This post was co-written by Kaitlyn Boehm and Conor Bond.
Chex Mix would be utter garbage if it weren’t for the tiny pretzels.
Oof—sorry, everyone. Like the insecure friend-of-a-friend who insists on turning your weekend getaway group chat into a bubble-filled crucible, we came in a little too hot with that take. You’ll have to forgive our eagerness. Please—hear us out.
Thanks to their unmatched blandness, the tiny pretzels provide the balance that makes every bag of Chex Mix a savory sensation. Take them away and you’re left with something that simply doesn’t work. Yeah—the other components of Chex Mix are still individually good. But without the structural integrity the pretzels provide, the snack as a whole falls apart.
The ad campaigns you’re running on Google and Facebook are no different. Even if each individual ad is flawless, you can’t succeed without strong, thoughtful campaign structures.
Even an ad as punny as this one is doomed without a solid campaign structure.
The more forethought you put into your campaign structures, the better chance you’ll have of turning your Google and Facebook advertising efforts into money-making machines.
This Wednesday, August 14, we’ll be diving deep into the anatomy of a healthy ad campaign on Google and Facebook. Make sure to register for the live webinar and get all the insights we have to offer! In the meantime, here’s a sneak peek of what’s to come.
The anatomy of a healthy Google Ads campaign
Whether you’ve been working in Google Ads for two years or two days, it’s always important to know the fundamentals of a healthy account! When I put on my detective hat and diagnose an account, I like to tackle the settings, structure, budget, and intent that I’m driving to my site.
In today’s blog post, we’ll cover campaign settings and account structure. Check out Wednesday’s webinar to get our insights into budget allocation and intent matching!
Getting back to basics with your settings
If we compare your Google Ads campaign to a person, the settings of the overall campaign is the heart. Remember that the most important settings are set at the campaign level! Before you start your campaign, make sure you have the where, when, who, and how checked off.
The where
Location settings: Am I targeting the right location? Is it too broad of a location? Do I need to narrow it down?
Search Partners: The Google Search Partners Network consists of websites that have partnered with Google to show your ads. Do you want to advertise on these sites?
The when
Ad scheduling: Are you only open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and aiming to get people to call your business? Make sure you create a schedule in Google Ads so your paid ads will only show up during this time.
The who
Language settings: It’s best practice to change your campaigns from “All Languages” to the language of your ad copy, keywords, and landing pages.
The how
Bidding strategy: Brand new campaign? There are two different avenues to go down when you’re setting your bidding strategy. Want more control over your bids? Try manual! Alternatively, if you want Google to set bids for you, give Maximize Clicks with a bid cap a shot.
Optimizing your account structure
Now that your settings are confirmed, let’s review the overall structure of your campaign. Are all of your products or services under one campaign? Do you have 400 keywords in one ad group? Let’s discuss the golden ratios and how they relate to Google Ads account structure!
The importance of sound account structure
Imagine you’re walking into a grocery store looking for cake mix. You look at the signs above the aisles and see “baking goods.” So you go into the aisle and quickly find your intended product.
Now, imagine the reverse situation. You go into the store looking for cake mix, but all the signs are misleading or irrelevant. You can find cupcakes, donuts, and even magazines that show you how to bake, but not a box of cake mix in sight! Little do you know, you may be doing this to your potential customers.
When figuring out the best way to structure your account, always have the term relevance in the back of your mind. Separate your ad groups by common themes so you can show ads to the correct people, and bring them to the correct landing pages as a result!
The golden ratios of account structure
Now that you’re ready to tackle your account structure head-on, remember these golden ratios to make sure you’re doing it in a healthy way.
- No more than 15-20 keywords per ad group
- Roughly three ads per ad group
- No more than 7-10 ad groups per campaign
Want more Google Ads account advice? Sign up for the webinar now!
The anatomy of a healthy Facebook Ads campaign
Now that we have an idea of what it takes to keep your Google Ads campaign happy and healthy, we’ll shift our attention to Facebook.
No matter your reasoning for advertising on Facebook, there are three levels to each campaign you run: the campaign level, the ad set level, and the ad level. In today’s blog post, we’ll cover the campaign level. To find out everything you need to know about the ad set level and the ad level, tune into the webinar on Wednesday!
The campaign level
As we’ve seen, there’s quite a bit going on at the campaign level when you’re advertising on Google. Comparatively, Facebook Ads is a lot simpler in this respect!
Essentially, there’s only one campaign-level setting you need to worry about when building a Facebook Ads campaign: your objective. When you select an objective, you tell Facebook what you’re striving to accomplish with the ads within your campaign. As of now, there are 11 different options you can choose from:
As you can see, Facebook organizes all the campaign objectives at your disposal across three buckets: awareness, consideration, and conversion. You can think of each bucket as a broader business goal under which more nuanced objectives can be categorized. Conveniently, each of these three categories roughly corresponds with a key stage in your marketing funnel—and, therefore, with a key stage in your prospects’ customer journeys.
The purpose of an awareness campaign (the top of your marketing funnel) is to reach relevant Facebook users and let them know that your business exists. Because these people have never interacted with your business before, your goal with an awareness campaign should not be conversions or sales. Instead, you should aim to grab users’ attention, make a strong first impression, and effectively communicate the value your business can provide.
The purpose of a consideration campaign (the middle of your marketing funnel) is to inspire your prospects to take action in a meaningful way. Whether “take action in a meaningful way” means visiting your blog, watching your video, or filling out a form, the goal is to build relevant audience pools that you can subsequently target with lower-funnel offers.
Finally, the purpose of a conversion campaign (the bottom of your marketing funnel) is to drive conversions or sales. Of course, this looks different for businesses in different verticals. Whereas a software company may run a conversion campaign to get their prospects to register for free trials, a brick-and-mortar retailer may aim to drive an increase in foot traffic.
Best practice: The objective you select for your Facebook Ads campaign should align with the depth of the relationship between your business and the users you plan to target. If you want to engage with users who’ve never heard of your business, run an awareness campaign. If you want to drive recent site visitors to your restaurant, run a conversion campaign.
Don’t forget to register!
What we’ve shared here today is a great start—but we’ve only scratched the surface of what it takes to build healthy, effective ad campaigns on Google and Facebook. Tune into Wednesday’s live webinar and you’ll get twice as many actionable insights. Sound good? Register here!