Google Ads Account Structure To Reduce CAC - KlientBoost

Google Ads Account Structure To Reduce CAC

Written by Johnathan Dane
CEO & Founder

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Leverage paid search for what it’s best at and finally stop paid search CAC spiraling out of control.

Ingredients

1 cup Simplified account structure
2 tsp Choosing the right keywords Dash Optimizing your bid strategy Dollop Allocating budget correctly

Instructions

Stop Optimizing Paid Search For Demand Generation

Here’s where most B2Bs go wrong with paid search:

This leads to overly complex account structures that increase CAC (the cost to acquire a customer) and don’t deliver sustainable ROI. Not good.

Pro B2Bs Optimize Paid Search For Demand Capture

Google Ads works best when it’s used for demand capture. Trying to use it for anything else will hemorrhage your ad spend—which is better spent on demand generation channels with higher ROI (like LinkedIn Ads).

B2Bs should simplify their account structure to exclusively target in-market keywords:

The simplified account structure has just 4 campaigns:

The Retargeting campaign targets users who have already shown intent via a website visit, form submission, or similar.

The Exact Google Ads Account Structure KlientBoost Uses

You have the four campaigns you need—let's optimize them.

The table below shows the ad groups, landing pages, keywords, match types, bid strategies, and budgets for each campaign:

Ad groups

We find STAGs work best for most B2Bs and use them in all our campaigns.

STAG (Single Theme Ad Group): an ad group with similar theme (related) keywords. For example, we have ad groups with keywords for each service area.

For each ad group, create custom copy and landing pages to maximize CTR, conversion rate, and ultimately pipeline and revenue.

Don’t stress if you don’t have the resources to create as many landing pages as you need. Use your home page to start, then build new landing pages in priority order based on what’s driving the most demos, pipeline or revenue.

80:20 baby 😉

Keyword Targeting

Choose variations of the brand name for your Brand and Competitor ad group keywords as follows:

Don’t include any low-intent variations with modifiers such as login, careers, jobs, etc.

Your In-Market campaign will include a blend of category and capability keywords. The fundamental rule here is to only choose keywords that signal buying intent.

Your retargeting campaign will target keywords from your best performing ad groups. You’ll add a high-intent retargeting audience layer to these ad groups—such as pricing and demo form page visits—and open up targeting to broad match.

Exact Match vs Broad Match

Broad match targeting allows your ads to show for a wide range of search terms related to your target keyword. It’s useless for most B2Bs and sends low quality traffic and leads to your website.

Exact match targeting allows your ads to show for searches that have the same meaning or intent as your target keyword.

Bidding Strategies

In most cases, the Max Conversions bid strategy is your safest bet.

Budget Allocation

Budget allocation varies from company to company—you’ll need to move things around to find out what works.

Brand Keywords (0–40%)

Allocate 0–40% of your budget to Brand Keywords campaigns—the more competitors bidding against your brand name, the more budget you’ll need.

In-Market Keywords (40–60%)

Allocate 40–60% of your budget to In-Market Keywords campaigns. For B2Bs with low competition, you can push this as high as 80%.

Competitor Keywords (10–20%)

Allocate 10–20% of your budget to Competitor Keywords campaigns. How much will depend on how well your competitor keywords convert. If they convert well, allocate more budget.

Retargeting (~10%)

Finally, allocate ~10% of your budget to Retargeting campaigns. These are typically much lower volume and don’t require as much spend.

Time To Cook

You have all the ingredients for higher ROI Google Ads campaigns. Once the new structure is in place, don’t make any major changes for 2–4 weeks—opt for the longer end if you have a lengthy sales cycle.