Last Updated on August 5, 2024 by Admin
When setting up a pay-per-click (PPC) campaign on Google Ads, it’s crucial to start by attracting the right audience. Typically, this begins with thorough keyword research to identify all the relevant search terms potential customers might use to find your products or services. You might end up with a long list of keywords—sometimes over 100.
Despite Google Ads allowing up to 20,000 target items per ad group, you might wonder if managing 100 keywords is really manageable or effective.
In this article, we will explore key questions such as:
- How many keywords should an ad group ideally contain?
- Why is it better to limit the number of keywords?
- How can you determine the optimal number of keywords for your campaign?
So, let’s get started!
How Many Keywords Should an Ad Group Have?
If you’re on this page, you’re likely wondering, “How many keywords should be in each ad group?” A common suggestion is to keep it under 30 keywords, but the ideal number can vary. Some recommend 20-25 keywords per ad group.
However, this isn’t a universal rule. Having 20-25 keywords is fine, but not necessary for a successful campaign. The optimal number of keywords in an ad group depends on several factors.
- Your campaign objectives
- The size of your business
- The level of competition you face
- Your budget and available resources
Using too many keywords can weaken your campaign’s focus and potentially confuse your target audience. Moreover, it can make it difficult to pinpoint which keywords aren’t performing well, leading to unnecessary spending to keep your ads active.
Let’s explore the above factors in more detail to understand how they influence the number of keywords you should use.
- Goal of Your Campaign: Marketing campaigns, including PPC campaigns, need clear objectives. You might want to boost brand awareness, generate leads, or promote a new product. Each goal demands a tailored advertising strategy.
This can affect how many keywords you should include in an ad group. For instance, an ad group targeting a specific product or service might use fewer, more targeted keywords. On the other hand, a group focused on increasing brand awareness may need a broader range of keywords.
- Size of Business: A small business, with limited resources and fewer products, should target only a few keywords. This strategy helps prevent budget depletion and underperforming ads. For example, if you sell organic skincare products like face oils and body scrubs, it’s strategic to focus on specific keywords.
Opt for “organic face oil” instead of broad terms like “skin care products” or “natural beauty products.” This method allows for more targeted ad copy, making it easier to reach your audience. It can also be more cost-effective and require less effort than managing large ad groups.
Conversely, larger retail chains or online marketplaces with more resources might benefit from broader keyword strategies. They can afford to create ad groups that cover a wide range of keywords. This could include various brands, product lines, or customer demographics.
- The Level of Competition You Face: At times, bidding on highly competitive keywords is a strategic choice. It can boost brand visibility and divert traffic from competitors. For instance, if your business sells laptops and gadgets from top brands like Apple and HP, it’s smart to bid on branded keywords such as “Apple MacBook Air.”
However, be mindful that your competitors may target these same keywords. This competition could potentially increase the cost per click.
This principle also applies to generic, unbranded keywords such as “buy best laptop” or “new laptop.” - Budget and Resources Available: In Google Ads, you can establish an average daily budget that averages out over the month.
Your actual daily expenditure might double your set daily budget on days when Google’s AI identifies substantial conversion opportunities. Nonetheless, your total monthly spending will not surpass your set monthly limit, calculated as your average daily budget times 30.4.
Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Target Too Many Keywords
Here are three main reasons why targeting more than 30 keywords in your Google Ads campaigns may be challenging.
- Your daily budget may be insufficient: Typically, when you run PPC ads, you set a daily budget to prevent quickly depleting your overall advertising funds. This limit helps distribute your budget across several days, weeks, or months, maximizing your exposure over time. For example, if your daily PPC budget is $40 and your cost-per-click (CPC) for each keyword is $1, targeting 20 keywords allows you to achieve 40 clicks per day, potentially receiving two clicks per keyword.
However, if you expand your keyword list to 50, these keywords must share the same $40 budget. This distribution makes it unlikely that every keyword will receive even one click per day, potentially leaving some keywords without any exposure. This underfunding can lead to ineffective ads that don’t generate traffic because they’re overshadowed by others consuming the budget.
While those extra keywords might still be relevant to your business, the sheer number creates competition within your budget, limiting their effectiveness and potentially hindering overall ad performance due to insufficient funding. - Difficulty in Identifying Poorly Performing Keywords: When your ad campaigns contain dozens of terms, pinpointing which keywords are not performing well becomes a significant challenge. Consider the scenario where you’re working with a $40 budget spread across 50 keywords. If some keywords consistently fail to receive any of the budget, does this mean they’re irrelevant to your business?
Not necessarily. It could simply indicate that there isn’t enough budget for those keywords to demonstrate their potential value. Conversely, a $40 daily budget allocated among just 10 keywords provides more flexibility to evaluate each keyword’s effectiveness.
Using too many keywords can prevent you from effectively identifying and eliminating the less relevant ones from your campaign. - Managing Numerous Keywords Can Be Labor-Intensive: Handling a large number of keywords increases the workload for your business. Managing 50 keywords within a single campaign is already a substantial effort. Now, consider if you are running five PPC campaigns simultaneously; this means monitoring and optimizing 250 keywords.
It becomes a daunting challenge to thoroughly analyze each keyword to confirm they are all effectively contributing to driving valuable traffic and leads for your business.
Ways to Find the Right Number of Keywords for Your Ad Groups
You now understand the optimal number of keywords to target per ad group, but you might still be uncertain about the ideal number for your ad copy. While there’s no strict rule for keeping it under 30, here are two approaches to help you determine the best keyword count for your business.
Prioritize Quality Over Quantity
The key to finding the right keywords isn’t in the sheer number you can gather, but in their relevance and value to your business. Instead of aiming to meet a specific keyword count, focus on selecting high-quality keywords. Utilize tools like KeywordsFX to discover pertinent terms. When compiling your list, emphasize long-tail keywords.
Long-tail keywords, which typically include three or more words such as “purple insulated tumbler cup,” bring more specific, qualified traffic to your PPC campaigns. If someone searches for “purple insulated tumbler cup,” and you sell that item, your ad directly matches their query. These keywords also tend to have lower competition, which can result in a reduced cost per click (CPC) for your campaigns.
A lower CPC allows your budget to yield more clicks. Conversely, a broad and competitive keyword like “tumbler” may not attract the most relevant traffic. Focusing on long-tail keywords enhances the effectiveness of your ads. An ad featuring five targeted, high-quality keywords is likely to perform better than one with 30 less relevant keywords.
Customize Strategies for Each Campaign
A common error is to apply the same strategy across all PPC campaigns. Just because 15 keywords might be effective for one campaign doesn’t mean they’ll be suitable for another. Each campaign is distinct and interacts with searchers differently. You might discover that 15 keywords are excessive for a new campaign.
Every campaign is unique, and adjusting your keyword strategy to match the specific needs of each can lead to better outcomes. You’ll optimize your results by emphasizing quality over quantity in each campaign.
This approach ensures that each campaign is fine-tuned for maximum effectiveness rather than adopting a one-size-fits-all approach.
How AlgoSaga Can Help You?
Selecting the right keywords is crucial for optimizing your ad’s performance both immediately and in the future. To truly benefit from your PPC campaign, it’s essential to tailor your efforts to target appropriate keywords, ensuring the traffic to your site is as relevant as possible.
At AlgoSaga, our PPC Service experts are specialize in executing PPC campaigns that deliver tangible results. Our approach is backed by deep expertise in digital marketing, ensuring that we can effectively drive results for your company. Trust in Algosaga to leverage strategic keyword targeting to enhance your campaign’s success and increase your ROI.