Paid Search Account Structure | (un)Common Logic

As marketing concepts go, “PPC account structure” isn’t terribly exciting for most people. Fortunately, our experts aren’t like most people. We believe that digital marketing is a game of inches, where winning is often a matter of doing small things consistently and well, rather than “one secret trick” or proprietary process. Paid search account structure is one of those “small things” that can be a real competitive advantage.

It might seem like account structure is fairly simple: the account is sub-divided into campaigns, which are themselves sub-divided into ad groups. Keywords are assigned to ad groups and the party responsible for pay-per-click account management bids on those keywords to get ad visibility.

The Power of Account Structure in Paid Search

How could something as basic as the structure of a Google Ads (formerly AdWords) account or a Bing Ads account possibly have a major impact on performance? Here are a few ways account structure can make a big difference:

• Quality Score: One of the contributing factors to a keyword’s quality is how relevant the keyword is to all the ads in its ad group. Because Quality Score affects the cost of bids for a keyword – high scores get a discount; low scores get increased costs – the organization of ad groups and keywords has a direct impact on paid media ROAS.
• Better ad copy: A well-structured account promotes tightly themed ad groups and keywords, which makes for more relevant ad copy and higher click-through rates. This can further improve Quality Score, as CTR is an additional factor. For instance, which ad do you think has the higher click-through rate?

• Flexibility: Keywords can perform very differently based on networks (Search, Display, Shopping, etc.), geographical areas, languages, or match types. A well-structured Google Ads account, for example, will allow adjustments in keyword selection and bidding based on each of these factors. This granular optimization adds up to significant returns.
• Transparency in PPC account management: This level of granularity also means that improvements are easy to track and report. When ad groups or campaigns are filled with barely-related keywords, the reasons for performance changes can be difficult to identify. By comparison, we can see the reasons behind performance changes, and report them to our clients.
• Strategic alignment: (un)Common Logic structures paid search accounts for maximum data visualization applications. Combined with the transparency enabled by our account structure, this results in easy-to-understand reports that track paid search performance relative to client goals or preferences, ensuring that paid search consistently supports those goals.

A structure this powerful can’t be built in a week. Some digital marketing agencies promote how quickly they can have your accounts up and running, even promising a 7-day turnaround for a complete account build. But we know that a week is not enough time to understand your business’s processes, products, strategy, and goals well enough to build a well-structured, in-depth paid search account that best serves your business. In general, the more quickly an account is built, the more generic and cookie-cutter that account structure will be, and the lower its performance will be in the long run.

How PPC Account Structure More Than Doubled MQLs

By comparison, we took more than a month to rebuild a SaaS client’s paid search account. Incorrect, inconsistent account segmentation had led to incomplete performance data and difficult decision-making on budgets. Besides hindering the client’s scaling efforts, the account’s original structure resulted in irrelevant ad traffic and wasted ad spend.

We took the time to understand the company’s business and customer journey and to apply our usual meticulous attention to detail to restructuring the client’s account. The investment of a month’s time into the account structure yielded impressive returns in the following 90 days:

• Lead volume increased by 139%
• Marketing-qualified lead volume increased by 271%
• Cost per MQL dropped by 21%

The (un)Common account structure significantly reduced wasted spend and delivered more leads of higher relevance and quality. The client was able to use the insight provided by the stronger account structure to make strategic decisions regarding ad spend, which further increased their ROAS.

How’s your paid search account structured? Have results plateaued, or do you suspect you could get better performance? Contact us to talk about your paid media marketing.