An effective AdWords campaign usually will undergo major changes in its life. It is often difficult to build a perfect account from the start, for many it is a learn as you go process.  This series of Improvement Quick Tips are designed to take an account that is performing OK and take it to a new level of performance.  The incentives to improve an account include a higher conversion rate and higher quality scores which equate to lower costs per click.  The question becomes how do we make quality score great.  Is there a way to continue to refine an account to further increase the quality score, increase conversions and reduce costs? Answer = Yes.

Organizing Your Account – Ad Group Themes

Organizing your account into tightly knit ad groups around a specific theme can increase relevance and account quality.  When ad text is directly related to keywords, customers identify better with the ad because it so closely matched their search query.  This results in a higher click-through-rate (CTR) which will increase quality score.

For this example I have setup an account for a door repair service.  The keywords I selected for the service were:  door repair, commercial door repair, storm door repair and entry door repair.  The ad text is generic with “Door Repair” as the title. 

Sample 1

Keywords in NON Specific Themes

A New Approach

I decided to reorganize the ad groups into themes. This example outlines the ’Storm Door Repair’ theme.  I created a new ad group labeled ’storm door repair’ and created ad text with Storm Door Repair in the title.  Keywords were selected to focus strictly on storm door repair. The CTR increased and the Cost per click (CPC) was greatly reduced.  The original cost, $2.19 average CPC to $1.14 average CPC.

Sample 2

Theme

Why the Improvement?

The improvement is directly related to the relevance of the ad text to keywords.  People can identify with the advertisement.   The relevance in the theme is stronger.  Setting up an account this way can be time consuming; starting with a setup like scenario 1 and work to identify what keywords deserve their own group may be a good approach for someone that does not have a lot of extra time.

When are we done improving?

Never really. I find that I am always looking to improve an account, finding ways to increase quality score, reduce costs and ultimately increase conversions.  My next step on this account will be to include specific keyword matching options such as [Exact] and “Phrase” match.  This will increase the CTR even further.  I will also test different ad variations of the Storm Door Repair ad text to find the most compelling ad text possible.

Sample 2 does not reflect a change in quality score yet, but in time it will.  While we wait for the new quality score to be reflected we can enjoy that lower CPC.

Future Improvement Quick Tips will include: Keywords, Ad Text, Bidding, Tracking Codes, Reading & Understanding Account Data, The Reports Center, Implementing Changes, Optimizing Websites and More.

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