The ABCs of Account Structure

Account structure best practices to get the most out of AI

Best Practices logoYour account structure is critical to maximize Google AI's potential in your Search ads campaigns. Simpler structures with consolidated, tightly-themed setups unlock better performance, easier campaign management, clearer trends, and fewer errors.

Take action with the ABC’s of account structure:

 

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Align your account structure with AI

  • Move single-keyword ad groups into themed ad groups.
    • By orienting Smart Bidding around optimizing for a single target, Google AI can find the most conversions within your single target. Segmented traffic forces Smart Bidding to optimize for multiple targets separately, potentially reducing efficiency.
    • Theming your ad groups is important because grouping keywords into similar themes makes it easier for Google to understand the keywords, select the best one, and determine which ad should serve for each query.

Diagram: If keywords share a budget/target, use the same campaign.If they share the same LP/creative themes, use the same ad group.

Example consolidating 6 ad groups to 3

 

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Bring your match types together

  • Move all match types of themed ad groups into one ad group, then simplify by just using broad match.
    • Duplicating the same keyword in multiple match types segments the data Smart Bidding has to work with, and can potentially reduce performance.
    • There’s no additional benefit to having multiple match types if you’re using Smart Bidding. Broad match reaches the same searches as exact match and phrase match, plus more.
    • Broad match is the only match type that uses all of the signals available to understand intent and find the most relevant match that is expected to perform for you. Because exact and phrase match must adhere to additional matching requirements, they are restricted from using these additional signals.
Bar chartIn fact, 62% of advertisers using Smart Bidding use broad match as their primary match type.1

Table showing that only broad match uses all signals available

Example consolidating 3 ad groups into 1.

 

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Consolidate and clean up

  • Remove device segmentation and segment campaigns based on business objectives. Clean up duplicate and non-serving keywords.
    • Smart Bidding already takes device into account when making bidding decisions. Unnecessary segmentation makes it more difficult to manage, optimize, and adapt your strategy to other campaigns.
    • Cleaning up unnecessary excess across accounts will also make it easier to manage and less error prone.

Example consolidating 3 campaigns to 1

 

1.  Based on clicks and advertisers with >100 clicks, Google Internal Data, Global, January - February 2023.

 

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