How Google Ads is structured: campaigns, ad groups, and keywords
Open Google Ads and similar words line up: "campaign," "ad group," "ad," "keyword." All of them are settings about ads, and the role and the range a change reaches are different.
Decide budget and delivery policy in the campaign, group search intent in the ad group, and combine ads and keywords. That is the basic structure of Search ads that use keywords.
This article uses a fictional cooking class and thinks through where to split your own ads and what to set where. The second half connects the flow from the words that were searched, to the ad being shown, to the result being measured.
Overview: ads and keywords sit side by side inside the ad group
A Search ads structure looks like this.
Google Ads account
└─ Campaign: trial bookings for a cooking class
├─ Ad group: bread-making trial
│ ├─ Keywords
│ │ └─ bread class trial, and similar
│ └─ Ads
│ └─ bread-making trial offer → trial booking page
└─ Ad group: sweets-making trial
├─ Keywords
│ └─ sweets class trial, and similar
└─ Ads
└─ sweets-making trial offer → trial booking page
A keyword is not something you place under an ad. The ad and the keywords belong to the same ad group. It is easier if you think of it as gathering keywords and ads that match the search intent into one place.
Google's explanation of account structure also takes the management hierarchy of account, campaign, and ad group as the base. Not every campaign type registers keywords and ads the way this diagram does. Differences such as P-MAX are explained later.
Campaign: the unit that decides budget and delivery policy
A campaign is the unit that gathers "which advertising activity spends money, and under what conditions." You mainly set the campaign type, budget, locations, language, bid strategy, and similar items. Google Ads Help: Campaigns
For a cooking class, one use is a Search campaign to increase trial bookings, delivered to the area people can travel to the classroom from. Ad groups inside the same campaign use that campaign's budget. Normally the structure does not assign an independent daily budget to each ad group.
If you are unsure whether to split campaigns, check these differences.
| What differs | An example of the decision to split |
|---|---|
| Campaign type | You want to use Search ads and P-MAX separately |
| How budget is allocated | You want the bread class and the sweets class to each have an independent budget |
| Where you deliver | You want the Tokyo classroom and the Osaka classroom to draw from different areas |
| Result goal or bidding policy | You want to evaluate trial bookings and inquiries for corporate training under separate conditions |
This table is a guide for thinking through the design. You do not have to split campaigns only because the products differ. If the budget, the locations, and the result goal are shared, you can start by considering a split at the ad group.
An average daily budget is not "a ceiling that stops at that amount every day." Spending can go up and down by day, so also check the budget type you are using and the spending cap. Google Ads Help: Spending limits
Ad group: the unit that sends the same offer to the same search intent
In an ad group, you gather keywords on a close theme and the ads that answer them.
In the example above, "people who want to try making bread" and "people who want to try making sweets" want to see different offers. Split the ad groups so someone looking for a bread class is not shown a sweets-making ad.
When you think about the split, this question sorts it better than differences in the characters of the keywords.
If you show these searchers the same ad text and the same destination page, can you still answer what they want to know?
People searching for "bread class trial" and "bread-making lesson" might be answered by the same trial-lesson page. "Open a bread class," on the other hand, is a different intent from someone who wants to learn. If you do not offer help with opening a business, the judgment is to leave it out of delivery, rather than to make another group.
If you pack trial bookings, instructor job ads, and help with opening a business into the same ad group, it becomes unclear who the ad is talking to and what it is saying. First align the search intent and the destination. If you still need to split budget or location, split the campaign.
Ad: what you show the person who searched
An ad is the headlines and descriptions a person actually sees, the destination after the click, and similar pieces. The destination page is called a landing page (LP).
Search ads use responsive search ads, where you register several headlines and descriptions. Google chooses the combination when the ad is served, so not every line is shown in the order you entered it in the admin screen. Google Ads Help: Responsive search ads
For a bread-making trial, the ad says what can be tried, and the click destination is where the person can find the dates, the contents, the price, and how to book. If an ad that says "bread-making trial" sends people to a page that only introduces the classroom as a whole, the visitor has to look again for the trial details.
"Assets" are the materials and extra information that make up an ad. Besides headlines, descriptions, images, and similar pieces, they include sitelinks that point to another page, and more. It is easier to understand if you separate them: assets are materials, and the ad is the offer displayed using them. Google Ads Help: Assets
If you want the headline combinations in more detail, When a responsive search ad headline does not show the way you intended is also useful.
Keywords: which searches become candidates for an ad
A keyword is a word or phrase the advertiser registers. A search term is the words a person actually searched.
| Term | Fictional example | Who decides it |
|---|---|---|
| Keyword | bread class trial | The advertiser registers it |
| Search term | a class nearby where I can try making bread | The person searching types it |
Even when the words differ, the ad can be eligible to show, depending on how related the meanings are and on the settings. Registering a keyword does not mean the ad shows only for that exact string. Google Ads Help: Keywords
Match type changes how far the search can correspond
| Match type | Example of how you write the registration | How to think about the searches it can cover |
|---|---|---|
| Exact match | [bread class trial] |
Searches with the same meaning and intent |
| Phrase match | "bread class trial" |
Searches that include the meaning of the keyword |
| Intent match (formerly broad match) | bread class trial |
Extends to searches related to the keyword |
Even exact match is not limited to searches whose characters are exactly the same. Phrase match is also not decided only by whether the registered string is included as it stands. Google Ads Help: Match types
Match type is a setting that changes the range of searches that can become candidates. For every type, check the search terms that actually showed, and see whether you reached the people you aimed at.
Searches you do not want to cover are controlled with negative keywords. The matching rules differ from ordinary keywords, so the concrete way to stop them is explained separately in How to stop wasted delivery from search terms.
The flow from a search, to the ad showing, to measuring the result
Connect the work of registering keywords with the mechanism that shows an ad, and the flow is the following. This simplifies Search ads that use keywords.
A person searches
↓
Ads that match the search and meet the delivery conditions become candidates
↓
The auction decides whether the ad can show, and the position
↓
The ad is shown
↓
A click goes to the destination page
↓
If a booking, a purchase, or a similar action happens, the result is measured according to the settings
Position is not decided by the bid alone
In the auction, Ad Rank is calculated from more than the bid: the quality of the ad and the landing page, the competitive situation, the context at the time of the search, the predicted effect of assets, and similar inputs. Ad Rank is used to judge whether the ad can show and what position it gets. Google Ads Help: Ad Rank
So when an ad does not show, raising only the budget or the bid does not always solve it. The order for checking delivery conditions, review status, and similar items is in When impressions are 0: wait, or change the settings.
Budget, bids, and billing are each different
Budget is the frame of money for the advertising activity. A bid is the setting for how much you compete for a chance to show the ad. Under cost-per-click billing, the amount you actually pay when a click happens is called the cost per click (CPC). Google Ads Help: Actual cost-per-click
With automated bidding, Google adjusts the bid toward a goal such as clicks or conversions. "A bid that increases the number of conversions" and "billing that charges only when a conversion happens" do not mean the same thing. Check the optimization goal and the billing condition separately. Google Ads Help: Bid strategies
A conversion is the action you want the ads to increase
A conversion is an action you measure as a result, such as a completed booking, a purchase, or an inquiry. Even if an ad is clicked, if you are not measuring the booking after that, it is hard to evaluate which ad led to a booking.
Further, in automated bidding that emphasizes conversions, the goals the campaign uses and the conversion actions included in bidding matter. If you treat a page view and a completed booking as the same result, you can get a gap where "visits increased and bookings did not." Google Ads Help: Conversion goals
Do not apply the same hierarchy diagram to P-MAX as it stands
The explanation so far is centered on Search ads that use keywords.
In P-MAX, an asset group is used in place of an ad group, and you gather text, images, video, and similar materials that fit the theme. Google combines the materials for each surface. Google Ads Help: How asset groups work
Search campaigns also have settings such as AI Max, which widens matching beyond the keywords you registered. So even in Search ads, do not assume that "the keyword list alone shows the whole delivery range." Check the automation settings that are on, and the search terms. Google Ads Help: How AI Max works
When you choose a type other than Search, Google Ads campaign types and how to choose compares where ads show and what assets you prepare.
Try writing your own structure in these fields
Once the terms are clear, fill in the following before you operate the admin screen.
Result you want to increase:
Budget, locations, and goal to share in the campaign:
Theme of the ad group:
Words this person is likely to search:
What the ad will say:
Page to show after the click:
Action you want completed on that page:
Search intent you will not deliver to:
Write it out by theme, and group the ones that can be answered by the same ad and page. Ones that need a different budget or location are candidates for a separate campaign. Do this work and, before you write the ad text, "who you are offering what to" lines up.
After you start running the ads, decide where to review from the results, not only from the structure. Shoryaku AI's Google Ads analysis can sort the place to improve, and the reason, from ad results and the business information. Ad changes are not made automatically. A matching change is applied when you review and approve it individually.