Is This "AdWords Structure" Okay?

Newbie Wants Review by Seasoned Experts...

[tclcorp]

Hi... I am a newbie to AdWords, just 3 mos. into it with great results so far. I just want to confirm if I am structuring my basic AdWords Campaign(s) for optimum performance. Here's how I have it set up:

I sell widgets (doesn't everybody these days?), which are actually a small, localized SERVICE. I sell household widget service and I sell office widget service. I sell widget service in many different colors and sizes to both households and offices. So far, I've only set up campaigns for household widget service (office campaigns will come later after getting used to AdWords first). I have a household widget service LOCAL campaign and a household widget service REGIONAL campaign (no national, as we only service locally). Each of those 2 campaigns, Local and Regional, have exact same keywords/phrases set up, divided into exact same type of adgroups which each revolve around say 10-12 (some only 4, others as much as 14) keywords/phrases that are similar (e.g., the Local and the Regional both have keywords and adgroups for red widgets, big red widgets, small red widgets, etc....). Then, another set of keywords/phrases are built in for different adgroups (e.g., blue widgets, small blue widgets, big blue widgets, etc....). Again, I have it set up like this in both the Local Household Widget campaign and the Regional Household Widget Campaign. So far, it seems to be working well and there are calls for my widget service coming in after people are visiting our website because of AdWords (I have not submitted site for organic search yet as I am still optimizing site for search). I just want to know if this is set up well before I start working on setting up my "Office Widget Service" campaigns. I appreciate any advice any of you seasoned experts can give me. Thanks, Mark

[tclcorp]

P.S. Also, I have anywhere from 2-8 ads in each adgroup revolving around the keywords/phrases for that adgroup (e.g., the "red widget" adgroup has keywords/phrases involving red widgets only and ads which reflect those keywords/phrases in them). Hope I made this all clear enough to understand. Thanks again, Mark

[robjones2]

If your LOCAL campaign duplicates keywords in your REGIONAL campaign, and its geographically a subset, then i'd think your losing out on the cumulative CTR, particularly if you say your campaign is doing well.

I'm not sure how your keywords are structured, but if you've got the phrase "blue gadgets" in both campaigns, then the above might well be the case.

I would say on the local campaign, also make the keywords localised. eg. "blue gadgets mytown"

[tclcorp]

Hi Rob, thanks for reply. I tought something like that should need to happen to increase cumulative CTR.....wasn't sure where to ad local or regional terms to keywords/phrases though, in local or in regional campaign? Sounds like "Local" campaign being more targeted with local type keywords (e.g., "blue widgets - mytown" or "blue widgets-nearby town") would be the best route, right? Any other thoughts on this topic are appreciated. Thanks, Mark

[robjones2]

yes, thats what i would do.

so REGIONAL campaign would be all the generalised keywords, plus the region. eg. "gadgets", "blue gadgets", "buy blue gadgets", "purchase blue gadgets", "find blue gadgets", "gadgets myregion", "buy gadgets myregion" etc.

and the LOCAL campaign would be the above keywords localised eg. "gadgets my-town", "blue gadgets mytown", etc.

be sure to set the broad/exact match correctly so the above is effective.

also add negative keywords to increase your CTR further. eg. if you only sell new blue gadgets, exclude keywords like "hire", "rent", "repair" and so on.

Good luck with your gadgets/widgets!

[justshelley]

If you are regional, be sure and put negatives in your campaign for the other states and/or major cities that you don't want searched on. Also, consider doing a national campaign but just use specific regional search terms like "Texas red widget services" or "red widget services in Austin", etc.

[tclcorp]

Thanks for being so helpful Rob! Just to confirm then: I should keep generalized keywords/phrases in both Regional as well as Local campaign adgroups and ALSO add keywords/phrases targeted to that campaign (i.e., regional terms added to generalized keywords in the regional campaign and local terms added to the generalized keywords in the local campaign), all the while KEEPING the generalized keywords/phrases as well in their own adgroups, correct? Also, new adgroups need to be created, I would assume, for the keywords/phrases that have the regional or local terms added to the generalized keywords, right? Or, just add in the newly changed keywords/phrases with added regional or local terms into the existing adgroups (which I would think would bring down my overall CTR for those adgroups by adding the new terms and subsequent ads)? Also, hate to be a nuisance, but you are obviously knowledgeable about ADW, Rob - I was going to make a new thread about this, but maybe you can answer it here: How about duplicate (exact) same ads in same adgroup, but only with different destination URL's? I currently have all Ads pointing to my Homepage (I know, big no-no for ROI). I wanted to direct "blue widget" ads to my "blue widget" page and "red widget" ads to my red widget page....as well as keep each color widget's ads also pointing to my homepage and then see the CTR and subsequent ROI of the ads so I can eventually "dump" the bad ads and put my $$ on the good ones. Hope this all makes sense to you or others. Looking forward to any help. Thanks, Mark

[robjones2]

no, the point was to REMOVE the generalised keywords from the LOCAL campaign.

That way, the cumulative clicks from those keywords would benefit the regional campaign.

[robjones2]

on the destination page question, I think (although I stand to be corrected) google only monitors the ClickThroughRate for each ad in the same ad group. It doesnt track the Conversion Rate separately.

Might have to create separate ad groups if thats the case.

[robjones2]

in fact, if you look at post 5380 in this forum, someones posted a clever way to track conversions by ad, and also other parameters.

[tclcorp]

Ahhhh.....I gotcha Rob, cover general keywords/phrases in regional and new "localized" keywords/phrases locally, makes a lot of sense! Should get a lot more traffic that way, especially since regional ads should show up for local searches as well, as they overlap and cover almost the same areas we service. And, thanks JustShelley, I thought so about the "National" campaign -- infact, I posted this thread back in April: [webmasterworld.com...] It's mostly just "garbage" now since I applied most of the recommendations of Inferno to one degree or another, but the original question has been "dangling" since then, "National or Not National"? You've helped to confirm my suspicion. You guys are great in here, the best forum ever! Thanks, Mark

P.S. I think I might post that thread about "exact same ad in same adgroup, but different destination URL"? I think your right, Rob, about Google not caring about ROI's, just CTR on each keyword/phrase and its corresponding ad. I'd hate to have to set up a whole new campaign, with all things remaining the same, except for changing the destination URL - what a pain that would be! Plus, I don't want to "play around" with current Ads just to lose my CTR and start them all over, wouldn't be worth it.