accounts – a bid on the generic keyword “air” – can hinder your ads’ effectiveness. To avoid these types of situations, be sure to build out your negative keywords list by utilizing keyword research tools and search query reports.

3. Match Type & Keyword Insertion
Ever see an ad that just really doesn’t make sense? Check out this one, which popped up in a search for “what to get for a new grandchild”:



Clearly, this ad doesn’t make any sense – I’m looking to buy a gift for a new grandchild, not trying to buy a kid (at 82% off!). Ads like these are often the result of poor account structure and improper keyword insertion (which puts the search query into your ad copy and bolds it). Google’s use of broad match tends to bring in a wide range of spectrum of searches, so be careful how you choose to use that feature.

However, used correctly, keyword insertion can help make your ad appear more relevant to the searcher, leading to higher CTRs. It’s especially useful if you have a large number of products but don’t have the time to create hundreds of individual ads. But again, it’s incredibly important that your account is set up correctly – keywords, match types and negatives – before relying on keyword insertion. After all, as you saw above, the mistakes can make you look pretty foolish.

A properly structured account is crucial to effective paid search.

Bottom line: a properly structured account is crucial to effective paid search. Relevancy, click-throughs, customers – it all starts with having the right infrastructure in place. So, no matter how tedious it is or how long it takes, make sure your paid search accounts and campaigns are set up for success.

Doing so is half the battle in turning clicks to customers in PPC. Check back next issue, where we’ll review actual ad copy – taken straight from the SERPs! – to show you exactly what’s working and what’s not.

Get more tips for how to create a winning PPC campaign architecture by emailing us at bebrilliant@acronym.com.