7 Pillars to Building a Future Proof PPC Account Structure
It can be difficult to navigate the constantly changing landscape of PPC account structure management. You want to fix your account structure to avoid headaches in the future.
Due to the ever-changing rules of engagement and economic fluctuations, you need to be able to manage your account with agility.
When future-proofing the structure of your PPC account, there are seven pillars that you should consider. Let’s delve into each!
Not sure where to begin if you’re new to PPC accounts? This free PPC101 guide will help you!
How to create a PPC account structure that is future-proof
Follow these steps to build a account structure which can meet the needs of your industry today and tomorrow.
1. Budget allocation is important
A PPC account structure that is effective should be financially viable. It is important to make sure that your budget supports all of your campaign initiatives. It is a good idea to allocate enough money to cover at least 10 non-branded clicks each day. This offsets the cost of lower conversion rates associated with nonbranded traffic, since these types of visitors have a tendency to be less commercially-minded.
Budgeting less than 10 clicks a day can put pressure on your campaign to achieve an unfeasible 10% conversion rate. The advent of Google Ads Performance Max campaign also brings with it new budget considerations. Google Ads will have different auction prices for display, search and video.
You’ll want to set realistic goals for your PPC campaign. To avoid stretching out your budget, it’s best to keep your account structure limited to just a few campaigns at first. Be prepared to adjust or reallocate your budgets on the fly.
Our latest Google Ads Benchmarks are a great starting point for determining what type of account you can afford.
To budget wisely for PPC, it is important to understand the costs involved. Our 2023 benchmarks can help you find out what the average CPC and CPL are for your industry.
2. Follow current best practices for audience engagement
It can be difficult to adapt and understand the ever-changing rules of engagement for PPC advertising. It’s important to make sure your Google Ads account always adheres to the latest policies and best practices for targeting.
You may, for example, want to structure your account so that you exclude placements from display or video campaigns. This can improve the performance of your account, as you will not waste impressions or clicks by wasting them on people who are irrelevant to your business. This will also stop sensitive audiences from seeing your ads. Placement exclusions can be proactive, using a list or apps that you don’t want to appear on, or reactive, based on past data in the “where ads appeared” report.
Google’s new update, which will include search volume in the report on search terms, offers a great opportunity to measure the reach and cost of a particular keyword. You can then make an informed decision about the keyword concepts you want to prioritise within your search campaign structure.
3. Balance between Google’s AI and human control
Google Ads is a contentious topic for small business owners. The issue is finding the right balance of AI (artificial Intelligence) and human control. As AI for marketing grows in popularity, both positive and negative effects AI has on PPC are becoming more apparent.
You can use generative AI to create images, videos and ad copies for your PPC accounts. Google Search Generative Experience can cause ads to appear lower on the page. Your Google Ads quality score is therefore a key factor when structuring your PPC account.
You should be aware that both sides have their pros and cons. Finding the right blend for your needs is crucial.
It’s no longer an option to have, but a necessity to incorporate AI in your PPC account. The manual single keyword ad groups (SKAGs) PPC account structures have fallen out of favour.
Google’s new keyword matching logic has changed the way keywords are used. They have become a “audience”.
In this situation, a better PPC account structure strategy would be to use a few core adgroups under one campaign that uses Google’s automated bidding strategies. In this case, a better PPC account strategy would be to use a few core ads groups within a campaign using one of the automated bidding strategies powered by Google machine learning.
4. Negatives are important.
Negative keywords can be a great way to protect your costs while directing traffic. You can use them to narrow down the search terms you display, so you only show your main keyword terms.
Use a tool to find more negative keywords, such as this:
WordStream’s Free Keyword Tool is an example of how it can help you determine which terms are relevant or not to your business.
The use of negative audiences in conjunction with placements is a strategy that’s often overlooked. You miss the chance to protect your budget against unforeseen variables if you use only audiences as a target.
5. You can’t ignore audiences or placements.
Google Ads audiences offer a way to exclude or target traffic based upon exhibited behavior or predictors of future actions. Audiences are available at the campaign or ad-group level of your PPC account, as well as in broad match targeting.
The importance of audience increases as keyword targeting is less about the syntax and more about the implied meaning of the keyword.
It’s important to understand your buyer personas when building campaigns for your PPC account. You should also know the best creative strategies to engage each of them. You should, as a rule of thumb have ad copies that are unique for each persona. It may be necessary to create several ad groupings per audience in order to tailor ads for each.
When optimizing Performance Max (PMax), audiences and placements have slightly different roles. Audiences in standard campaigns are active targets or excluders. In PMax, however, they simply serve as signals to Google so that it knows which placements you prefer. We are being given more and more options to exclude the wrong targets.
6. Use first-party data to your advantage (or at least pretend to).
First-party data is crucial in determining who and where you serve your ads. You can use algorithmically-learned audiences, such as in-market and custom intent based upon search terms, if you are unsure if you will be able to leverage first-party information. This means that you must have consent from your prospects in order to track them.
These audiences might not be as effective as those sourced from first-party data but they are better than not using them at all.
7. Privacy and conversion tracking: Manage your privacy practices
Conversion tracking is the final step in future-proofing PPC accounts. You must strike a balance to ensure that your campaign is both privacy compliant, and visible.
Analyze the pros and cons when comparing the native conversion actions Google Ads offers versus GA4 events. While native ad platforms can provide more data, you will have to deal with attribution data models once you start using external sources like GA4.
We saw at Google Marketing Live 2019, that Google has been rolling out updates for GA4 to make it easier to build and track your PPC account audiences:
Recent developments have allowed the use of enhanced converts to create a list of audiences that match your customers. If you decide to leverage this intriguing tool, remember that your audiences from enhanced conversions still need to meet minimum targeting requirements–typically at least a thousand people on the list. This strategy is a great way to create lists, if you don’t already have any, and back up data from the advertising platform.
Ignoring audiences and placements when structuring your PPC account could prove detrimental. You can achieve success by leveraging their potential, while also considering the importance and balance of privacy with conversion tracking.
Now more than ever, your PPC account structure is important.
It may be difficult to create a PPC account structure that is future-proof, but these seven pillars can help you get through the rough terrain. Keep your strategies updated and review them regularly to stay on top of the latest trends. Now is the time to work on your PPC accounts structure. Your future self will be grateful!
Here are seven elements of a PPC account structure that is future-proof:
- Mindful budget allocation
- Engagement of the right audience
- Both AI-powered assets and manual assets
- Negative Keywords and Audiences
- Audience and placement strategies that work
- Audiences derived from first-party data, in-market audiences and custom-intent
- Conversion tracking and privacy management
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