Fixing Old Google Ads Accounts: Making Them Work Better
A successful restructure leaves the account easier to understand, easier to optimise and better positioned for the future. Understanding why the account looks like it does is key to getting from sticky mess to well-oiled machine.
Date
Aug 2, 2024
Category
Google Ads
Reading time
3 min
A customer asked for help to make their old Google Ads account better. The account was really complicated:
It had more than 50 campaigns
Thousands of keywords spread across hundreds of ad groups
Lots of complicated rules
Different settings for locations, devices, and times of day
The account was working okay, but the customer felt like it was held together with tape and string. They were worried that not using Google's newer features might make the account stop working suddenly or slowly get worse over time.
But they couldn't just make substantial changes and hope for the best. The business needed a steady flow of new customers.
A good fix should make the account easier to understand, easier to improve, and ready for the future.
To fix the account, it's important to understand why it looks the way it does now. I start by asking myself three questions:
What was the person who set up the account trying to do?
Do we still want to do the same thing today?
If we were starting from scratch today, how would we do it?
Sometimes you can ask the person who set up the account what they were trying to do. But most of the time, I have to figure it out by looking at how the account is set up now.
Here's a tip: Don't think the person who set up the account was stupid. Even if the setup looks weird now, it might have been a good idea when they did it.
You see, what's considered good practice changes over time. When I started, we used to change our bids a few times a day to keep our ads in the second position. That's not how we do things anymore.
A few years ago, everyone was using something called Alpha/Beta campaigns and SKAGs. Now those are considered old-fashioned.
So, if the account setup isn't because of stupidity, what could be the reason? I can think of two things:
Business needs
Trying to make the account work better
Let's talk about business needs first. Sometimes the account setup reflects something the business needs or a rule they have to follow.
For example, I've seen a client with separate campaigns for each of their 8 offices. The campaigns all had the same keywords, landing pages, and ads. The only difference was where the ads were shown - within 50 miles of each office.
This was because the business wanted to spend the ad money for each office only on leads for that office. Having separate campaigns made this possible.
Another client had separate campaigns for each vacation spot they advertised, even though they were trying to reach the same type of customer. They did this because they don't advertise all the spots all the time. They wanted to be able to turn ads on and off easily for each spot.
The other reason for a complicated account setup is to try to make it work better.
At its core, making Google Ads work well means getting three decisions right as often as possible:
Should we show an ad to this person now?
What should the ad say to get the person to click?
How much should we offer to pay for a click?
How we do this has changed over time. In the past, we used different techniques like Alpha/Beta campaigns and SKAGs. Today, we might use broad match keywords, track offline sales, and let Google decide how much to bid. Tomorrow, we'll probably do something else.
But if you understand what the old setup was trying to do, and find out if that's still important, you'll feel more confident about fixing the account.