The structure of a paid search campaign has a big impact on performance. One of the most important aspects of campaign structure is the use of tightly themed keyword AdGroups. Creating several tightly themed groups of related keyword variations allows you to customize ads for each group. Doing this improves the overall relevance of the ad copy to the targeted keyword list, thus potentially improving click-through rate, quality scores, and CPC.
AdWords Editor has a keyword grouping feature that can help segment a large list of terms into more granular, themed AdGroups which can ultimately lead to improved performance metrics.
To use the grouping tool, first create a “dummy” or “test” Campaign and AdGroup to drop the un-segmented keyword list into. Once created, highlight the newly created AdGroup in the left-hand window and import the list of terms under the “Keywords” tab by selecting “Make Multiple Changes”.
Once the keywords are processed and you are done reviewing changes, you should see the un-segmented list of terms in the “dummy” campaign and AdGroup.
Next, select “Keyword Grouper” from the Tools menu, and ensure the correct “dummy” Campaign and AdGroup are featured before selecting “Generate common terms”. At this point, AdWords will provide a sample list of themes found within the larger list for the creation of more themed, granular keyword groups. The output can be fine-tuned here by selecting terms to ignore when new AdGroups are created.
After hitting “Next”, a preview of the groupings will be displayed. There is also an option to have Editor create text ads from a template, but this would only be recommended for extremely large accounts, and marketers should proceed with caution as dynamic ad generation can cause problems if not executed with proper attention.
After confirming the preview and clicking “Finish”, the “dummy” campaign will have several new AdGroups based on the common themes found in the initial list of un-segmented terms.
At this point, it is a good idea to export the new grouped list to Excel to review the groupings and make adjustments as needed before using them for actual ad campaigns.
The automated tool is a great way to get a head start when building out groups of themed terms from a larger un-segmented list. That being said, a human touch is still required to go through all the proposed buckets and fine tune the lists based on the goals of the campaign.
