Google Adwords Campaign Managment

[AndySolo]

Hope I'm not going too off the topic of SEOmoz. I just kinda feel that SEO and SEM can be answered by most of you.

My question is setting up Campaigns. I'm launching an adwords (PPC) marketing initiative for my day job "Home Improvements".  Our services are

Windows, Doors, Siding, Decking etc...

I'm thinking the campaign would be Windows and the ad groups would be the different types of windows offered like Bay Windows, Garden Windows etc...

But... all the ad groups within a campaign share the same keywords and budget, correct?

If I wanted to have different keywords and budgets for each product, a separate campaign for each would be necessary, correct?

So, how would ad groups help me with organization given this example?

[john4math]

Think of it this way.  Each ad group is a cluster of keywords that will all trigger the same ad or ads.  When someone searches for Bay Windows, you probably want your ad text to use the words "Bay Windows" in it, and you'll want to link to a landing page discussing Bay Windows, so you'll need an ad group dedicated to Bay Windows.  It'll have keywords like "install bay windows", "buy bay windows", "insulation for bay windows", or whatever is relevant to your business.  You could have another ad group for garden windows doing the same.

If you need fine grained control over your budgets for each of these, then you'd need them to be in separate campaigns.

Also, don't be surprised if Google goes over budget on any given day. You set a daily budget for a campaign, but Google is allowed to overspend that by 20% each day.  If they overspend over for an entire month and you haven't changed the budget, they'll only charge you 30.4 times your daily budget, and refund you the difference (I've never had this happen).

[AndySolo]

Ok, that all makes great sense. 1 more question....

Within each ad group you have a set of keywords, I can adjust the Max CPC for each individual keyword, correct?

So the Campaign is Windows with a daily budget of $100

I am willing to pay more per click for Bay Windows compared to Basement Windows.

So the keywords phrases:

Replacement Bay Windows..... Max CPC $4

Replacement Basement Windows.... Max CPC $2

It would work like this correct? and I would have a different ad group for Bay Windows and Basement Windows within my Window campaign, correct?

[john4math]

Each keyword will inherit the ad group Max CPC bid, which you then can adjust on a keyword level.  So yes, you can adjust the max CPC bid for each keyword as you see fit.

What you've outlined above sounds correct!  That's how I'd structure it.

One other tip I give to everyone is to use Adwords Editor.  It's software that Google provides that you can install on your computer, and it makes creating and editing things in your Adwords account faster and easier than through the web interface.  You can download it here.

[AndySolo]

Thanks! I needed to wrap my head around that and I'm good now. I appreciate it.

[john4math]

I always enjoy answering PPC questions, but they don't often get asked very often in the Q&A.  If you have more questions as you get setup, or have questions once things are up and running, don't hesitate to ask!

[DavidKonigsberg]

moz should really make a section for ppc - tools, blogs etc

[AndySolo]

Danny Dover doesn't like the SEM people very much