Restructuring PPC Campaigns on Google AdWords
Often an agency will get a contract to manage a paid search campaign that has previously been managed in house or by another agency. One of the first things the new account manager should do is audit the current campaigns including ad text, keywords and landing URLs, etc.
As there is no one standard way of running a successful campaign, more often than not the new account manager will start to restructure the account in a way that suits their optimizing and reporting needs.
Here are a five things to consider before you start moving, deleting and creating campaigns, ad groups and keywords:
1. Download the original account set up from AdWords editor and save it.
2. When you start a restructure I recommend that you do not overwrite the old campaigns or delete them. You don’t know if you will need to revert back to the old structure for some reason in the first few days, weeks or even months of managing the campaign.
3.Google’s quality score is key to a successful campaign. There is some thought that even though the keyword seems out of place in one ad group it’s historic performance within that ad group will essentially allow it to gain a very high quality score.
For example an ad group can be running a set of “online” themed keywords, and within that group there a a few non-online keywords that have been added over time via the search query report because they have converted. With a high quality score in a performing ad group these keywords can be set to fairly low bids and still remain in the top ad positions.
If you restructure the campaign and separate these keywords out in to their own ad group, you might lose the high quality score for each of the keywords, forcing CPC bids up and losing position status in the sponsored ad results and ultimately losing conversions.
Someone mentioned that Quality Sore is set at the account level, but I have seen a keyword moved into a new ad group and drop from an 8/10 to a 3/10. Plus this is Google, you never know when they change things up.
4. The ad approval process. I don’t know about you, but I have found that the approval process for text and image ads has become, in some instances, painfully slow. This essentially stops your campaign cold.
Where I have restructured a small part of an account after auditing landing pages and keywords of one campaign I have waited over 24 hours for the new ad groups to have their text ads approved. If you are making changes over a span of a few days or a week you can see a noticeable reduction in traffic and conversions.
5. Losing important keywords in the reshuffle – I have done this, I admit it. If you take on an account that is fairly narrow in terms of campaigns, ad groups and keywords and you decide to concentrate on building it out to try and cover every variation you can think of, you can still overlook fairly generic terms that previously worked.
This can happen to you whether you like infinitely long keyword builds with each keyword having a broad, phrase and exact variation or; if you’re like me, you like specific small keyword builds where the exact and phrase matches actually make sense.
When you audit the campaign make sure you are aware of exactly which keywords work and make sure they are in your new structure. Or keep them in their old structure to maintain the historic relevance they have (and by that their quality score).
~Stephanie
on February 4th, 2010 at 5:29 pm
Hi Stephanie, this is an interesting post and a subject not often covered, although it can be quite a common issue for agencies taking on accounts from other agencies, or clients who have tried it themselves. It can sometimes be just as easy to start from scratch, although the data from past activity – both good and bad – can of course be useful.
Quality Score is determined at the keyword level in AdWords, and this may change when new campaigns or adgroups are created as there are a range of factors that affect this. However, if you can do a better job than the previous attempt it shouldn’t take long to demonstrate better results!
on February 4th, 2010 at 6:27 pm
Hi Clive, I think I probably worded that sentence incorrectly, not that the QS is set at account level, but more there was some thought that if your account had a high average quality score overall, there might be something factored in by a Google algorithm for individual QS if adding new keywords into an existing campaign. Like I stated – who knows – it’s Google.
on February 12th, 2010 at 3:46 am
Hi Stephanie,
I was under the impression Quality Score is determined at keyword, ad group, campaign and account levels, and that it typically takes a maximum of 14 days for Quality Score to regain its history.
Guess it’s about finding a balance beween the benefits of a more efficient structure and the temporary increase in cost for doing so.
I always tend to err in favour of restructuring, and take the temporary loss in Quality Score as a necessecity, especially if the new structure will remain for a good few months.
After all, there is little point in trying to retain a Quality Score of 6 from a poor structure.
Cheers,
Alan
on February 12th, 2010 at 1:52 pm
Hi Alan
I have a habit of always restructuring, the quality score issue is something I ran up against recently for a major campaign where I couldn’t afford to take the hit on cost and loss of conversions. Hard to explain to a client why they are down 200 conversions over a 14 day period. I had to restart part of the old structure and slowly farm in the new (which I am still doing). On another note, apparently Bings! quality score will take a direct hit if you even pause a campaign. I am absorbing the slow down with the restructure on this engine, but can’t afford to on Google.
on March 3rd, 2010 at 5:07 pm
[...] as this can impact an adgroup “theme” on the content network) or place the keyword in it’s own ad group and optimize the ad copy and display URL [...]
on March 8th, 2010 at 8:29 pm
[...] as this can impact an adgroup “theme” on the content network) or place the keyword in it’s own ad group and optimize the ad copy and display URL [...]
on March 15th, 2010 at 4:01 pm
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