Inside Google Ads podcast: Episode 33 - Keyword strategy

I'm never one to shy away from some good old Google Ads controversy, and one that's guaranteed to rile folks up is SKAGs, the single keyword ad group strategy.

This is just one of many Google Ads keyword strategies floating around out there, and because you asked about it, we're going to dive into it. 

I'm your host, Jyll Saskin Gales. I spent six years working for big brands at Google, and now I work for you. 

This is Inside Google Ads, Episode 33, Keyword Strategies. 

Our first question comes from Daniel Pradeep on LinkedIn, and they ask, do you think the SKAG strategy still works, or is it outdated? 

Both. I think it still works and I think it's outdated. 

Now let's back up a step. What is SKAG? Single keyword ad groups are when you only have one keyword in every ad group. So your campaign might have 20 ad groups and in each ad group you have one keyword and one ad. This lets you really customize the ad, and potentially the landing page, for every single keyword. 

Now, you could see how before expanded Match Types, Smart Bidding, Data Driven Attribution and all the machine learning we use, a SKAG structure was arguably needed in order to show the right ad to the right person at the right time. 

But now, I don't think it's worth the time and effort. It's always been a time-consuming strategy, and because of the way even Exact Match works nowadays, you're never going to get things as perfectly matching as you'd like. You're going to have to add thousands of negative keywords and the constant duplication becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy of inferior results. 

For example, having 10 keywords in an ad group together with one Responsive Search Ad (RSA) means that the headlines and descriptions in that RSA get a lot more impressions and a lot more opportunity to learn. Whereas, if you have 10 different ad groups with 10 different RSAs, most of which have identical assets except for a few keyword combinations, every single headline and description individually will get far fewer impressions, which means less opportunity to learn and less opportunity to optimize. 

SKAGs are like the anti-machine learning. So while you could spend hours and hours of your life trying to bring Google Ads back to where it used to be, I don't think it's worth it, and I think it's the wrong place to spend your precious time and effort.

The world has moved on. Google Ads has moved on. And I'd rather see you spend those hours testing new features, testing new audiences, and testing new creative. 

My mantra is to work with automation rather than against it. 

Now, in the short term, your results may not be as strong as someone who's using SKAG, but in the medium and long term, your campaigns, your account and your business will be in a much better place when you accept that the platform has changed and it will continue to change, and therefore you must change your approach with it. 

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If you want to learn more, sign up to be notified as each study goes live. The link is in the episode description. And if you want to test Optmyzr for yourself, just like I have, they offer a free full functionality trial. The link is in the episode description as well. 

Our next question comes from Vinay Chhabria on LinkedIn. And they ask, would you recommend going only with Exact Match keywords then? Say 600 to 700 keywords in Exact Match to cover most of the queries. Wouldn't that be the most cost-effective and ensure the highest relevance and get the highest conversion rate? 

I find myself recommending Exact Match more often than Phrase or Broad Match in my coaching calls these days. I'm not saying only Exact Match keywords is the right option for everyone, but that's just a trend I've been noticing in what I'm recommending. 

That being said, I would not recommend a keyword strategy of 600 to 700 Exact Match keywords. If you really need that many keywords, if your account or your business are large enough to be spending thousands of dollars a day, since that's the budget you would need for that many keywords, you should probably be using Broad Match with Smart Bidding or Dynamic Search Ads with Smart Bidding, not Exact Match. 

Exact Match is not necessarily the most cost-effective. CPCs are often higher for Exact Match. Now, the conversion rate is also often higher, so net net, your CPA may be best for your Exact Match versus your Phrase or Broad Match keywords. 

But as a strategy, if you have, let's say, five to 50 keywords in your account, sure, Exact Match may be the way to go. If you have hundreds or thousands of keywords and you're putting them all in Exact Match, in my opinion, you're doing it wrong. Not because it won't work, but similar to my answer about SKAGs, it's just not the best use of your time and all the optimization that's going to be required to get that to work the way you're intending it to work.

And it's not the best use of Google's capabilities. Work with the automation, not against it, to drive sustainable results. 

Was your Google Ads account working really well a few years ago, but performance has dropped and you just can't seem to get it back?

As you can tell from the theme of this episode, the world has changed. You can hire me to audit your Google Ads account and make data-backed recommendations about ways to improve performance. I'll give you a scorecard on how your account is set up and performing, plus a list of specific things you can test in your account to get better results now. 

To get your Google Ads account audited by me, a Google Ads coach and ex-Googler, simply follow the link in the episode description. 

Our final question today comes from an Anonymous User on TikTok, and they ask, what if we want to see what keywords our competitors are bidding on?

This is an interesting one. So I'll say right now, you cannot know for sure what keywords your competitors are bidding on. I know third-party tools outside of the Google Ads platform may promise you this, but you can't. 

Why? 

First of all, that information is proprietary to their account. 

Second, because of how matching works and how things like Dynamic Search Ads or Performance Max work, your competitor could be advertising on queries even if they don't specifically match to any keywords in their account. 

I see this a lot more now. Companies who are doing competitor conquesting or advertising on very generic searches unintentionally because they don't check their search terms and they don't know how Google Ads works today. 

That being said, here are a few things you can do to spy on your competitors. 

First, you can use the Ad Preview and Diagnosis tool. This will just give you a snapshot of an idea of what kind of keywords they may be advertising on. 

Second, you can always go really old school, open an incognito window, search some keywords and see if you see some ads. Remember, again, this won't be a comprehensive view. It's just a snapshot. 

Third, you can go to the Ads Transparency Center, which is like the Google Ads Library, and look at all of your competitors' text ads. This can give you an idea of the types of searches that matter to them, based on the kind of language you see in their ads. 

And then fourth, if you want to actually do something about it, the strategy I recommend is something I came up with called Indirect Competitor Targeting. This is a way that you can target your competitors on Google Search indirectly.

The way you do it is you open up Google Ads Keyword Planner and you type in their website and you get keyword ideas from their website, not yours. Keyword Planner will then show you what queries are associated with their website. It doesn't mean they're advertising on them, but it does mean that these are the kinds of searches they'll show up for organically. Now, you can advertise on these queries and they're likely going to be relevant to your business, too, since this is a competitor. You can now show ads above their organic results, or show ads alongside theirs, if they are in fact advertising on these searches. That's called Indirect Competitor Targeting. 

Now, when you're putting a keyword strategy together in 2024, you can do whatever you'd like. There's really no right or wrong way to do Google Ads, which is one of the many things I love about our industry. But my recommendation would be to focus on forward-looking strategies that are going to get the machine learning might of Google working for your business, rather than against your business. 

Think of your account like a sailboat and automation is the wind. Do you want to try to sail straight into the wind fighting against it? Or do you want the wind at your back filling up your sails and pushing your boat forwards? I know what kind of smooth sailing I prefer. 

Today's Insider Challenge is this. You have a new client and you take over management of a Google Ads account that is using a SKAG strategy, single keyword ad groups, thousands of them, thousands of ad groups, thousands of keywords, thousands of ads. Your client came to you not because the account wasn't performing well, but because they didn't like the agency. They said they had poor communication. The strategy is working. Do you keep the existing SKAG structure or do you gather the data and build a new, modern structure? What's your reasoning? 

You can participate by sending me your response to this challenge or any episode’s challenge. The beauty of the Insider Challenge is there's no right or wrong answer, just an opportunity to stretch your brain on real-life Google Ads problem solving.

Shoot me an email at thegooglepro@jyll.ca, that's J-Y-L-L dot C-A, or send me a voice note in my Instagram DMs. I'm @the_google_pro on Instagram. 

Last episode's challenge was this. Your client has been a search-only advertiser for years, and they want to start testing audience-based advertising for the first time. What kind of audience targeting will you use in a Demand Gen campaign? 

Obviously, this is a very open-ended challenge, so your answer won't be the same as mine. I've been thinking a lot about launching ads for my Inside Google Ads course because, I mean, I make a living teaching Google Ads, so why not practice what I preach? 

If I were testing this out, I would create a Custom Segment of people looking for a “Google Ads Course” or “AdWords Course”, but I would not include words about things like “Google Ads Certification” or “Learn Google Ads” or “Google Ads Tutorial” because those searchers are generally looking for a free option. I might also test people who have the Google Ads, Meta Ads, or TikTok Ads apps on their phone as another kind of Custom Segment to see who I might reach. 

Another option could be the In-Market for SEO & SEM Services. That's probably the closest existing Google audience to what I offer, but I think most people looking for services aren't looking for a course to learn it themselves. I might test it out though.

And then, of course, a Lookalike segment based on my customer list, if it's big enough. And if not, based on people who visited my Learn With Jyll website. 

What do you think? Would you consider the same things or something different? 

Shoot me an email at thegooglepro@jyll.ca, that's J-Y-L-L dot C-A, or send me a voice note in my Instagram DMs. I'm @the_google_pro on Instagram. 

I'm Jyll Saskin Gales and I'll see you next time Inside Google Ads.

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