This article will explore the structure of a basic Google Adwords pay per click advertising campaign, explaining how each element of the campaign works.
In its most basic form, the Google Adwords account can be described as having four major elements: Campaigns, Adgroups, Creatives (text ads) and Keywords (search phrases). The Campaign is the level at which you are able to set your preferences, such as budget, language and location targeting. You can have several campaigns within your account, and it is sensible to split these by subject. For example if you run an online store selling knitting supplies, you might wish to split your campaigns by product, such as: “Yarn”, “Knitting Needles”, “Crochet Hooks”.
Adgroups
Within each campaign you are able to categorise further by adgroup each of which should contain creatives and keywords relevant to the particular adgroup. It may be helpful to think of adgroups as “keyword groups” since it is good practice to keep the keywords within your adgroups very narrow and closely related to each other, so that you can write a creative which mirrors these keywords. There are several reasons behind this methodology, which I detail in another article on structuring a PPC campaign.
Creatives
The creative is comprised of four lines; a headline of up to 25 characters, two description lines of up to 35 characters and a Display URL of up to 35 characters. The Destination URL to which the ad will actually send your potential customers is hidden in the background, but your Display URL must accurately reflect the domain of the destination URL otherwise your ads will be disapproved by Google and will not show for any searches.
Trademarks
You should also make sure your ad does not contain any competitors trademarks, as these can be flagged up and disapproved by Google. The trademark policy varies from country to country though, so it is worth checking the rules for your country with Google.
Dynamic Keyword Insertion
As I previously mentioned, one of the most important things to ensure when writing your creatives is that you have keywords in your ad text. There is a handy function within Adwords called Dynamic Keyword Insertion which, as the name suggests, allows you to dynamically insert the keyword being searched for into your ad text. I will write another guide in the future about Dynamic Keyword Insertion with more details.
Keywords
Google Adwords allows marketers to bid on keywords in three different “match types”; Broad, Phrase and Exact. This refers to the way in which Google matches the users search query to your keyword. These match types are defined within Google’s web interface by using the appropriate punctuation around the keyword, as below:
Broad Match : keyword
Broad Match allows your ad to show on variations of the keyword on which you are bidding.
For example, a keyword like Merino Wool in your adgroup may be triggered by a search for “Cashmere Wool”. It is important to monitor broad match keywords carefully as it is possible to lose a lot of money on them if you don’t keep them in check.
Phrase Match : “keyword”
Phrase Match allows your ad to show when the search query includes your keyword in the same order.
For example, “Merino Wool” could be triggered by a search for “Buy Merino Wool Cheap Online” but NOT “Buy Merino Cheap Online”
Exact Match : [keyword]
Exact Match allows your ad to show only when the search query matches your keyword word for word with no additions.
[Merino Wool] would only be triggered by a search for Merino Wool.
Generally speaking, broad match keywords will be more expensive because they show for a much wider variety of searches, so there is naturally more competition. They can also drive a lot of irrelevant traffic if you are not careful, which obviously also drives costs up.
Phrase match and exact match tend to bring in more conversions, however do not underestimate the value of broad match keywords for people in the early stages of their buying cycle!
Negatives
Negative keywords block your ad from showing for searches including the negative term.
For example, if you have Merino Wool in broad match, and Cashmere as a negative, somebody searching for Cashmere Wool will no longer trigger your ad. This is an absolutely crucial part of campaign optimisation, particularly when you are using broad match. I will go into much more details on the mechanics of negative keywords and give tips on identifying new negative keywords in a later article.
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