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{"id":6631,"date":"2024-09-05T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-09-05T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cherylroll.com\/rethink-google-ads-strategy-446252\/"},"modified":"2024-09-05T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2024-09-05T00:00:00","slug":"rethink-google-ads-strategy-446252","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cherylroll.com\/rethink-google-ads-strategy-446252\/","title":{"rendered":"Is it time to rethink your Google Ads strategy?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Product-focused, keyword-only campaigns are a common type of campaign used in Google Ads<\/a>.<\/p>\n

If you sell vintage T-shirts for women, you might set up standalone keyword campaigns based on the keyword “vintage T-shirts women.”<\/p>\n

For many B2C retailers, this approach works well.But for others, product-based, keyword-focused campaigns aren’t necessarily your best strategy.<\/p>\n

We inherited the Google Ads<\/a> account of a new B2B client, for example and all of their campaigns were product-focused, keyword-only campaigns. <\/p>\n

But after meeting with the client and analyzing their account, we decided to take a different approach – one that’s outperforming their previous strategy, hands down.<\/p>\n

In this article, I’ll explain what we did – and use it to illustrate why you might want to move beyond keyword-only campaigns.<\/p>\n

Start with the business goals<\/h2>\n
We started this client engagement by sitting down with the client to understand their business goals.<\/p>\n
It’s an old-school marketing practice that seems basic but is too often overlooked.<\/p>\n
When we talked to the client, we discovered a misalignment between their business goals and the structure of their Google Ads account.<\/p>\n
The account was set up by region, and each ad group housed thousands of product-focused keywords. Brand and non-brand keywords were intermingled within the same campaigns (another strategy I really dislike).<\/p>\n
Organizing the account by region might have made sense at one time. But the company had changed. It had expanded the regions it served to encompass most of the U.S., yet all of its advertising focused on its “old” territory.<\/p>\n
Further, the company had expanded its product line beyond farming and agriculture equipment to include construction equipment – and growing its market share in the construction industry was an important business goal for them.<\/p>\n
You can see the problem: the Google Ads account structure we inherited made supporting the company’s goals challenging because we couldn’t target and measure campaigns to those goals.<\/p>\n
For example, we couldn’t compare important metrics, such as cost per lead, for farming versus construction keywords. We couldn’t even compare how brand versus non-brand keywords were performing for the same campaign easily. Everything was jumbled together.<\/p>\n
I’m always a little surprised that more attention isn’t paid to Google Ads account structure in general.<\/p>\n
Google Ads Help, for example, discusses the three layers of Google Ads<\/a> and even provides guidance on how to structure your account to get the most out of AI<\/a>.<\/p>\n
However, the importance of aligning account structure with business goals is missing.<\/p>\n
Dig deeper: 5 ways to align PPC campaigns with business objectives<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Restructuring the account to support business goals<\/h2>\n
With these issues and the goals of the client in mind, we proceeded to restructure the account.<\/p>\n
Instead of organizing campaigns by region, we organized them by product categories. We also separated brand and non-brand campaigns.<\/p>\n
With this reorganization, we could clearly see how campaigns in each sector were performing and created specific strategies for each one.<\/p>\n
We also measured and compared important metrics, such as cost per lead in the farming sector versus the construction sector. The cost per lead was higher in the construction sector, and that was OK.<\/p>\n
The client understood the importance of launching (or relaunching) a new product category. It required investment and an unwavering focus on long-term goals (versus short-term wins). This wasn’t the time to take our foot off the gas.<\/p>\n
Focusing on high-value keywords<\/h3>\n
In addition to restructuring the account, we also set about reducing the number of keywords in each ad group.<\/p>\n
We eliminated thousands of keywords, narrowing them down to a handful of only the most high-value, top-converting ones. In this case, less was more.<\/p>\n
With all of these account changes, we built a strong foundation from which we could not only launch and promote this new product category but also scale all product lines into the future.<\/p>\n
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