It’s the account structure, stupid…

It seems absurd to say that one thing defines the quality of an Adwords account; there are surely too many variables.

Here’s some of the key ones;

There are some, who will say the most important thing is the keywords. Seems logical, after all these are what the advertiser is bidding on.

Some, especially those from a sales or commercial background might say it’s all about the adtexts. Seems reasonable, shouting about your products in the best possible light, and attracting consumers is tried and tested, as I have regularly been told over the past couple of years – ‘market stall owners have been doing it for centuries’.

Others will say it’s all about the budget, usually they’re the purse string holders, or the people who have to make decisions – with the purse string holders breathing down their neck!

And there are ten’s of other influencers on the quality of an account, but the only thing that directly influences all of those above and the smaller aspects of an account, from CTRs and Quality Scores, to negative keywords and match types… it’s the account structure, stupid.

Account structure defines the quality of an account, poor structures often indicate an adhoc approach to account building, if there is a long-term strategy in place, or even in mind the account structure has to be key.

Blogs usually finish at this point – express a half-baked opinion then move on, blog written, content on the site!

So here is the DVD directors cut part of a blog post – the bit where the blogger gives a key piece of information away for free as a thank you for reading this far;

Don’t be scared of using campaigns, the irrational fear of having ‘too’ (whatever that means) many campaigns negatively effects the ability of a PPC campaign manager to manage the account.

There that’s it. The best piece of information you’ll ever receive on the most important aspect of an account.

It seems to me that many people see campaigns as the macro level of an Adwords account, and the adgroups as the micro level (this is where the major decisions are made in this structure).  The major problem with this is that certain areas at the macro level need micro managing, but because of the structure they aren’t!

My interpretation is that the Account is the Macro level, and includes things like Billing, account access etc.

Then the campaigns become the micro level, and this is important because some of the biggest decisions are made at this stage, from budget to ad scheduling to campaign level negative keywords.

Then we can call the adgroup management the nano level.  This is where the little tweaks take place, bumping or dumping keywords, bidding, testing adtexts and landing page URLs.

Like anything else, if the structure isn’t there to start with you might achieve great things, but they’ll never in my opinion be as great had you got the structure right from the off.