We asked Michael Oxley, CEO of Contextured, an online service specialising in Search Engine Marketing to be our guest this week.
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If you are lucky enough to have an abundance of time then there are several PPC techniques that are not quick, but can make your AdWords search marketing campaigns more profitable. One of the most valuable and time-consuming practices is to create an ad group for every keyword you wish to bid on.
First the theory:
“The AdWords system calculates a ‘Quality Score’ for each of your keywords. It looks at a variety of factors to measure how relevant your keyword is to your ad text and to a user’s search query. A keyword’s Quality Score updates frequently and is closely related to its performance. In general, a high Quality Score means that your keyword will trigger ads in a higher position and at a lower cost-per-click (CPC).” – Google AdWords Help
So let’s imagine you want to bid on two closely related keywords ‘outdoor chairs’ and ‘garden furniture’. The quickest option is to place both of these keywords in the same ad group and write a single ad:
Great Outdoor Furniture
High Quality Chairs and Seats
Order Today for Free 48hr Delivery
The more time consuming option is to create two ad groups each containing one advert with your keyword on broad, phrase and exact match type. The first is an ad group called ‘outdoor chairs’ containing the keyword outdoor chairs on all three match types i.e. outdoor chairs, “outdoor chairs” and [outdoor chairs]. The second ad group called ‘garden furniture’ containing: garden furniture, “garden furniture” and [garden furniture].
By grouping keywords together in a single ad group the quality score calculation will include the performance of both. This can result in the poorer performing keywords having a negative effect on the whole group. However if you place each keyword in a separate ad group then you are isolating them from each other in Googles quality score calculation. With similar themed keywords this can be just a small difference but the more keywords you run the greater the potential impact.
In multiple experiments we have found that if every other factor is kept the same, the ad group containing a single keyword will produce the best results. We even learnt that using the same keyword as the name of that ad group had a positive effect.
The obvious argument against this methodology is the time taken to setup and manage your pcc advertising. If you have a lot of keywords then it can take a lot of time to set up each ad group with each of its ads and keywords. This is undoubtedly true but if you have the time, then it is the best way to go. There are other good reasons for having individual ad groups per keyword such as the ability to write hyper targeted ads for each keyword but that is for a future post.
Michael Oxley,

[Contextured](http://www.contextured.com/?ref=328679)