Google Ads Account Structure

In terms of ad account hierarchy, at the highest level is the Google Ads account. Do not confuse the Google Ads account with your Google account. You need a Google account (e.g., Gmail) to sign up for a Google Ads account. 

 

When we talk about the account hierarchy, we are referring to the ad account. And for Google Ads account, at that level, we are dealing with very high-level things like your users, your login information, email password, billing information.

At the working level, it’s gonna start with creating a campaign which is somewhat similar to Facebook advertising. But in Google Ads, most of the configuration is done at the campaign level. Things such as goal, budget, bid strategy and a whole lot of settings are at the campaign level. Campaign setup takes up the bulk of your time and you want to know intimately well the options available at the campaign level.

Then we have the Ad Group which is one level lower than in the account hierarchy along with keywords, URLs of landing pages, and Ads. The Ad Group should ideally be a tight unit comprising of related keywords. You should be grouping your ad groups based on themes that you identified during your keyword research.

 

When is it necessary to create a new Campaign and when to create a new Ad Group?

You need to know what settings are available at the Campaign versus Ad Group level. Because for example, if you need to have a different ad to show for an attribute, and that attribute is at the campaign level, you have no choice but to create a new campaign.

If for example you want different ads to show for weekdays and weekends, the feature needed is ad scheduling which is at the campaign level. Therefore, you will need to create a new Campaign for this along with its own set of ad group(s) and ad(s).

Another example is when you are advertising different services and want to specify a certain budget for each one of your services. Since budget is defined at the Campaign level, if you are not willing to split the budget between Ad Groups, you will need separate campaigns (with dedicated budgets) to advertise each service you provide. But if you prefer to use a single campaign budget across multiple ad groups, you can simply create a new ad group for this.

 

Key Takeaway

Account structure has a direct impact on the relevancy of your ads because it influences how your keywords, ads and landing pages are related to one another, as well as how Google interprets the various themes in your account and, as a result, how your advertisements are targeted. To advertise effectively, we need to know the ad account structure and the available settings very well because failure to do so limits the possibilities, creativity and strategy on ads and ad targeting.