Meet Alpha-Beta: the Best Adwords Campaign Structure

If you advertise on Google Ads (the late Google Adwords), you need to pay attention to the most powerful - and basic - technique to lower your costs, increase conversions and CTR, and improve every single metric.

Whatever you call it - PPC or SEM - search advertising tools were optimized to generate as much revenue as possible… For the search engines.

Luckily for us, there are a few techniques that let the Advertiser squeeze out more efficiency.

This is the first article in a series on SEM where I'll go deep into Adwords and Bing Ads - how to get better results at a lower cost, how to automate your campaigns with JavaScript, and how to track conversions more efficiently.

Today we'll go deep into how to structure your Adwords account, and compare  two methods that - in my experience - are the best ones for the job.

What are Campaign Structures?

Campaign structures are ways of organizing your Adwords account that let you control when and where your ads get shown.

Poorly structured accounts are inefficient and waste your money.

So when you structure your account the right way, you guarantee:

• Confidence that you're advertising on keywords that actually make sense
• Higher Quality Score on your ads (and as a result, lower CPC and CPA, and higher CTR)
• The ability to optimize your account systematically (because it's actually organized)

The best campaign structure: Alpha-Beta

There are two optimizations that generate the best results.

They are SKAGs and the Alpha-Beta campaign structure.

I didn't invent them - that was Brad Geddes, the  longest-standing SEM professional and the best PPC resource I know of.  They were later popularized by Q3 digital, one of the best  PPC agencies in San Francisco.

The Alpha-Beta campaign structure splits your campaigns into two categories:

• Maximum Performance (Alpha)
• Data Collection (Beta)

This means every Alpha campaign will be optimized to the max, generating clicks, leads and sales at minimal cost and with positive ROI.

And the Beta campaigns will be “exploration” campaigns, where you'll discover new winning keywords for your Alpha campaigns.

This structure is basically Keyword Mining: panning for gold (Alpha Keywords) in the mud (Beta Keywords).

To implement this, the first requirement is that you're tracking conversions on your website.

Warning:

DO NOT SPEND MONEY ON SEM UNTIL YOU'RE TRACKING CONVERSIONS

For the love of God.

Without conversion tracking, it's impossible to optimize your funnel. If you need help setting this up, talk to me.

Assuming you already have Adwords and Analytics properly configured, there are two possibilities:

• You're starting your Adwords account right now and have never advertised before
• You already have an Adwords account up and running

The only implementation difference between these two is that  if your Adwords account is already in operation, you probably already have  the data to build Alpha campaigns right now.

If it's brand new, you'll need some time to test the Beta Keywords before implementing the rest.

How to build the Beta Campaigns

The secret here is the keyword match types

Since Beta keywords are exploratory, we don't want them to be exact, but we also don't want them to be too broad;

You will never use Broad Match in a performance-driven account.

Because broad match wastes your money on useless search terms that have nothing to do with your product.

Google's definition of broad match goes like this:

A keyword setting that allows your ad to show for  that keyword or variations of it. An ad set up for the  keyword “low carb diet” in broad match  will show if someone searches “carb-free foods”,  “low calorie recipes”, “mediterranean diet plans”, “low  carb diet program”.

You should use Modified Broad match to explore new keywords. That way, you get a bit more control over what you're advertising on.

If you advertise, in modified broad match, on “+low +carb  +diet”, it will only show for searches that include all  three words - so, from the examples above, only “low carb  diet program”.

Let's say you teach Yoga online and did some keyword research. You picked 6 keywords for your tests:

• learn yoga online
• learn vinyasa yoga
• yoga classes on the internet
• yoga classes for beginners
• best vinyasa yoga teacher
• online yoga teacher

Then you'll build your beta campaign with those keywords in Modified Broad match

First, we create a campaign with a standardized name. Don't forget, the name matters a lot. It will help you automate and organize your account once it gets big.

A good name for the campaign would be:

Search - Brazil - Beta - Yoga

First, the campaign type (could be Display, Search, etc..).

Second, the geographic location.

Then, the campaign category (Alpha or Beta).

Last, the shared keyword (yoga) is right in the name, making the campaigns easy to recognize.

After that, we create three ad groups, splitting them by shared semantics:

Enable the campaign and…

Wait until you have enough data.

Depending on your budget, it can take a few days.

Now, we start optimizing!

Pause and Negative the bad terms

Go to the Search Terms Report and sort the terms by number of impressions.

You will most definitely find Search Terms that make no  sense for you. Zero purchase intent. You'll find some with  tons of impressions and no clicks at all.

You should put these terms in a negative keyword list, so they get eliminated from all your campaigns.

For specific instructions, check out the step-by-step guide on how to implement the Alpha-Beta structure (coming soon)

Put the good keywords into SKAGs in the Alpha Campaigns

In that same Search Terms Report, you should also find good search terms. Above-average CTR, a nice number of conversions, and so on.

These search terms are our gold.

You should now put them into an Alpha campaign, inside SKAGs.

What are SKAGS?

SKAG - Single Keyword Ad Group - um grupo de anúncio com somente uma palavra chave.

One of the most Granular Campaign structures out there, SKAGs  still spark plenty of debate in the SEM world. They guarantee Ads with  sky-high quality and a lower cost per result, but they can be  labor-intensive and hard to maintain.

For small and medium accounts that prioritize ad performance and ROI, I believe SKAGs are the best option.

How to implement the Alpha Campaigns:

First, we create the Alpha campaigns with a standardized name:

Search - Brazil - Alpha - Learn Yoga

Search - Brazil - Alpha - Yoga Teacher

Search - Brazil - Alpha - Yoga Classes

Because of the granular ad groups, it's recommended to split the Alpha campaigns.

And inside the campaign, we'll create ad groups with the good keywords from our Search Terms Report.

Let's say the winning search terms you extracted from the  keyword “+learn +yoga +online” were: “learn vinyasa  yoga online” and “how to learn yoga online”.

Now, the ad groups will have exact match keywords:

Ad GroupKeywordlearn vinyasa yoga online[learn vinyasa yoga online]how to learn yoga online[how to learn yoga online]

Now, since your ad group has only one keyword, you can write  a very specific Ad - this will boost your CTR, and your ad  Quality Score lands between 9 and 10.

For keywords that perform extremely well, you should even consider building a dedicated Landing Page.

Negative the Alpha Campaign keywords in the Beta Campaigns

You want that when someone searches “learn vinyasa yoga online”  on Google, Google shows your specific ad, with a high Quality  Score.

But that keyword is still triggering the Beta campaign we  set up - so Google might show the generic ad with a  ~meh Quality Score.

To keep that from happening, put all the exact match  keywords into a negative keyword list -  Alpha Keywords.

Exclude the Alpha Keywords from your Beta Campaigns.

You've just finished the best campaign structure Adwords can offer.

The process of generating more Alpha keywords and negativing terms -  known as account hygiene - should be repeated once a week  or every 15 days.

By following this system, you should be able to keep a profitable Adwords account without excessive maintenance.