So, you’re tasked with building paid search campaigns in AdWords or Bing (how exciting!). You’ve done the research and have a treasure trove of keywords available to bid on. Next, you toss those valuable words into one or two ad groups of about 50 keywords each. Then you write a few pieces of ad copy and you’re ready to launch! (Yay!) But once the campaign gets going it isn’t performing as well as you’d hoped. (Boo!) Could you have missed something? Could there have been a better way?
Short answer….yes!
One strategy you should think strongly about implementing is Single Keyword Ad Groups (or SKAGs, for the cool crowd). If you don’t, you could end up spending a lot of money and getting little to no ROI.
What are Single Keyword Ad Groups?
Single Keyword Ad Groups are ad groups with only one keyword in them (Mind blown right? But truly it’s that intuitive). Every keyword on your list will receive its own ad group, with its own keyword-infused ad copy to support it. And voila, you have a SKAG. Easy right?
How Many Keywords per Ad Group?
Again, some things are really this obvious. Just one keyword per ad group, but you can, and should, include different match types of that one keyword. For example, if you have a single keyword ad group for “Red Tennis Shoes”, you would add the following keywords:
+red +tennis +shoes
“red tennis shoes”
[red tennis shoes]
So, if you have 50 keywords, you’re looking at creating 50 ad groups within that 1 campaign. And while it sounds like a lot of work, we’re not going to lie…it is, but it’s also well worth it.
Why You Should Be Using Single Keyword Ad Groups
Simply put (like everything else in this blog), the best reason to use SKAGs is relevancy!
For example, if you put 50 keywords into one ad group, how many of those keywords will make their way into the text of each ad? Chances are the answer is not all 50. By creating an ad group for every single keyword, the ads will be uber-relevant. The key is to keep this relevance from search query to your ad. Here are 4 ways that SKAGs will help your paid search campaign’s metrics:
- Higher click-through-rates
- Think about a Google search. If you type in a query for “red tennis shoes”, wouldn’t you want to see results, or ads, that give you – “red tennis shoes”? You don’t want to see just tennis shoes, or god forbid, another color or type of shoe. You know what you want….you want them to be red and sporty dammit! It would make sense for the CTR’s to go up because you are giving the user exactly what they asked for.
- Higher quality scores
- Google gives every one of your keywords a quality score (within each ad group) used to determine your cost-per-click (CPC). This is multiplied by your maximum bid to determine your ad rank in the ad auction process. This score is based on the relevance of both your keywords and the ads. If your keyword is found in your ad copy, it will likely have a higher quality score which will result in higher ad rand and lower CPC.
- Lower cost-per-conversions
- Presumably, with higher click-through rates, higher quality scores, and lower cost per click, you’ll also be looking at a lower cost per conversion too. If you’re really good at this (which we hope you are) you’ve also inserted the keywords into the landing page, to maintain that same relevance, from search query to ad to landing page.
- No wasted spending
- SKAGs make sure that the keywords you’re bidding on, match the search terms you want to pay for. When your search terms start matching your keywords, your click-through-rates will increase because you don’t have all these other keywords in one ad group, all competing with each other to be relevant for one ad.
Single Keyword Ad Groups are a great tactic for AdWords and Bing Ads. This strategy will help you see stronger results in your paid search campaigns, and while it requires a little bit more time and effort to set up, it’s Neil Patel approved!
190west Has Single Keyword Ad Groups Down
190west is an all-in digital marketing agency specializing in paid search and pay-per-click advertising. We build Single Keyword Ad Groups in Google AdWords and Bing Ads – so we’ve got this. We apply these same strategies to our integrated lead generation campaigns and have achieved overwhelmingly positive results.
Need help setting up AdWords accounts? Or optimizing campaigns to achieve a higher ROI? We’ll get it done. Contact us today to learn about how we can help you start getting higher conversions and more qualified leads that increase closed sales.
